Show a pedigree to a person who has been in the business for 20 years or more and chances are they see more than horses.
Such is the case with Love Samba (pictured as a yearling), fastest qualifier to the upcoming G1 Rainbow Futurity at Ruidoso Downs. Her pedigree calls forth not only principal breeders, but also a small area in south central Texas that has produced some powerful figures in the world of Quarter Horse and Thoroughbred racing.
Sired by Corona Cartel, Love Samba is out of The Creole Queen, by First Down Dash, and was purchased by Jim Pitt, Burkburnett, TX, for $160,000 at last year’s Ruidoso Select Quarter Horse Yearling Sale.
Love Samba’s breeder is Julianna Hawn-Holt, whose Cross Triangle Ranch in Blanco, TX, is home to the great champion and champion producer, Corona Chick (dam of Corona Cartel), as well as to 2007 All American Futurity winner Heartswideopen, who Hawn-Holt purchased for her broodmare band this past January.
The Creole Queen, whose only other money earner from three foals of racing age is My Valentine Man with $31,000, was herself unraced. But she is a daughter of First Down Dash, the all-time leading sire of AQHA money earners, and half-sister to two-time champion Dashin Is Easy, earner of $775,123.
Queenies Dash, dam of The Creole Queen and Dashin Is Easy, was bred by Marvin Selig and Allen Moehrig, of Seguin, TX. Moehrig is the breeder of Special Effort, Quarter racing’s only Triple Crown winner and sire of the earners of $18 million. It was Selig and another Seguin resident, Emmett Donegan, who put up the money for Moehrig to breed Go Effortlessly to Raise Your Glass TB, the union that produced Special Effort. At the same time, Selig, Moehrig and Donavan formed the SMD Syndicate around a group of broodmares that included Go Effortlessly.
It was Moehrig who bought out his partners’ interest in a Dash For Cash colt out of the Go Man Go daughter, Mary Go Go. The colt, Man In The Money, is the sire of Queenies Dash, who is out of Jetta O Toole, another SMD Syndicate-owned mare.
In an up-coming post, I will revisit the SMD and Moehrig legacies, including ties to cutting, and a terrific story about Ott Adams, Emmett Donegan, and the last foal of Joe Moore.