Bill Freeman on Smart Little Lena

Great stallions never die, but live on through their progeny. So it is with Smart Little Lena, who suffered a debilitating stroke this morning and was humanely put to rest by Dr. John McCarroll.

“It is one thing to recognize a horse for all his great accomplishments, but it’s another thing to be fortunate enough to really have known him,” said longtime Manion Ranch employee Robin Levison, who was with Smart Little Lena at the end and who found it hard speak.

Levison said that the 31-year-old legendary cutting horse champion and sire had been in good condition until the stroke.

Check back here for an upcoming tribute to Smart Little Lena.

At least they haven’t always in the the cutting world. Until recently.

The Mercuria NCHA World Series of Cutting, with its substantial purse money, and the Mercuria NCHA World Finals, held during the NCHA Futurity Festival in Fort Worth, have put the spotlight on geldings like never before.

Boony Playboy on the block at $100,000

There are also restricted incentive programs for young geldings – EE Ranches’ popular Futurity program, which has paid out $280,000 in three years, comes to mind. Many limited age events also include gelding divisions, and last week, the NCHA executive committee passed a resolution to incorporate open and non-pro gelding 4-year-old classes within the NCHA Summer Spectacular. These classes have been part of the NCHA Super Stakes slate since 1994, when 1993 NCHA Futurity champion Bobs Smokin Joe won the open division.

Even in the hallowed hall of NCHA Futurity open champions, geldings have held their ground, despite the fact that among NCHA Futurity entrants, colts have historically outnumbered geldings by a wide margin. The total of 48 NCHA Futurity open champions includes 20 stallions, 20 mares and eight geldings.

The first Futurity champion was the gelding Money’s Glo, shown by Buster Welch in 1962. Welch also rode the unregistered gelding Rey Jay’s Pete to win the event in 1966.

The next gelding to capture the Futurity title was The Gemnist, with Kathy Daughn in 1985. It was the beginning of a 12-year span that saw five geldings win the event: The Gemnist in 1985; Smart Little Senor in 1988; July Jazz in 1989; Bobs Smokin Joe in 1993; and Playboy McCrae in 1996.

It would be another 10 years before a gelding captured the win – Oh Cay Felix, who scored an unprecedented double victory in 2006, with Craig Thompson in the open and Patrick Collins in the amateur division.

Meanwhile, the top four all-time leading NCHA money earners listed in the 2009 NCHA Yearbook are geldings: Poco Quixote Rio, $1,091,734; Red White And Boon, $882,498; Sister CD, $729,177; and Dual Rey Me, $708,061. Dual Rey Me is the leading active money earner, with $812,406 as this is written.

Finally, it isn’t often that geldings are among the high-selling lots at a cutting horse auction. But Boony Playboy, a 7-year-old gelding sired by Peptoboonsmal, was the second-highest seller at $100,000 during the NCHA Summer Spectacular Sale on July 31, 2010.

Geldings? They’ve got my respect.

Mr San Peppy at 25 - photo by Sally Harrison

Mr San Peppy, was foaled in 1968, one year after his full brother, Peppy San, won the 1967 NCHA World Championship under Matlock Rose. Sired by Leo San and out of Peppy Belle, by Pep Up, both stallions were bred by G.B. Howell of Dallas, Texas. Peppy San was purchased by Douglas Lake Cattle Company of Canada, at Howell’s 1963 show horse dispersal. Mr San Peppy ended up with King Ranch, who purchased him in 1976 from S.J. Agnew and Buster Welch.

“When we bought Mr San Peppy, we thought our mares were of good enough quality…but we felt we needed a better stallion than the mares, in order to improve their offspring,” Tio Kleberg, vice president of King Ranch at the time of Mr San Peppy’s purchase, told me in a 1987 interview.

Welch had shown Mr San Peppy to win the 1972 NCHA Derby (Agnew was second on Little Boy Rey) and in 1974 as the NCHA World Champion. Mr San Peppy would claim the NCHA World title again in 1976 for new owner King Ranch – the year before his son, Peppy San Badger, won the NCHA Futurity.

Mr San Peppy was the first horse to earn over $100,000 in open cutting competition and at six, the youngest horse ever inducted into the NCHA Hall of Fame. He ranks #8 on cutting’s list of the all-time leading paternal grandsires, where Peppy San Badger ranks #3 and Peppy San is #11. All three stallions are also included among cutting’s top 20 all-time maternal grandsires.

Mr San Peppy was 25 years old when I photographed him at Lazy E Ranch in Guthrie, OK; he died in 1998.

Streakin Six at 6 - photo by Sally Harrison

Foaled in 1977, from the first crop of Easy Six (Easy Six died in 1978 at six), Streakin Six was bred by the Tom L. Burnett Cattle Co. of Fort Worth, Texas and owned by B.F. Phillips, Jr. and his wife, Anne, heiress of Burnett Cattle Company and the Four Sixes Ranch.

At the time Streakin Six was foaled, world champion runner Dash For Cash, bred by B.F. Phillips and standing at Phillips Ranch, was just beginning to establish himself as a leading race sire. From 19 starts, Streakin Six counted the 1979 Rainbow Futurity among his 10 wins, and the All American Futurity among his five runner-up finishes.

As a sire, standing at Phillips Ranch and, following the death of B.F. Phillips, at the Four Sixes Ranch, Streakin Six quickly rose to the leading ranks. Although he died in 2005, he is still #6 among AQHA sires of stakes winners, as well as money-earners (his offspring earned $17,348,666), and #3 among broodmare sires.

Born and raised on a ranch in Huntsville, TX, Ashley moved to Dallas in the 1950s, where he met rancher and cutting horse trainer George Glascock. Ashley trained roping horses and had gone to watch the horse show at the 1956  State Fair in Dallas, where Glascock, the first NCHA world champion, supplied the cattle.

“I heard a bunch of boys there say they were going to rob Mr. Glascock and take his money,” Ashley told me in a 1991 interview. “I told them to hit the fence and when Mr. Glascock heard about it, he said he wanted me to come to Dallas the next year and start working for him, and that’s what I did.”

Ashley also worked for NCHA at Will Rogers Coliseum, during the NCHA Triple Crown events in Fort Worth.

“Mr. George (Glascock) was a great horseman, cowman and all-around man,” said Ashley. “In my opinion, he was the best.

“Next to him was Mr. Buster Welch. That man has more going for him with a horse than any human being I’ve ever seen. He’ll do things different than anyone you’ll ever see. He never stops his cow in the herd. He just drives it out.

“One time he showed a horse called Rey Jay’s Pete. I called him a saddle horse, a Tennessee Walker, but (I know that wasn’t right [Rey Jay's Pete was out of a Thoroughbred mare]. In the back of my mind, I said, can a saddle horse do this kind of stuff? But he did it and he won the Futurity.

“I call (Buster Welch) my champion. He’s a man I really admire and I love to watch him. In my estimation, he is in a class by himself.”

Ashley’s all-time favorite horse was Sugar Vaquero, the 1973 NCHA world champion under Bobby Sikes.

“That horse could make mistakes and cover them so quick, you couldn’t penalize him,” Ashley recalled. “If you’ve ever seen the monkey [Whiplash] that rides the border collie dog, that’s what Bobby looked like when he was riding Sugar Vaquero. He was a big stout horse, but so quick. I used to love to watch him.”

Funeral services for Beamon Ashley will be held on Monday, August 30 at 11 a.m.,  St. Paul Baptist Church, 1600 Pear Street, Dallas, TX. For phone numbers and map: http://prosites-spbc.homestead.com/.

Grant Setnicka

The West Texas Futurity concluded this weekend in Amarillo, where Little Nitro Sally, ridden by Grant Setnicka for GS Cutting Horses, won $13,500 and the Open championship with 220 points. Dustin Adams won the Non-Pro division and $7,000 with 225 points aboard Justa Little Jimmy.

Little Nitro Sally is sired by Nitro Dual Doc, a Peptoboonsmal son who sold to Black Rock Ranch for $335,000, at the 2004 Hillis Akins Dispersal Sale. Black Rock Ranch is the breeder of Little Nitro Sally, out of Smart Little Sally, a daughter of Walton Ranch’s great producer, Boon San Sally.

Justa Little Jimmy, by Smart Little Lena. is out of Justa Swinging Jane, 2000 NCHA Derby Non-Pro champion with Kelle Earnheart.

For complete West Texas Futurity results with pedigrees, click here.

R.L. Chartier with his wife, Mica, and Special Nu Kitty.

R.L. Chartier and Beau Galyean dominated Open Classic and Derby competition in the $150,000-added West Texas Futurity on August 14, in Amarillo.

Chartier won the Open Classic with 227 points on Special Nu Kitty, the Wrigley Ranches-owned High Brow Cat daughter that he showed four weeks ago as reserve champion of the NCHA Classic Challenge.

He also tied Beau Galyean and High Dollar Cat, as co-champion of the Open Derby with 221 points on Smart Moria Kitty, owned by Ralph Gray, and placed with the third-highest score of 218.5 on his own horse, Shorta Bossy, by CD Lights.

Shorta Bossy and Chartier claimed reserve to Galyean and High Dollar Cat in the Open Derby Gelding division, as well, and in the Classic, Chartier placed fifth on A Little Bossy, a gelded son of CD Lights, owned by Wrigley Ranches.

Special Nu Kitty’s $11,000 win increased her NCHA earnings to $239,000; Chartier’s success makes him the show’s #1 money earner thus far, with a total of $36,450.

High Dollar Cat more than doubled his career earnings to $22,552 and collected his first limited age event checks with his Derby co-championship and Gelding championship. Galyean shows the High Brow Cat son for Alvin and Becky Fults, who also own Tassa Cat, third-placed under Galyean in the Open Classic and champion of the Open classic Gelding division.

In addition to High Dollar Cat, Galyean also rode Bentley Boon, owned by the Fults, to place 10th in the Derby and third in the Open Derby Gelding division. So far during the show, Galyean, who won the 2008 NCHA Futurity on the Fults’ stallion Metallic Cat, has earned $24,350.

The West Texas Futurity continues through Sunday, August 22.

Frank "Scoop" Vessels III

The racing world was saddened by news of the death of Frank “Scoop” Vessels III this week.

Vessels, 58, a former president of the American Quarter Horse Association and owner of Vessels Stalion Farm in Bonsall, CA, was killed when his small plane crashed near Burns, OR, on Wednesday, August 11. Also killed was Sam Cannell, 73, a friend and partner with Vessels in the race champion Little Bit Of Baja and the plane’s only passenger.

Vessels’ grandfather, Frank Sr., founded Los Alamitos Race Course in Southern California. His late parents, Frank Jr. and Milly Vessels, established a legendary breeding program at Vessels Stallion Farm with the imported Thoroughbred stallion *Beduino (MEX) and Quarter running champion and leading sire First Down Dash.

Vessels is survived by wife, Bonnie, and sons Bryan, Colt, and Kash; a memorial service will be held at 4:00 p.m. on Monday, August 16 at Vessels Stallion Farm.

Waggoner dispersal by court order
Western Bloodstock announced this week the complete dispersal of Waggoner Ranches, by court order, on Saturday, October 30 at DLR Stallion Station in Weatherford, TX.

The dispersal of 220 horses, with the exception of the stallions High Brow Cat and Smart Aristocrat, comes as a result of the divorce proceedings of Jack and Susan Waggoner. All horses, including 60 horses ages three and up, as well as 33 two-year-olds, sell absolute with no reserves.

Waggoner Ranches is the home of High Brow Cat, cutting’s all-time leading sire with offspring earnings of more than $40.9 million. Waggoner Ranches is also the #1 all-time leading breeder of earners of $9 million, and #4 all-time leading owner of earners of $3.8 million.

The sale on October 30 will be preceded on Friday, October 29, by the demonstration of horses at DLR Ranch.

Check back here for details as they become available and visit www.westernbloodstock.com.

Buffalo Ranch Dispersal Sale
Buffalo Ranch is holding a dispersal of breeding and training stock at their Fort Worth facility on Thursday, October 14. The offering includes 1994 Horse of the Year Hicapoo, dam of two $100,000-plus NCHA performers, as well as  Justaswinging Peanut, dam of 2001 NCHA Horse of the Year Justa Smart Peanut, the earner of over $350,000.

Buffalo Ranch, which is changing its focus to stallion management and promotion rather than breeding,  is also home to 2004 NCHA Horse of the Year Laredo Blue.

“This is a calculated and big decision for me,” said Buffalo Ranch owner, Shane Plummer. “But … I am going to be able to focus all of my time and energy on my customer’s foals rather then my own. I will … not be worried about promoting my broodmare band. It is a bright new day for Buffalo Ranch Stallion Station.”

“He was okay at ten on Thursday night and on Friday morning (August 6), we found him peacefully lying in his stall dead,” said David Hartman, DVM, who had leased CD Olena from Bobby Pidgeon last year to stand at Hartman’s Equine Reproduction Center in Whitesboro, Texas.

“He seemed in good health and was still very fertile. It was a horribly sad day here. I had become very fond of the horse and was looking forward to many more years with him.”

Dr. Fairfield Bain of Equine Sports Medicine and Surgery in Weatherford, Texas performed the autopsy and determined the cause of death as an aortic aneurysm.

Although an accomplished horseman, Bobby Pidgeon was relatively new to the sport of cutting in 1998, when he purchased CD Olena’s dam, CD Chica San Badger, from Sheila Welch, who had shown the Peppy San Badger daughter to win the 1987 Augusta Non-Pro Futurity and as a finalist in other major events.

Pidgeon showed CD Chica San Badger to place third in the 1989 Bonanza Non-Pro Classic, the same event where he qualified his newly acquired colt Dual Pep for the non-pro finals and where Pat Earnheart showed the Peppy San Badger son to win the open division.

By the time he was retired in 1991, Dual Pep had racked up an impressive record of 38 major finals; five open championships; three non-pro championships; and over $300,000 in earnings.

That same year, CD Chica San Badger, now retired with earnings of more than $200,000, delivered her first foal, CD Olena, a sorrel colt by Doc O’Lena, and Bobby Pidgeon established Bar H Ranche in Weatherford, Texas. Bar H would soon take it’s place as cutting’s foremost breeding and training center through the progeny of Dual Pep and CD Olena, and the efforts of brothers Winston and Paul Hansma.

“Neither of us could have imagined the success we’ve had, when we came down from Canada,” said Winston, a native Canadian who was 37 in 1991 (Paul was 31).

CD Olena’s talents didn’t take long to surface, when Winston Hansma started him on cattle.

“He was an amazing two-year-old,” said Hansma. “I don’t think I’ve ever had one that did as much in the fall of his two-year-old year and really enjoyed his job. I knew at that point that he was pretty special.”

CD Olena won the 1994 NCHA Futurity with 225 points – six and a half points more than reserve champion Hickorys Candy Man – and the NCHA Derby with 225 points. He also won the semi-finals of the NCHA Super Stakes with 225 points and placed fifth in the finals, where two cows paired up in a cut and valuable working time ticked off the clock.

“CD was always a kind of ‘bright lights’ horse,” said Hansma of the 1995 NCHA Horse of the Year. “He seemed to know when he should step it up to another level and he always picked that time during the finals in Fort Worth.

“After he won the Futurity, it was like he knew he was a champion. He knew from that day on that he was above all the rest of the horses and he’d come out of his stall looking to take on the world.

“He was always a gentleman – never mean – just full of himself. Proud of himself.”

CD Olena’s value as a sire was apparent with his first two crops (foals of 1996 and 1997), which included Cappuccino And Pasta, CD Date, Classical CD, Playin CDs and Sweet Little CD, all $100,000-plus earners.

Pale Face Jose, a 1999 foal and earner of over $200,000, was the first of a long line of performers to highlight the brilliance of CD Olena crossed on Dual Pep daughters. Soon it became apparent that CD Olena’s daughters were also outstanding producers. Quintan Blue, $609,140; High Brow CD, $541,345; Pet Squirrel, $389,160; Bob Dualin, $217,981; Mocha Cappuccino, $205,002 head a long list of accomplished performers out of CD Olena daughters.

CD Olena sons are also proving themselves as sires, most notably CD Lights, 2006 NCHA World Champion Stallion and recent leading freshman sire, bred and owned by Winston Hansma and Danny Motes, and CD Royal, bred and owned by Russ and Janet Westfall.

CD Olena is also the sire of cutting’s #2 active money earner, Sister CD with $804,533.

CD Olena was buried on a grassy knoll in front of the Bar H Ranche arena where he and so many of his sons and daughters were started on cattle.

“Nothing lasts forever,” said Hansma. “It’s sad that the whole (Bar H Ranche) program is done now. But with CD Olena gone and Dual Pep not breeding anymore, that’s kind of the end of the story. Bobby always said that his commitment to Bar H was as long as Dual Pep was breeding. And it all came to an end at the same time.”

But the end of one chapter leads to the beginning of another. Paul Hansma has leased Bar H Ranche to operate as his training facility; CD Lights is proving to be a leading performance sire for Winston Hansma; Dr. Hartman has an ample supply of CD Olena’s frozen semen; and all the owners of CD Olena daughters will now hold them even more dear.

Nurse Gray, Lot 1 at $220,000

Official results for the 2010 NCHA Summer Spectacular Sale, held Saturday, July 31 in Fort Worth, saw a 25% increase in average price per lot over the 2009 Summer Spectacular Sale. A total of 99 lots (85%) averaged $13,600, compared to 190 lots for an average of $10,225 one year ago.

Nurse Gray, dam of four NCHA money earners and out of a half-sister to leading sire Dual Rey, was the high selling lot at $220,000. The Grays Starlight daughter, consigned by Sunrise Ranch and purchased by Hill Ranches of Glen Rose, TX, sold with a colt at side by Metallic Cat, as well as with two embryos, one by High Brow CD and the other by Metallic Cat.

Fourteen Sunrise Ranch consignments, including Nurse Gray, sold for an average of $33,214.

Boony Playboy, by Peptoboonsmal, was the second-highest seller at $100,000. The 7-year-old gelding, earner of $93,000, was consigned by Nicole Aldridge, Florence, Alabama, and purchased by Larry White of Fort Worth. TX.

“It has been quite a while since we sold a $100,000 gelding”, said Western Bloodstock’s Jim Ware. “We had several really nice riders and based on the bidding, there were plenty of buyers there to get them.”

Sunrise Ranch consigned the two highest selling yearlings, both colts out of Nurse Gray – Cats Starbright, by High Brow Cat, for $50,000 to Adolfo Guiterrez of Hockley, Texas; and Starlight Smoothie, by Smooth As A Cat, for $40,000 to Marlin Jones of Center, Texas.

The Summer Spectacular Sale showed a marked average increase (49%) over the 2010 NCHA Super Stakes Sale, where 58% of the 264 consignments sold for an average of $7,000.

“I believe the results from the Super Stakes Sale were (not) reflective of the true horse market but were due to various factors Western Bloodstock could not control”, said Ware. “But when you put things in perspective, that sale still had a higher average than any other performance quarter horse sale in the country. This latest sale is just what we all needed to move into Futurity season with positive attitudes and anticipation.” 

2010 Summer Spectacular Sale at a glance: 
Gross Sales: 117 head averaged $15,535
RNA’s: 18 head averaged $26,089
Net Sales: 99 head averaged $13,600
Withdrawn: 8 headTop 10 sold averaged $54,000
Top 20 sold averaged $36,375
Top 50 sold averaged $20,860

The NCHA Futurity Sales are tentatively scheduled for December 7 – 12. See www.westernbloodstock.com for up-to-date information, as well as complete 2010 Summer Spectacular Sale results.

Paul and Julie Hansma

Paul Hansma, 50, cutting’s #4 all-time leading open rider, has leased Bar H Ranche in Weatherford, Texas, where he will operate his own public training facility.

“I’m going to keep the name, but Bobby Pidgeon is not going to be involved with Bar H Ranche anymore,” said Hansma, who went to work for Pidgeon in 1991, when the Germantown, Tennessee beverage distributor established Bar H Ranche to promote and develop the offspring his stallion Dual Pep, then six.

That same year, Bar H Ranche broodmare CD Chica San Badger produced CD Olena, who would win the NCHA Futurity and Derby and be named 1995 NCHA Horse of the Year under Winston Hansma, Paul’s brother.

Bar H Ranche quickly became a major force in the cutting industry through the offspring of Dual Pep and CD Olena, as well as the efforts of the Hansmas, who trained and rode for Bar H Ranche and Bar H Ranche clients. For nearly two decades BAR H Ranche ranked annually among cutting’s top breeders and owners, and in 2010 it remains the #2 all-time leading breeder and #6 leading owner.

Winston operated Bar H Ranche from 1991 through 2003, when he left to establish his own facility and Paul took his place. Pidgeon, 76, a member of the NCHA Non-Pro Hall of Fame, bowed out of competition in 2005. In 2009, he leased CD Olena to Hartman Equine Reproductive Center in Whitesboro, Texas. Dual Pep, at 25, is no longer breeding.

“It was bound to happen some day, when the studs were done,” said Hansma of the end of the Bar H Ranche-Pidgeon era. “That’s what kept the whole place afloat – breeding, training, showing and selling.

“I don’t have to worry about the breeding part anymore. Hopefully I can make it work financially. I have a good customer base that’s been with us for a long time, but I have to keep quite a few horses in training to make it work. That’s my only concern.”

Horses trained by Paul Hansma, earner of  over $4.5 million, include Sister CD, with $804,533, the #2 all-time cutting horse money earner, and Hicapoo, $447,855, a mare bred by Paul and his wife, Julie, a non-pro competitor who shows the progeny of Hicapoo’s dam, Super Poo.