Most mornings you can find Francis Melancon Junior (80), also known as ‘June’ inside barn ‘Q’ at the Evangeline Downs Training Center in Carencro.
Melancon has been around horses all his life and now he’s the oldest licensed African American horse trainer in the country.
He says, “It touches my heart because if you go back to my background, I don’t have that much blood to me (thoroughbred). I’m just like a race horse, a cheap ‘claimer’. You know how they have some good horses well I’m just a cheap claimer, but I made it there. I made it.”
After a career of more than 60 years, Melancon still remembers the name of the first horse he trained named Sassy Bee. “To me they’re my kids I lay in bed at night and think about every last one of them.”
Melancon’s health limits how much he can train, but that doesn’t stop him from waking up at dawn every day to be with his prized ponies. “I wouldn’t do anything else, if I had to do it all over again I’d do the same thing. I love it. I want to be here I want to walk down the shed row and they’ll holler at me. They look at me I look at them in the eyes I talk to them. I’m sure they say boy he must be crazy talking to me but I talk to them.” Melancon said with a laugh, “But if one of them answers then I’m in trouble!”