Gonamakeyoureyesblue has a strong claim to the title of blue blood. The Mr Jess Perry-sired colt, which topped the recent Ruidoso Select Quarter Horse Yearling Sale for $460,000, is a grandson of Little Blue Sheep, an indestructible campaigner and two-times AQHA champion mare.
Known for her quick acceleration from the gate, Little Blue Sheep won eight stakes races in California, including the 1976 Vessels Maturity (now Grade 1), where she was able to stretch her speed to 440 yards and win against males, for trainer D. Wayne Lukas (pictured in 1975 with Spencer Childers, left, and Little Blue Sheep’s rider Terry Lipham). While Lukas is well known for his Thoroughbred record, with 18 Breeders’ Cup championship victories, 35 years ago, he was Quarter racing’s leading trainer.
“She was my first good one for Bob French,” said Lukas of Little Blue Sheep in 2006. “She was one of the best looking mares I’ve ever had.”
Little Blue Sheep claimed her first stakes win in the West Texas Derby. In a career that spanned four years, she started 78 times and won 25 races, including 14 stakes victories, with 16 seconds and 16 thirds. Foaled in 1972, the gritty sorrel mare was a St Bar daughter out of the equally gritty Miss Olene, a stakes winner with 11 wins from 33 career starts. St Bar, also bred by L.R. “Bob” French, was a Three Bars (TB) son out of Bella St Mary, a daughter of Spotted Bull (TB).
Gonamakeyoureyesblue’s “blue genes” really get interesting with Spotted Bull. Sired by Bull Dog out of Spotted Beauty, by Man O’War, Spotted Bull had been the Thoroughbred sprint champion of 1949. He was purchased by a syndicate of Arizona Quarter Horse breeders in the early 1950s and later owned by Art Pollard, the breeder of Lightning Bar. Although he sired just 49 Quarter Horse foals, Spotted Bull’s mark is indelibly stamped on the breed.
Another look at Gonamakeyoureyesblue’s pedigree finds Spotted Bull on the top side of his pedigree, as well as the bottom. His paternal grandsire, Streakin La Jolla, has two links to Spotted Bull: through his paternal grandsire Easy Six (whose dam’s sire was Hijo the Bull TB by Spotted Bull), and through his dam, Bottoms Up, who is out of a St Bar daughter.
Who knows for certain how and where generations combine to produce winners? Gonamakeyoureyesblue’s dam, The Louisiana Girl, by Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew’s son Louisiana Slew (TB), has produced four stakes winners, and her sire, Mr Jess Perry, is a leading sire of the earners of $20 million.
Spotted Bull also sired a Thoroughbred daughter whose bloodlines flow swiftly through today’s Quarter Horses. She was Hijo Beauty, who produced Go Effortlessly, the dam of Special Effort, the only horse in history to win Quarter racing’s Triple Crown and one of the sport’s all-time leading sires.