SIBLINGS FIND BETTER WAY TO HOLD THEIR HORSES

MARBLE HILL -- A fool shuts the barn door after the horses are already out. But Pamela Alford found a new way to leave the doors open and still keep the horses inside.

Now she and her brother have applied for a patent and are manufacturing the design.

After searching for a gate to hang on her new horse barn, Alford finally asked her brother Richard Jackson to design one for her.

"I was looking for a gate so that I could use the existing doors, but the only thing available was a cattle gate," Alford said, adding that some people use ropes, chains or boards instead of a cattle gate on their barns.

"We made this gate because I wanted anything but a cattle gate," she said.

Because horses are animals of flight, they are easily injured when they get scared or stuck -- usually in fences or in cattle gates. So Alford didn't want to use a cattle gate. But no horse gate existed on the market.

"It probably started with ranchers who had cattle and worked their horses with the cattle, so a cattle gate made sense," Jackson said, adding that cattle gates no longer are the logical choice with the current popularity of horses.

Alford and her brother, a horse trainer, designed the Breezy Gate specifically for horse barns.

"It doesn't matter if you have one or a 100 horses, or if you ride Western or English, it doesn't matter. If you have horses, then you need this gate," Alford said, adding that it is the safest gate available for horses of all breeds.

After discovering that nothing similar to their Breezy Gate existed, the siblings applied for a U.S. patent. The last time a similar patent was issued was in 1917.

"That was one of the things that surprised us," said Robert Alford, Pamela's husband. "We couldn't believe it wasn't already on the market."

Patents are valid only for 17 years unless they are renewed. But it takes about two years to receive the patent. Once the paperwork is filed with the U.S. Patent Office, the Breezy Gate can be marketed in both the United States and Europe, Alford said.

The Breezy Gate, made of steel pipe, has a narrow grid section which keeps horse hooves and heads from getting stuck while a wide section allows humans to pass through without needing always to open the gate.

"It's horse-proof," Jackson said. "It's been tested. We tried to cover every angle."

Charger, a 2-year-old Tennessee walking horse owned by the Alfords, was one of the first horses to test the gate.

He stuck his head through the wide section and tried to lift it off the hinges. So Jackson went back to the drawing board and came up with a sturdier design.

The final product was designed in about a month at Jackson's barn. It is manufactured by Southeast Fabricating Inc. in Cape Girardeau.

"I wanted an easy, breezy gate," Pamela Alford said, which explains how the gate was named. The design allows air to circulate in the barn, which makes the animals more comfortable.

The first buyer was a local horse owner who recently lost a palomino colt that broke its neck after getting its head stuck in a cattle gate, Jackson said, adding that the owner now has three Breezy Gates.

That local interest sparked a national advertising campaign. The first advertisements appeared in Equis, The Quarter Horse Journal and Horse Illustrated magazines last month.

Since then, Alford and Jackson have received inquiries from Rhode Island, Texas, Colorado and Georgia.

Most people want to know more about it but one woman bought two right away, she said.

The gate, which costs $138 for a 10-foot area, can be customized to fit any barn door or entryway. About 30 gates have been sold already.

The Alfords own five horses -- Appaloosa, Tennessee walking and American quarter horse breeds -- at their ranch in Marble Hill. Pamela works as a computer consultant and Robert is a pilot with Prestige Air Service.

Jackson regularly trains about two or three horses at his Willow Creek Ranch, also in Marble Hill.

For more information, about the gate, contact the Flying A Ranch at 1-800-411-0857.