One of my flea market treasures, a catalog for a Quarter Horse sale held in Dallas during the 1948 State Fair of Texas, turned up the other day while I was researching a post about roaning and mentioned the influential early-day cutting sire Royal King.

The 1948 catalog, with photos and handwritten notes on buyers and prices (and names of some pre-AQHA horses not found in today’s pedigrees), consists of 40 lots offered by Earl Albin, the owner of Royal King. Seventeen of the lots were sired by Royal King, who was five at the time, and eight more were mares that were in foal to him.

Prices on the 32 lots that sold ranged from $50 to $930 and averaged $175. But the high-selling horse, was not sired by or in foal to Royal King. It was Black Texas (pictured), a 4-year-old son of My Texas Dandy and out of Duchess H by King. Black Texas, bred by King’s owner, Jess Hankins, was purchased by Bob Burton, head trainer for Waggoner Ranch’s 3D Stock Farm in Arlington, TX, the home of Poco Bueno. Click here for the catalog page.

During his lifetime, Black Texas sired only 62 foals and nine performers, but one of them was Texas Kitty, the dam of Royal Texas, by Royal King. Royal Texas, in turn, sired Texas Dottie, who when bred to Royal King produced Royal Tincie, the dam of all-time leading cutting producer Royal Blue Boon.

Black Texas injects a third dose of King into the pedigree of Royal Tincie, through his dam, Duchess H, while his sire, My Texas Dandy, adds another interesting twist as the sire of Texas Dandy, the maternal grandsire of Doc Bar.

Famous in the 1930s and 1940s as the sire of straightaway runners, My Texas Dandy was by the imported French thoroughbred *Porte Drapeau, who also sired My Texas Dandy’s second dam.

After he left Waggoner Ranch to train for the public, Bob Burton would show many champions, including the Royal King daughter Miss Nancy Bailey, one of the first horses to be inducted into the National Cutting Horse Hall of Fame.