World champion Heart Attack’s Fast Beat passed away on November 7, 2017. The 22-year-old gelding was owned and loved by Danielle Ricker of Greeneville, Tennessee.

By Heart Attack and out of a Pusher mare, Heart Attack’s Fast Beat was foaled on February 27, 1995 to James Noe Jr. of Campbellsville, Kentucky. He began his training under the direction of Baucom Stables, winning his first blue at the 1997 Land O’ Sky Summer Festival as a two-year-old for owner Joe Stasney.

In 1999, the partnership of McLaughlin and Perry acquired Heart Attack’s Fast Beat. He would be campaigned primarily in the fine harness division with Alicia Perry at the whip. In their first year together, the duo captured six wins including the 1999 Ladies Fine Harness World Championship.

Sidney and Butch Thomas purchased the newly crowned world champion in 2000, to be shown by Beth Thomas in the youth division for the next three and a half years. With continued show ring success, he caught the eye of the Hensley family in the fall of 2005 and was campaigned by Hunter Hensley, remaining in the youth division.

It was in 2007 when the sorrel gelding found his forever owner, Danielle Ricker, and carried her to her first blue ribbon at the 2007 ETWHA Fall Show. For the next eight years, the pair would capture many wins across the East Tennessee, North Carolina and Middle Tennessee show circuits. In 2011 and 2014, Heart Attack’s Fast Beat and Ricker rode to reserve world championship titles in the Owner-Amateur Riders on Classic Horses class at The Celebration. Following a successful show ring career, he was retired in the fall of 2015.

Heart Attack’s Fast Beat was an incredible ambassador for the breed and will by sadly missed by all who knew and loved him.