Joe Maley, a Valley Mills rancher and recently retired Texas Farm Bureau official, is a political animal.

This campaign season, so is his horse.

Jubilee, a 10-year-old American quarter horse, co-stars in a soon-to-air TV spot for Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples, whom Maley has known for decades.

Joe Maley and his horse, Jubilee, at his Valley Mills ranch.
Rod Aydelotte/Waco Tribune-Herald

The ad starts with Staples riding Jubilee down a hill but includes shots of Staples and Jubilee at a gas station and outside a grocery store, a reminder that the commissioner’s role extends beyond working with Texas farmers and ranchers.

The state Department of Agriculture also is responsible for ensuring the accuracy of gas pumps and administering the state’s school lunch program and GO TEXAN, which promotes state products.

The laugh line of the commercial is when Staples plugs Go Texan in a grocery store parking lot, saying it ensures “no Texan is dependent on food from foreign sources.”

Then as Jubilee pokes his nose into the grocery bag, Staples adds, “Not even the four-legged ones.”

The ad is set to air next week “in strategic swing-voter media markets,” according to a campaign official.

It doesn’t mention Staples’ Democratic challenger Hank Gilbert, a Whitehouse small businessman.

The ad is a departure from an earlier phase of the commissioner race, which has been marked by fierce personal attacks. Instead, the horse, cowboy hat, boots and music that could be straight out of a Western movie re-enforce Staples’ rural roots.

He runs a cow-calf ranch with his father.

Finding a Steed

During his career at the Farm Bureau, Maley’s responsibilities included government relations work and coordinating the activities of its political arm. He met Staples when the politician was a student in an agricultural education program.

Staples would go on to win a spot on the Palestine City Council and served in the State House and Senate before successfully running for Agriculture Commissioner in 2006.

At 68, Maley is retired but still does political consulting, including work for Staples’ campaign.

He said he recently was approached by campaign aides, “and they asked me, ‘What do you think about Todd using a horse in his ad?’ ”

“I said, in ‘Texas . . . for Ag Commissioner? Yeah, that’d be great.’ ”

Maley told the campaign aides Jubilee was available, thinking they wouldn’t take him up on the offer.

“Well, it wasn’t just a day or two when they said, ‘Hey, are you serious about the horse?’ ”

Veteran GOP consultant Bryan Eppstein, who is working for the Staples’ campaign, said they looked at a few other horses but Jubilee was the obvious choice.

The stocky-legged sorrel is a dead ringer for the horse on the late ’50s-early ’60s TV show “Tales of Wells Fargo,” which Maley said Jubilee is named after.

Eppstein said Maley was paid a standard wrangler’s fee for the ad, though he wouldn’t disclose the cost.

On the set

Political advertising with a live animal comes with a set of special challenges.

Maley and his daughter-in-law, Kris, weren’t certain Jubilee would cooperate.

Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples rides Jubilee in his re-election campaign ad.
Jonathan Rice photo

“You see where Jubilee lives,” he said, while at his ranch. “There’s not many cars, not much traffic and there’s no TV cameras, so country-boy was going to town, and maybe he wouldn’t do what I thought he’d do.”

Kris Maley said they brought along a mare named Thumper that has experience in parades “as a companion but as a backup, too.”

There were some nerve-wracking moments on the set for Joe Maley, who did a dry run on Jubilee before Staples got on the horse.

“The most challenging part I thought would be to get Jubilee to eat out of that grocery sack,” Joe Maley said. “He had to walk up there, Todd had to say his lines, and Jubilee had to drop his nose in that bag at least six or eight times before the director would say, ‘OK, we got it.’ ”

What Maley said made him more nervous was a scene where Jubilee had to walk between a family having a picnic on one side and a large reflecting shield next to his head.

“All it takes is a shadow to spook” horses, he said.

But the wind held off and Jubilee kept his composure throughout a long day of shooting on four North Texas locations.

Maley said he thought the ad came out well and deemed his horse’s acting debut a smash success.

“Jubilee did just fine,” he said.

mshapiro@wacotrib.com

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