Latest / StallioneSearch Podcasts / Ep.82-Jolene Urschel - Ruidoso Racehorse Hall of Fame Member/Co-Owner Of Triple Crown Winner Special Effort

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Ep.82-Jolene Urschel - Ruidoso Racehorse Hall of Fame Member/Co-Owner Of Triple Crown Winner Special Effort · StallioneSearch Podcasts

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_05: Hey, here's another gem of a podcast that's coming your way here on Quarter Horse Racing Talk Weekly, the number one quarter horse racing podcast in the world.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_16: And this is for Thursday, October 8th, 2026.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_16: It's Quarter Horse Racing Talk Weekly.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_16: And here's your host, Greg Thompson of Stallioneseearch.com.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_07: And hello again, everyone.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_07: I'm Greg Thompson, stallionesearch.com, here for another episode of Quarter Horse Racing Talk Weekly.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_07: It's the number one quarter horse racing podcast in the country.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_07: And I'm delighted to bring you another episode I'm really proud of.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_07: As if anybody's been paying attention to the podcasts that I've put out in the past, there's several topics that I just love to talk about, of course, as Casey Shadow is one of them, the movie, but I also love the story surrounding Special Effort and his win of the 1981 All-American Faturity.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_07: And I've brought multiple people on board here on this podcast that make up that story.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_07: But this week's guest is somebody that had a front row seat to everything that was happening during that 1981 run.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_07: But she also was there during the 1979 win of the All-American Faturity with Pie in the Sky.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_07: And I'm assuming you guessed who it is.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_07: This week's guest is none other than Riadosa Racehorse Hall of Fame member Jolene Urschel.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_07: And she's here to talk to me about everything that surrounded those three big, huge years up there on the mountain, starting in 79 and 80, as well as the All-American and Triple Crown win in 81.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_07: But she also talks and brings about the reason that her husband Dan and her devoted so much time to the sport of quarter horse racing and how it centered around their love for family during that heyday of their run there at Riadoso during those magical years.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_07: And I think it she really brings a great perspective to the story of Special Effort from the vantage point of the person that was paying the bills and also the person that was cashing the bigger checks once the horse was rolling down the racetrack and winning all those big races.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_07: Also, we got a great preview section, which I'm going to use up front this week, here on this episode, where Yancy Guiman and I talk about the Robert Boniface Invitational Championship, the grade one event there at Los Alamitas that contains four horses that are already in the field for this year's Champion of Champions field, but also has a cavalcade of other runners that I could easily be talking about next week when we talk about recapping that big race as these horses go towards the Champion of Champions in December there at Los Alamitas.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_07: And we also talk about this weekend's Dasher Cash Faturity and Derby, as well as the New Mexico State Fair Futurity as well as the Derby here in the preview section.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_07: And without further ado, let me get out of the way, get to the commercial so we can get right into the preview section before we get in to our featured guest Jolie Nershall on this episode of Court Horse Racing Talk Weekly.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_17: Did you know that four of 10 All-American Futurity qualifiers this year were Riadoso Select Yearling graduates?
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_17: And did you know that 15 of the 30 qualifiers into the Grade 1 Rainbow Futurity, Derby, and Oaks were also Riadoso sales graduates?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_17: Yearlings times Riadoso Sale equals success.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_17: It's that simple when you think about it.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_17: Serious buyers wanting success in this game of quarter horse racing invest at the Riadoso Sales.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_17: Introducing the overwhelmingly talented stallion roster of Lazy E Ranch.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_17: A roster that includes Grade 1 Super Derby winner Big Lou, the legendary sire Corona Cartel, the number one second crop sire in the country, Cyber Monday, and one of the all-time leaders in quarter horse racing, first down Dash.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_17: The grade one winning, grade one producing sire, Kiss My Hawks, and his son and grade one winner himself, Kempton.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_17: Another top leading sire in PYC Pinch Wagon, champion aged stallion Unrelentless, and multiple grade one sire of three champions and five millionaires, Valiant Hero.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_17: And introducing for the 2027 breeding season the Grade 1 winning, the Fiscal Cliff.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_17: All these sires standing at Lazy Range in Guthrie, Oklahoma.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_15: Alright, back to the show.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_13: Impressum, a paragon of enduring excellence, as he joins the Pantheon of Yule, Champion of Champions winners.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_07: All right, we're back and ready to jump in the preview section and got Yancey Guiman on the phone with me.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_07: Yancey, we got a lot of futurities to cover and two derbies to cover, but let's get into the older horse division out there.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_07: The grade one Robert Boniface Invitational Championship.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_07: It's a win and you're in race there for the champion of champions.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_07: And we have multiple horses that are already in the field and with several races left in order for horses to complete the field as we go towards that big race in December at Los Alamitas.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, Greg, this is a great time of year because these type of races, they kind of carry so much more pull because the owners and trainers that haven't qualified yet to the champion of champions, they they're running out of spots.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_06: But like you said, there's already three horses that have already qualified for the big race that are already in it, but we have to s impress him in this race.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, he's the class act of our industry.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_06: He was first in the Debbie shop this year.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_06: And from previous talks that you've had with the owners this year, this could very well be his last year.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_06: But he definitely is the class of the field.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_06: The other horses are gonna have to run their best race to beat him.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_06: I think he's just continues to prove how good he is.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_07: This has been kind of part of the plan every time I've talked to Steve Holt, that uh it's clearly their their goal is to get him back into the champion of champions.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_07: And we was unsure of where he was going to run, but he did give an indication that there would be a race in between the champion of champions and the Debbie Schaff, which was way back in the end of May.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_07: That's the only thing that concerns me.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_07: Obviously, he's getting some age on him.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_07: Uh I'm sure I'm not even going to question that the two-time champion of whether he's going to be fit and ready to go, because that I'm sure that answer is yes, but he's got a stout field here that also includes multiple grade one winners.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_07: Let's go all the way up to the top on the rail there.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_07: Mask mandate, the go man go handicap winner, the grade one event.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_07: Last time out, this horse ran lights out, now comes back in the bona face, looking for a potential entry into the champion of champions.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_06: Another one that I want to talk about is Norko.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, this horse hasn't run much this year.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_06: He's he's only had a prep allowance race, but last year this horse was a grade one winner.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_06: He won the super derby last year, and then he ran fourth in the champion of champions last year.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_06: So he's gonna be really fresh, and I assume this is kind of his prep to hopefully get him qualified and tried to take a stab at the champion of champions again.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_07: When I had Scott Willoughby on the phone, what Scott mentioned Norco was sitting on a big race and that his hope that we're gonna see big things for the rest of the 2026 campaign for him.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_07: Another horse to look at is up for everything.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_07: Now, this is a grade one Spencer Childers winner last time out.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_07: Jockey Urban Laura was board the horse during that race, but now hops off of this horse and gets on to mask mandate.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_07: Who he won, the go man go handicap last time out.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_07: Justine Kleiber picks up the mount.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_07: Another horse out of the Willoughby barn.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_07: Uh, it's he's certainly live.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_07: There's no other way to say it.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_07: This horse running a huge race kind of like he did in the Spencer Childers, certainly could be there.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I agree with you, Greg.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_06: And Justine Claver's been on fire out there this year.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_06: She just won the Pacific Coast Faturity a couple weeks ago.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_06: Uh and another really good horse in this race.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_06: He's and obviously he always runs his best races at Los Alminos is the nine Letho Cowboy 1-2-3.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_06: He ran second in the Goldman Go last time out.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_06: Kind of he was the fate dead favorite in that race in Mass Mandate, I think, I believe was like 18-1 and just ran a huge race.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_06: But you can't count this horse out at Los Alminos.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_06: I think the worst he's run there is fourth, and that was in the super derby.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_06: Before that, he was first in the vessels maturity.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_06: So he's another one that's definitely a top runner in this race.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_07: And already in the field for the Champion of Champions as well, with that win in the vessels maturity.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_07: And since we're on that same page, favorite Jess Hawk is also another horse that's in the field for the Champion of Champions with his win in the Brad McKenzie winner championship.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_07: However, this horse has been off since March the 8th earlier in this year and hasn't run since then.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_07: I think this horse has to run a huge race against this field to find the winner circle for sure.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, Greg, and I'll mention one more since we're talking about horses, they have to run a huge race.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_06: But I do think if you're gonna bet a long shot, I do think the horse on the outside, Mayor Humdinger, if he continues to improve, I think this horse can be a player.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_06: This horse was first in the Sergeant Pepper feature last time out.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_06: Uh before that, he ran second in the Governor's Cup Derby.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_06: I just like how this horse has improved over this year, but he is gonna have to make another jump forward to be a player in this race, but I think he'll be a good horse to throw in for third or second.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_07: You know, Yancy, I don't know if it's because we pay so much attention to it in the preview section and we go over these races, and maybe I'm much more highly aware of the older horse division uh going towards the champion of champions this year over just about any year that I've been doing this as a reporter.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_07: But uh the way this field is possibly stacking up there in December at Los Alamitas is extremely interesting.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_07: We've already talked about the possibility of two three-year-old Phillies who were both in the field, beautiful as well as GFC sinful.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_07: Both of those Phillies being in there, they might be two of the top horses in the country as of right now.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_07: It's just a wide open affair.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_07: I think that by the time we get to December there at Los Alamitos, we might have ten horses in the gate that we could make arguments for crossing the wire in front.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I mean the Champion of Champions is always my favorite race, but the last time that I can remember a really dominant Philly like this, a three-year-old Philly specifically, is 2007 when Blues Girl 2 won it.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_06: I can't really remember a three-year-old Philly that's this good other than her, and this year we have two of them.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_06: As you said, they are gonna be in the field if everything goes right.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_06: So I'm super excited to see how it plays out for the rest of the year.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_07: I'm sure the old timers would throw in Dash's dream in that argument, but clearly that's before your and my time, Yancy.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_07: But the the ironic thing is, is we're talking about two three-year-old Phillies.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_07: I bet no one can argue with us when we say that we really haven't seen two dominant three-year-old Phillies going towards this year-ending race.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_07: And that'll switch us on out over to Texas for the Dasher Cast Faturity, a grade two event.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_07: A lot of nice horses going post-word here at Lone Star Park.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, Greg, it is, but uh, I think the the horse to beat in the race is the nine.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_06: Kiss me in a flash.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, this is your fastest qualifier.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_06: She's a perfect three for three going into the race.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, she was a winner of the Oklahoma Fraturity.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_06: And going into the trials, she had been off for six months.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_06: She hadn't run since the finals of the Oklahoma Fraturity, and she didn't seem to affect her at all.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_06: She looked pretty impressive on trial day.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_07: And as bizarre as that is, you can see and it's maybe it's because of all the time this horse has had off.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_07: The horse is not the morning line favorite.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_07: The the morning line odds maker made JT Midlife Crisis the nine to five morning line favorite, who this horse is coming off of a three-race win streak, including a win two races back in the grade three speed horse fraturity.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_07: And this horse hasn't done a whole lot wrong in six races this year.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_07: He's hit the wire in front in five of the six races.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_07: So look to see this horse making a huge run here in the Dash for Cash Faturity.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, that's another one that I think is a really top runner.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_06: Um he kind of started slow, like allowances and stuff, but his last three races, like said, he already won a fraternity and he made a good effort in the trials as well.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_06: And then I think one more that we have to mention is the is the one horse um natural flying cowboy.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_06: This is a flying cowboy one, two, three baby, and this horse runs second in the grade grade one TQHA Cell fraternity.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_06: And then he also qualified to the Texas Breeders Fraternity, and he also looked really good on trial day.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_06: So I think that's another horse that will be up there trying to get a piece of it.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_07: That'll move us over to the grade two Dasher Cash Derby for the three-year-olds going there.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_07: $168,000 on the line.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_07: They are going the classic distance of 440 yards.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_07: Really nice runner here that's potentially being looked at for a stud career down the road is Royalist, the two-horse, who was a winner in the last three races that this horse horse went post-ford, including two races back, winner of the Rotama Park Derby, and was also a second place finisher in the grade three Sam Houston Derby earlier in the year.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_06: One he's gonna have to outrun, I think, is the four-horse uh Karma Chaching.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_06: This horse will be ridden by Nestor Duran.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_06: And this horse, she was a winner of the Sam Houston Oaks.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_06: Then she also ran second in the Asiers Cup derby.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_06: So this horse has been super tough all year and has Nestor Duran into irons, and he's her super hot rider right now.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_07: And that'll send us over to Albuquerque for the New Mexico State Fair Quarter Horse Futurity, a$500,000 restricted grade one event for the New Mexico bred horses.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_07: Lot of really nice horses in this field.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, there is, Greg.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_06: I think two of the big standouts both come from the Omar Vargas barn.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_06: Uh I'll start with number four, Baby Daddy Cartel.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_06: He will be ridden by Noah Garcia.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_06: Um, this was a winner of the Mountaintop Fraternity.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_06: Uh he runs second in the Zia fraternity, and then he was also a winner earlier at Sunland in the New Mexico Spring Fling.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_06: So this horse has been pretty dominant in the New Mexico Breads all year, and I think he'll be really tough to beat.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_07: Another horse to look at in the field there also comes from the barn of Omar Vargas as Big Ted.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_07: This horse has really done just about nothing wrong this year, Yancey.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_07: Seven starts, five wins, one second and one third.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_07: Literally hasn't been off the board, is coming into this race on a three-race win streak, uh, won the Zia Juvenile Stakes is his biggest accomplishment this year, of course.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_07: Second in the New Mexico Breads Faturity, as well as in the spring furity, was a third place finisher.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_07: This horse looks prime and ready to go.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_07: I could certainly sit here and make a lot of points to show that this horse is definitely one of those horses you gotta really pay attention to in this field.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_07: And with that being said, let's move over to the three-year-olds and the New Mexico State Fair quarter horse derby, a restricted grade two event for$250,000.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_07: Yancey, tell us who you like.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_06: Rudy Viez has a four-horse entry in this, going into this race.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_06: Um, I think any of them could win it, but I put down two of his um that I think are gonna be super tough in here.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, number two, King Estate.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_06: This one will be ridden by Christian Cardanas, and this is your Zia Derby winner.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_06: And this horse has had five starts, three wins.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_06: And the one thing I put down is that he he ran third in his all-American Derby trial, which third's the worst this horse has ever run.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_06: But the horse that runs second in that trial is effortless favorite.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_06: And so I really think this horse, he didn't start much as a two-year-old.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_06: He only had two starts as a two-year-old.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_06: And then this year, he's really come into his own.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_06: He's like I said, he's won the z he won the Zia Derby, and then I think that's pretty big running third in his All-American trial, considering who was right in front of him, eventual winner of the All-American Derby effortless favorite.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_06: So I think number two, King Estate, will be super tough.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_07: And that'll do it for the preview section here.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_07: Plenty of nice races to look at this weekend.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_07: Go on to Q Racing Video and log in and watch these races, and we'll be right back after these words and jump in right with our featured guest.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's been recorded and measured.
• 16:37
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• 16:43
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• 16:47
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• 16:50
  SPEAKER_07: News coming from Wayne, Oklahoma at Royal Vista Ranch as Multiple Grade One Sire.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_07: One Fabulous Eagle is back to his Oklahoma home, where he began his stallion career at Royal Vista Ranch.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_07: Now a multiple grade one winner with over$10.6 million in progeny earnings.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_07: One Fabulous Eagle brings all that speed, all that class, and his grade one resume back to Oklahoma Breeders for the 2027 season.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_07: And you can stop on by Royal Vista Ranch for the Stallion Showcase Week from November the 2nd through November the 7th in Wayne, Oklahoma.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_07: As they also stand for 2027, the multiple graded stakes finalist A Political J-Streak, the legendary industry leader A Political Jess, the Grade 1 producing FTD going grand, the multiple stakes producing sire Heart of the Cartel, and the Grade 1 winner Jess Dulce.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_07: All this talent in one spot there at Royal Vista Ranch in Wayne, Oklahoma.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_15: Alright, back to the show.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_07: Alright, ready to jump in with our featured guest Jolene Urshell.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_07: And I met Jolene and Dan Urshell probably greater than 15 years ago when I first came into the quarter horse racing industry.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_07: And at the time I was doing some recording of some of the legends on video, which I still have to this day.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_07: But I do remember just how passionate this subject about talking about not only Leo Wood, but also about Mighty Deck 3 and Pie in the Sky, and of course, special effort was to Dan.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_07: And Jolene's just right there with him, talking with such great emotion and passion about a sport they both loved dearly, and they poured their heart and soul as well as their checkbook into, which of course yielded some great success in the sport, legendary success.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_07: And it's great for Jolene to be able to get on the podcast and share with us her recollection of a lot of those events that happened back in their magical three-year run up there at Ridos.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_07: So without further ado, let's get Jolene on the line here to talk about her story in Quarter Horse Racing.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_07: Jolene, thanks so much for joining us here on Quarter Horse Racing Talk Weekly podcast.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_09: Thanks, Greg.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_09: Glad to be here with you.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_07: Jolene, we've had plenty of people on to talk about one of my favorite topics.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_07: I got two topics I kind of hover around.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_07: Casey Shadow is one of those, the movie Casey Shadow, and of course the Triple Crown Run, a special effort.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_07: I've interviewed quite a bit of people, and it was probably well over a decade or so I had put you and Dan in front of a uh in front of the the camera, and we had gone over a little bit of the Triple Crown run, but I certainly absolutely love that you're on the the podcast to kind of get a lot of the perspective of person that was there and and going through it on a firsthand basis of what it was like to have that three-year run of where uh you guys did extremely well up there on the mountain.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_09: Yes.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_09: Well, uh it it all started, of course, living on a ranch and loving horses.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_09: Re heal, who was very involved in the AQHA, lived on down the river from us, and he had his own marriage and so forth, and he had a sale in here at the rodeo grounds in Canadian.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_09: And Dan saw this beautiful film, and of course, just having three children and not you know, not uh having that many years behind us.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_09: We did not have the money to fire, so Dan caught his mother in the mind.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_09: Her name was Annie June, and that kind of got us started in the racing business.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_07: Prior to that, was your horse background with Dan or yourself?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_09: Dan's grandfather raced for bread in Kentucky, and going through his grandfather, his parents, Dan and I, our children, and also Lottie herself that makes six generations of us, but living on a ranch and having thirty thousand acres and spending a lot of time on horseback.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_09: Uh Dan loved horses and and so he rode a horse, was on a horse from the time he was very young.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_07: Jolene, that time when you went to go buy that horse at the sale, as you were mentioning, what year?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_07: What give me the time frame when as a we were when we once we start getting into when you guys really get serious about racing?
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_09: Well, it m it it must have been in the early 70s because um we had flying rocket.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_09: Dan and I had a share in Rocket Bar and Mary had the mayor, and so that's how we got Flying Rocket, and that was in nineteen seventy three.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_07: So for people that are listening, you're you're when you're mentioned Mary, you're talking about Dan's mother Mary.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_07: Yes.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_07: So as it pertains to when you you guys really started getting super serious into racing, what was the urge or what was the desire?
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_07: Was it Dan's love for the sport, or is in it, was it a learned love?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_07: Because it clearly you mentioned that it wasn't originally that you guys came from racing.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_07: Where did this love for racing come from?
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_09: Dan loved horses, and Dan's mother w was even even riding horses before he was born.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_09: So he actually was on a horse before he was born.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_09: Like I said, um the family um came down here.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_09: They had a ranch in Florence, Kansas, and some farmland in Council Grove.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_09: And and then his grandfather came to Texas then and bought 30,000 acres from three ranchers.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_09: And with with that many acres, um we were on horseback a lot.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_09: So he's just always he just always had a wonderful love for horses, and he had a wonderful eye for it.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_09: He he knew a a lot of how they should be built to be a great racehorse.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_07: When you guys really started going to the horse sales and really wanting to start investing in horses, kind of give the origins of when did that actually get started and what was one of the first purchases where we're we're buying a serious contender, or at least what we thought would be a serious contender.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_09: Well, Dan and I began to get our own mares and and his parents were getting mares, you know, and so our race horse industry increased.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_09: And um, before we got pie in the sky, we bought a filly called Easy Dimple, and that was when the racetrack, um, you know, they had that dip right where the thoroughbreds came around.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_07: Yes, they call it the hump.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_07: Right.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_09: Well, she was over on that side of the racetrack, and when she hit that, she broke her leg.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_09: And they wanted to put her down, and I said no.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_09: And so they fixed her leg and we later used her as a brood mare.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_09: Well, when that happened, well, Dan told Leah Woods, said, Okay, find us a runner.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_09: And so we got in the airplane, we looked at several and ended up in California buying Pie in the Sky.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_09: And uh that's where we start with him.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_07: And at that point, Pie in the Sky had uh been a third place finisher in the kindergarten and then went into the become a third place finisher in the Dash or Cash Futurity.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_07: Did you buy him prior to the Dash or Cash?
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_07: Because I I believe that it was either in between or was it after the Dasher Cash?
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, it was kind of in between there.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_09: Um and then what we did is then we moved him to Rodosa then and Leo trained him.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_07: I do know that Dan and Leo Wood had a very close relationship as friends, as almost like family-wise.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_07: Talk about talk about the connection between uh Leo and and Dan.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_09: Uh well uh Leo had trained earlier for us before Pie in the Sky.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_09: And and in fact, yes, the Wood family is like family to us.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_09: In fact, Leo's boys were little small boys.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_09: In fact, I have a really cute picture of um Blaine um when we won the All-American with Pie in the Sky.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_09: I have some really cute pictures, and and of course, uh our youngest son, Ken, was not very old either.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_09: And so Leo was training for us at that time, and he also trained Mighty Deck 3.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_07: So we moved uh Pie in the Sky up to the mountain in '79.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_07: Uh-huh.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_07: Of course, this horse being a a third-place finisher in the can in the kindergarten fraturity, and of and this would also bend towards the kind of the oil industry was really going at that time.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_07: So it was a strong market, as I was told.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_07: Uh this horse probably cost quite a bit a pretty penny.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_07: They didn't give him away, but uh, I'm assuming that you and Dan had all eyes on the all-American of trying to get this horse qualified and to run into that big grade one race.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_09: You know, um, I have to give God the credit for all of our success.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_09: We were getting ready to go to the all-American uh fraturity that day, and Dan said, Well, you know, Dan was not, he was a man of few words, and he said, Well, you know, they always go around with the TV and and they always ask you if you think you're gonna win, and and he said, I don't know what to say.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_09: And I said, Well, let's just pray about it.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_09: So we now prayed about it before we left and asked God to give us the victory.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_09: And so when they came around and they were asking all of us, you know, that had horses in the All-American, they said, Well, do you think you'll win today?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_09: And Dan's response was, if it's God's will, we will.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_09: Uh he went on around then, and later when after we won and he came back, the same man said, Hmm, it's been God's will.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_09: And you know, we got so many letters and and people that called us and said, you know what, we just figured if God could do it for y'all, they could do it for he they could do it for us.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_09: So, you know, we we had a chance to really be able to witness for the Lord by doing that.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_07: Julene, talking about that All-American Labor Day weekend there in 1979, you guys hadn't had success as a that point up on the mountain to that level.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_07: Uh, and as you mentioned, he wasn't picked to win.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_07: Uh Danny Cardoz is on the outside part of the racetrack.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_07: Give me your recollection of watching that horse go down the racetrack and and and of course give me the joy and the the the complete excitement you must have felt when watching your horse cross the finish line.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_09: Well, you know, back then the racetrack was uh didn't have the turf club on it and everything.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_09: And so actually, everything, you know, was at the end.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_09: We had a box seat downstairs, so you really were almost down on the track with the horses.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_09: And you know, you you were right there, um, right there at the end of the the grandstands.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_09: And you know, back then it was it was a b such a beautiful day, and and the the children were all playing and and it was such a different atmosphere than what we have now.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_09: But you know, here we are, just like everybody else, hoping and praying that you could win it.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_09: So we we were surprised, but yet we were very happy and very pleased and very grateful to have been given that victory, because very few people, you know, win the All-American.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_09: It's uh it's uh one of the top races in quarter horse racing, and to win that is quite an honor.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_15: And we'll be right back after these words.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_17: A tremendously talented stallion roster of Roboshow Ranch.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_17: Grade one producing Apolitical Blood, Multiple Stakes Sire, and Grade One winning Gold Heart Eagle V, the sire of leading three-year-old beautiful, KV and Corona, a QHA champion sire tempting Dash, and the All-American Juvenile winning Visa, all standing in Broadbridge, Louisiana.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_17: He's one of the top three second-year sires in the country, and he's Eagles Fly Higher.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_17: With his top earner being Eagle on a June bug, the graded stakes winner with earnings of nearly$375,000 on the track.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_17: Eagles Fly Higher is a Grade 1 winner and two-time champion.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_17: And he stands at the Louisiana Center for Equine Reproduction in Opalousis, Louisiana.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_15: All right, back to the show.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_07: After winning the All-American Faturity, I have always been told by many people that uh that experience that excitement as well as the the achievement, it's not something that just like quenches a thirst.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_07: It's something that excites and makes you want to do it again and again and again.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_07: Uh that's where Mighty Deck 3, of course, enters the picture as well.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_07: Kind of give us the basis of the origin because he was a horse that you and Dan also purchased as well.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_09: Well, like on the All-American Day When We Won, you know, they they always interview you and everything, and they asked Dan, they said, Well, what are you going to do now?
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_09: And he said, Well, I'm going to go back home and finish putting the hay up for winter.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_09: And and like you said, it just when you have a victory like that, I mean, then Dan just kept continuing to look.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_09: And Mighty Deck Three had run over in Oklahoma.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_09: And um we were we were busy at other racetracks also.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_09: And uh he saw Mighty Deck Three and decided he wanted to, you know, try to buy him, and so we did, and uh took him then to Rio Dosa also.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_07: This is a horse up to that point before prior to going into the gate of his first major victory was the Rainbow Futurity, but prior to that, he was undefeated.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_07: He had won two Futurities in Eureka Downs in Kansas prior to making the trip up there.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_07: And in that year of 1980 was also a year that saw the not only the elimination trials, but also the time trials prior to going into the finals.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_07: With you having an undefeated horse going into the rainbow futurity, and clearly it's almost to the point, Jolene, you guys were really kind of putting your money where your mouth is, is that you're you're spending adequate amount of money to try to get these runners, but these guys are going and performing and uh kind of take us back to that 1980 with with Mighty Deck 3 going into the Rainbow Futurity.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_09: When you go to Radoza, it's a whole different world because of the mountains and the high altitude and also the rain and the wind.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_09: Uh that always seems to make play such a big part in racing in Rio Dozo all down through the years.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_09: And you know, like you said, he had been undefeated, and so all you can do is just continue to hope that you can continue to win the bigger fraturities.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_07: He wins the rainbow faturity.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_07: So now you have the rainbow winner and with eyes on going to the all-American Futurity, and he wins the elimination trial and he wins the time trial to get into the field of the 1980 All-American Futurity.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_07: Coming off of a win in the 1979 All-American Futurity, uh it did it start becoming old hat that this is this is something that seems like it's going to happen to us every year, or or is it something that you just can't believe how good how lucky we're getting with with these horses that we're choosing?
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_09: Well, we just always tried to do our best.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_09: Like I said, Dan loved horses.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_09: He loved going and looking for them, and and it's we we were just like everybody else, you know.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_09: We we just hoped for the best.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_09: And of course, Donnie and I had been riding him.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_09: Um, and Donnie had had surgery, brain surgery, and so Jerry Burgess wrote him.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_10: Easter jet moving around.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_10: There they go.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_10: Here comes uh Mighty Deck Three takes the early lead up along the inside, Rock A on the rail.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_10: High Easter jet moving strongly.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_10: Here comes Chick Paul Meadow and up along the outside rail.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_10: It's Mystic Eye, high Easter Jet on the inside, Mighty Deck Three, it's a trading finish, and I'll tell you when that's very close to win between high Easter Jet and uh Mighty Deck Three.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_10: High Easter Jet might have held on by a nose, but it's very, very close.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_10: It will be a photo finish for first, and it could be a photo.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_09: And in fact, it took them forever.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_09: I do not know how long it took.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_09: We sat there in suspense waiting to see if we'd won, or you know, because that was the first race he had ever lost.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_07: Right.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_07: If any I any of the listeners, if you go onto YouTube and go in and type in the 1980 All-American Fraturity and watch the replay of that and try to stop it near where you think the exact w spot where the wire is at.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_07: I've just watched it before I got on with you, Jolene.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_07: If you watch it again, you would almost assume that Mighty Deck 3 was the winner because it was just that close and literally a jump past the wire.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_07: Mighty deck three is past him.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_07: And so it's uh it's for you to have to sit out and wait for such a long decision to be made on the photo, I I I it seems agonizing.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_09: It was, and you know what?
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_09: A lot of people s really thought we had won, and they really thought like we should go to court with it.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_09: That's how that's how much that so many people came to us and said, You all really won at the wire.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_09: You have to accept it and go on, whatever their decision is.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_09: But look what happened the next year.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_07: Yes.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_07: Before we get into the the triple crown run of 1981, I want to talk and and ask you to kind of discuss what Riadoso was like back then.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_07: A lot of us spent plenty of time from, say, the last decade and and experienced what up until I guess they stopped running in Riadoso.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_07: Uh, you always had your box seat as well.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_07: Talk about like in the 79 and 80 and 81, during that era, take us back to that era and what it was like to go and and to participate in some of the the festivities and and compare it to how it was today versus kind of what it was like back in 1979, 80 and 81.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_09: There was a whole different sort of atmosphere back then.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_09: Um, you know, like I said, we s when we started out, they didn't have the turf club, and they didn't have all the stuff across the racetrack, and they didn't have the the walkway under the racetrack, and our children would, you know, we were in box seats downstairs, and we had so many friends around us, and like I know my children and Leo's children, they'd go down and they'd pick up the tickets that people had thrown off, and a lot of times, you know, the kids would make money from a ticket that it somebody had thrown away and forgot to cash in, or I guess didn't think they won.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_09: Our families were so intertwined, and that's one reason that Dan and I loved horse racing.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_09: It was something that we could do as a family.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_09: And in fact, I if it had not been family-oriented, I don't think we would have ever been in it because Dan and I both came from wonderful Christian families that did stuff together.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_09: And back in those days, you did take your children with you, you did do things as a family.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_09: Our children even had their own horses and their own babies at times later on, but yeah, we were downstairs and Rio Dozo was was so pretty there in the mountains.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_09: The uh sale was the big thing before Labor Day.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_09: But you know, we would be drug all over looking at all these horses, and so I decided that we'd start having lunch together.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_09: So a few of us started going and having dinner together, uh, that we've made friends with, and and that friendship grew to a lot of women, so that's the reason I started having the luncheon for several years then at my home.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_09: And we we had about 45 or 50 women each year.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_09: And so Leah became uh helped me.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_09: She came to my house and was my co-hostess, and we would serve them lunch and and let the women just be able to get together and and visit, which we were kind of scattered out later, especially after they did the turf club upstairs, and and the crowds grew to be a lot larger.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_09: But you know, when we won the All American and everything, the All American was only a million dollar race.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_09: And look at it today, it's now worth three million, and the purses have just grown so much.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_09: But that is one thing that I really miss, Greg.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_09: I miss going to Rio Dosa because I had so many dear friends, uh, people that sat all around us, and we still had a closeness that will never be found, I don't think, anywhere else at another racetrack.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_09: And it saddens me to see Ria Dosa not be able to fix the track and continue there.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_09: You know, even in in Los Alamitas, they tried to have a triple crown there, but never was really successful at it.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_09: So I really miss going to Riadoza.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_09: I we've had a home there since the early 70s, but after Dan died in 2014, then it just wasn't the same, you know, going without him.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_09: But you know, in September the 16th in 1978, which was right before we bought Pie in the Sky, when we had just come home and the kids had gone back to school, you know, it was September the 16th, and Greg and Dan had a head-on collision out here at the ranch.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_09: Uh they were busy building a feedlot and irrigated circles and so forth, because instead of gathering in cattle and shipping our calves when we weaned them, Dan had like around uh well, 20 irrigated circles, so we would keep our baby calves, you know, until they were older.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_09: But Dan died in September the 16th in 2014, which was 36 years to the day that our oldest son was killed in a head-on collision.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_09: But my children have been busy, you know, my son had six children and Dana had children, and and it got to where it was only, you know, Donnie and Judy and I really going to the races and stuff.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_09: And after I lost Donnie and Judy, you know, they had moved here to the ranch when they retired.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_07: And for those listeners listening in, she's referring to Donnie Knight, winner of the 1974 All-American Futurity aboard Easy Day, who worked for the Ursals for years after his writing career was over with.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_09: So a lot has changed.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_09: The attitude has changed, um, the people have changed.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_09: Of course, the people that grew up having all the good runners that I knew of, you know, or a lot of them are dead and gone.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_09: That's been a few a year or two ago, hasn't it?
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_15: It has.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_15: It has.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_15: And we'll be right back after these words.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_03: Stand by for an announcement.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_03: In three, two, one, go.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_17: The two-time AQHA racing champion and grade one stakes-winning sire Uncle D will return to Oklahoma for the 2027 breeding season while standing at Kavanaugh Horderhors' near Wayne, Oklahoma.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_17: And not only that, but Uncle D has also been named as one of the stallion in the Fuego Stallion program.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_17: He was the winner of the Grade One Rainbow Futurity, was named both AQHA Racing Champion two-year-old and champion two-year-old Colt, and retired with earnings of over$689,000 before signing a Grade One winner already in his study career.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_17: So that's the big news.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_05: Your plans to attend the AQHA Challenge Championships at the Downs at Albuquerque on October 17th, as well as to attend the AQHA Racing Conference, scheduled for October 14th through the 17th, in conjunction with AQHA Challenge Championship activities.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_05: Book now and see you there.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_15: All right, back to the show.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_07: Jillian, prior to special effort coming into the picture with you, you guys had almost pulled off two back-to-back All-American fraturities in a row, literally, as we've already discussed on this podcast, you missed it by inches there with Mighty Deck 3.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_07: There was this nice horse down in Texas, uh, Johnny Goodman was training in.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_07: The horse salesperson, Don Tyner, had run across that this horse was for sale.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_07: I'm assuming, did did you guys approach Don Tyner or did he approach you about this horse that was down in Texas that supposedly was as good as any horse that anybody had ever seen?
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_09: We were at Rozoza and Dan was watching the time trials and saw the horse and we called Don Tyner.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_09: He called Don Tiner and and uh told him to come by the house and he did, and he told Don, he said, see if you can buy this horse for me.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_09: And it was special effort.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_09: And Don goes, Okay, well I'll see what I can do.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_09: So he came back and he goes, Yeah, they want a million dollars.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_09: Now, a million dollars back in 1981 is a lot more money than a million dollars today.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_09: And I really always felt like that they just threw that number out there because they didn't think anybody, you know, would pay that much for a horse.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_09: Well, they didn't know Dan.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_09: And so when Don came back and said they want a million dollars, then Dan said, okay, I want him.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_09: And so we bought him.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_07: And for the listener, I threw that one million dollars in Chat GPT and it kicked back that the equivalent to that in 2026 is four million dollars.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_07: The uh I'm assuming that Dan was encouraged by the success you guys had uh had already been having with Mighty Deck 3 and obviously Pie in the Sky and going in and obviously special effort was about as impressive as any horse out there that's that's gone down the racetrack in in Riodoso.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_07: Kind of take us through the whole the the excitement around this horse.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_07: He goes off, goes into the Kansas Futurity and just runs a hole in the wind there and and wins really impressively right away.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_09: We went ahead and left him with Johnny.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_09: Um Johnny had done well training him, and of course, the day of the all-American, it was raining.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_09: He had never run in the rain.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_09: He of course had always won all of his races, so there was uh kind of like, okay, so how's he gonna do today?
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_09: Uh when we were running in the All-American.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_09: When he ran the Triple Crown races, uh, which was the Kansas when we won that with him, uh, the Kansas and the Rainbow, of course, he was always way far out.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_09: And it was always kind of neat to watch uh Billy riding, because Billy would be down riding and he would and get him going straight.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_09: You know how it is when everything's coming out of the gate and bumping and everybody's trying to get going.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_09: And then once he'd get going down the track, then Billy would be trying to stand up, trying to get him to kind of not run so fast, because he would run so fast, a lot of times there wouldn't be anybody else in the picture.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_09: Well, the all-American day, you know, it was raining, so it was a matter of, oh my goodness, you know, how's he gonna do in the rain?
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_09: You know, as we walked across the track, I mean, he did well, and it's all history.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_09: You know, going across the racetrack, they didn't have the tunnel then.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_09: The track was sloppy, and so one of one of the stewards was trying to help me go across, and I lost my shoe in the mud, and I had I had to go, whoa, whoa, stop.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_09: Had to get my shoe, we had to, you know, try to all get across the racetrack uh to the winning circle there.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_09: And I I don't know, it it was almost like a dream.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_09: Um no one had ever done it before.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_09: There had been what two, I believe, that had won the first two but didn't make the third go.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_09: So to be able to do that, I I don't know how can how can you express the joy, the Thanksgiving, the thank you, Lord, for this great victory that we had just accomplished.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_09: So it was the first time the all that you know the triple crown had ever been won.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_01: Special effort, the unofficial winner by two and a half lengths.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_01: Then over seven of us gopher box was second classy needed the number four horse.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_07: Jolene, another famous part of the story that you guys were involved in, uh Don Tyner not only sold the horse to you guys, but also came back and discussed syndicating this horse as a stallion, which uh David had got on the podcast with us as well.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_07: Or my boss David Smith was Don Tyner's uh associate at the time and talking about just how overwhelming the the response to the racing community of they couldn't write those checks fast enough to get involved in the syndication as well of this horse.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, that's right.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_09: Um yeah, Dan did something and he told Don, he said, I don't I will not syndicate the horse.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_09: He said, the only thing I will do is I will sell the right to breed two mares, guaranteed live soul, each year to the horse.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_09: And so that's how we did it.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_09: We did not syndicate him like all of the stallions had been syndicated before.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_09: We already had pie in the sky and had started building the stud farm here at the ranch, and back then the mares had to be where the studs were, that the semen was not shipped like it is today.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_09: It was back before that, and so we were busy building the stud farm and the mare barns.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_09: We had a 50-stall and a hundred-stall mare barn.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_09: Each mare had her own stall and run because most of the time you had a mare that had just had a baby that came in, you know, to be bred.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_09: And so we were busy doing that, and Dan did not want the horse to be ever moved from the ranch, you know.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_09: He wanted to be able to take to bring him home to the ranch uh to be there with pie in the sky for our stallions here at the ranch.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_09: So that's why he did the shares differently than had ever been done before.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_07: Jolene, I want to go back a little bit on the um the excitement of this horse.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_07: He had run the two elimination trials and won the the Kansas won the two elimination trials and won the Rainbow Fraturity, and then of course ran the elimination trial and the time trial of going into the All-American Fraturity.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_07: Talk about the the media attention that you guys were receiving.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_07: What I was told it was kind of like a media circus uh about people wanting to talk to you about this horse.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_09: We were asked to go talk about him and our faith in, you know, God's blessing us in such a miraculous way.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_09: So, yes, we were asked to go speak at a lot of different places.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_09: And in fact, there would be so many people that had recognized us from just seeing us on TV.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_09: So our life really did change because we might be somewhere and people would go, Oh, I know who you are.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_09: Y'all y'all own special efforts.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_09: So yeah, our life really changed um after the Triple Crown like that.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_07: Julian, you mentioned that you and Dan came from, you know, Christian upbringing, Christian lives, and and as well as raising your family that way.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_07: Uh, it's legendary in the sport that Johnny was uh Johnny was always accommodating and and nice to me as well, but he uh he had some of his stories were legendary of of the good times that he had on the racetrack.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_07: It doesn't really match with uh you know the Dan and Jolene that I met.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_07: I I know that it came the the stipulation when the horse was bought at for the million dollars that Johnny would remain as the trainer.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_07: I know it sometimes that was difficult uh because of the different viewpoints and and different lifestyles and all, but talk about how how it eventually meshed together and you both saw success with you, uh you and Dan and Johnny.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_09: It was a whole different different relationship than we had with Leo and and his boys and and and whatever.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_09: Um we we made a mistake in that after he won the triple crown, we should have brought him home to the ranch.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_09: And so when we got back down to the racetrack and and the three-year-old year started, Dan and I looked at each other whenever we look at him and we go, Oh my goodness, we're in trouble here.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_09: The horse did not even look the same.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_09: He was real sour looking.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_09: We just knew that our chances for winning as a three-year-old was not there, probably.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_07: And he saw success as a three-year-old.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, obviously he didn't win the All-American Derby, which is the was the goal there in the triple crown, but he he was successful as a three-year-old prior to him entering into his stud career.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_09: Well, after you know, after that, then we just brought him home and uh turned him up, but he loved being here.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_09: He um Pi and Special Epper were really different.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_09: Um they were very different in handling them.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_09: At that point, we had a racetrack here at the ranch, and so Donnie on the off days that we didn't have breeding days or in the summer, then Donnie would take both of the studs and he would take them to the racetrack and we kept them fit and kept them, took care of them even during the off seasons and so forth.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_07: As it pertains to the stud career, uh, when you started seeing babies from Pie in the Sky as well as some special effort, uh, as you look back all these years later, Jolene, uh, and also Dan's sentiments as well, uh, for speaking for Dan, what was the thought of of how well they did as studs?
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_09: You know, Pie in the Sky looked more like a uh roping horse, and effort was more thoroughbredy looking.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_09: Uh they were both real different, and uh so breeding them to different kinds of mares uh was what the name of the game kind of became was which one uh which mare needs to go to which uh to be uh the most productive with their baby.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_07: Jolene, one of the other things you had pointed out to me is that uh one of the things you take pride in is is the family participation in the sport.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_07: And you had mentioned it after Dan's passing, you still uh had run some horses, including bringing uh some of your grandchildren and and them seeing some success in the sport.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_07: Uh talk about bringing the family into the sport and and how that kind of brought joy, and and certainly I'm assuming Dan would have loved that as well.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_09: Well, um Dana had a daughter that was born in 1980, and so she was at the racetrack from then on from 1980, and then she had a son born in 1983, so those two children grew up on the racetrack, and then her daughter had Carlotte Grace Urshell, and as you know, she fell in love with Tucker, and so we gave her Tucker, and so she ran in her name then ran him, and that's how she became involved in racing.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_09: And of course, um we helped to raise her, so she grew up at the racetrack, and so a lot of the people they know Lottie from that.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_07: And the those listeners that are when you're referring to Tucker, the CR Tucker Nut is the name of the horse that you're referring to.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_09: Yes, uh yes, it is.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_09: We called him to Tucker, but yeah, she just loved that horse and he loved her, so we just said, okay, so he's yours.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_09: And um, so she ran him and and uh that made our sixth generation cling down to our great granddaughter.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_07: Jolene, uh, I'd pointed out to you that there was multiple pictures of special effort wearing different silks every time, you know, not every time, but uh if you look back and and sometimes Billy's wearing house silks and sometimes he's wearing y'all silks, uh, and you had mentioned that the the kind of the the hype around special effort was so high that there was a a bizarre thing that was happening with all the silks.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_09: When Billy went to get the silks, they had been taken from the jocks room, and so he had to wear the other silks, and they thought, oh my goodness, well, that will take our luck away.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_09: But I finally had to give him a set of silks that he carried in his own bag and kept on his own personal self because we kept losing our silks out of the jockeys room.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_07: It was almost they were trying to break your good luck.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_07: I guess that they were being superstitious or trying to break if it if y'all were superstitious, they were trying to steal the silks.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_07: That's just crazy.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, it's uh no, we are not superstitious people, and um I I do not feel like it.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_09: I do not feel like things like that either make or break your luck.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_07: Special Effort is one of our legendary horses that we look back and point at.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_07: Uh it's what everybody in the sport would like to accomplish to win all three, and you guys were able to do it.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_07: Is there what would you say is your prize memento from that era, uh, that that's kind of memorabilia as it pertains to Special Effort?
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_09: You know, they had had a couple of horses that thought w had the chance of winning the triple crown, and so the triple crown blanket hung in behind a a glass where it was uh where it was shown, and you know, you could see it, but it had sat there for so many years that it had faded, and it is now in the Redosa Hall of Fame, and it was so faded and everything.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_09: I think they just kind of rolled it up instead of hanging it up.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_09: But you know, Johnny took the other three, the Kansas Rainbow and the All-American blanket, and of course his house is burned, so I don't have those.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_09: But uh except for I guess the trophies, a lot of things have already been put in the Hall of Fame somewhere.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_09: We're in the Texas Hall of Fame and special efforts in the AQHA Hall of Fame here in Amarillo.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_07: Jolene, there's a lot of accomplishment that went into the history as well as the career in horse racing as it pertains to the Urschel family.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_07: And as we talk about the legacy of all that had happened throughout the 79, 80, and 81 seasons up there at Riadoso, you had mentioned to me that it's not necessarily the legacy that you're most proudest of.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_09: One of the things that I am really uh proud that we were able to do is when we first started uh racing and and was building our facility there next to the racetrack, um, they had Daryl Winters that came in and was our track chaplain.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_09: And so back when we first started racing, there were a lot of families that lived in those track rooms there at the racetrack.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_09: And so one of the things that we were able to do that I am so proud of that we were able to accomplish is Daryl got the idea of starting a church there.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_09: So there was the old kitchen there, and then there was a little room, and we started out with about 12 people.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_09: I played the piano and Melanie led the singing, and Daryl preached.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_09: And I think we started out the very first Sunday, we had 12 people.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_09: Well, then we had our Wednesday night deal also, and it grew until when they built the new kitchen, then we turned the old kitchen into a church.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_09: Daryl had the vision of being able to protect the young children that were living w with these families in the tack room, and in the mornings, when the horses are being taken out and their stalls cleaned and they're being taken to the track and so forth, you know, everything moves and a lot of horses are coming and going.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_09: And so Daryl took the idea and he had a little ministry and we had a little playground there for the young children, which kept them safe while the parents were, you know, moving these horses about.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_09: And the church started out with about 12, I guess, and then down through the years, then you can see the beautiful chapel that was built there on the racetrack.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_09: And I do think one Labor Day weekend, I think we counted 400 in church.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_09: And Daryl has done a wonderful ministry of having a ministry for the jockeys and for the children.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_09: I think uh they later on then had computers put in for the children.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_09: So that is one of the things that I'm was very happy to see how that has grown from the first 12 that we had into what we have today.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_07: And as it pertains to the Urschel family uh being inducted into the Racehorse Hall of Fame at Riyadoso in 2023, uh definitely Dan posthumously talk about the pride that must have been felt and how how Dan would have been if he was able to uh be there as well.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_09: Our family always felt very humbled that God would bless us in such a miraculous way.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_09: It opened up a world for us in so many different areas here at home and in different states, different cities, and we received such wonderful letters.
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_09: Being blessed as we were, it has opened up our world, you know, to many things.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_09: You know, whenever I was in high school and then I went to college, my desire was to go.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_09: Um, I traveled with the college with a college group and the president every weekend.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_09: And uh one of the things I wanted to do was I wanted to travel with a group who would go worldwide into evangelism.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_09: And God said, No, I have another plan for you.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_09: So I ended up marrying my high school sweetheart.
• 1:05:26
  SPEAKER_09: Uh we'd gone together five years, and God gave us and our family this open door to the world in a totally different way, and that was through horse racing.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_07: Well, Jolene, thanks so very much for getting on and talking with here and and taking us back through um I guess memory lane through the an amazing three-year run.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_07: It wasn't, you know, most people when we look back, we think about just the the the triple crown one, but really it was an amazing.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_07: Three to four year run there on that just there is no parallel to that.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_07: And but I would absolutely appreciate you getting on here on the podcast and talking with us and sharing your story with us.
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_09: Thank you, Greg.
• 1:06:13
  SPEAKER_09: I I appreciate and hopefully we see a lot of great years ahead for quarter horse racing.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_15: And we'll be right back after these words.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_17: Yes, we've launched the new stallionesearch.com site.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_17: Yes, it's mobile friendly.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_17: Yes, there are short clips of how to navigate videos on the site, and yes, we are committed to continue our role at the top when it comes to delivering the news, delivering the stats, and delivering the fun.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_17: There's really no comparison.
• 1:06:44
  SPEAKER_17: Check out the new Stallion eSearch.
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_04: Quarter horse racing industry, quick news briefs.
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_04: Of course, it's powered by stallionesearch.com.
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_07: Alright, we're gonna touch upon just some interesting things in the news, and you can always go on to stallioneseearch.com and look up these news stories as the 33-year-old Shake the Bank passes away, leaving a lasting legacy across two borders, dating all the way back to 1995 as she won the two-year-old champion AQHA Philly.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_07: She was bred in Oklahoma by Walter Merrick, has just recently passed away at the age of 33.
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_07: Also in the news, the LQHBA is accepting Hall of Fame nominations through February 1st.
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_07: The LQHBA Hall of Fame is an online Hall of Fame, and you can go and actually look at all the inductees as well as short videos to commemorate their induction into the Hall of Fame there at LQHBA.com.
• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_07: We're getting closer and closer to the Eureka Downs 2026 race meet, and they have released the rules book as well as condition books that can be all found on stallioneseearch.com as well as on Equabase, as we look forward to the reopening of Eureka Downs in Kansas.
• 1:08:01
  SPEAKER_07: And on a sad note, Quarterhorse breeder and owner Brian Gunder passed away at 63 years of age at his residence in Ohio, as Gunder was the owner and operator of Cordell Transportation and Circle G Ranch, and his involvement in racing, including ownership, breeding, and development of several stallions, including Open Me a Corona.
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_07: Also, we'd like to take some time to send our condolences out to the family of John Krager, AQHA champion jockey in 1994, who passed away at the age of 75.
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_07: As John was a product of Utah and was known and revered as the dean of the jockey colony at Los Alamitas Racecourse through the 1990s and through the turn of the century.
• 1:08:43
  SPEAKER_07: With such notable mounts as Sgt.
• 1:08:45
  SPEAKER_07: Pepper featured, Down with Debt, Griswall, Osai, Chicks Beduino, Florentine, boy, the list just goes on and on.
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_07: In racing news, we go out to Albuquerque Downs for the grade one downs at Albuquerque Fall Quarter Horse Racing Championship.
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's GFC Sinful on the far outside.
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_00: Down towards the inside, we've got Hard to Politic, but it's all GFC Sinful and Noah Garcia Jr.
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_00: to take the Fall Quarter Horse Championship by an egg.
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_07: The talented three-year-old Philly GFC Sinful gets it done in a time of 20.760 seconds for the 440 yards.
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_07: For trainer Wes Giles under Jockey Noah Garcia Jr., as this$50,000 Riadosa sales graduate, who's owned by all in partners, earns a berth into the 2026 field of the Champion of Champions.
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_07: And we were able to talk with the winning jockey about this talented three-year-old Philly.
• 1:09:39
  SPEAKER_07: Alright, on the phone with jockey Noe Garcia Jr.
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_07: First off, congratulations on the big win, Noah, and uh kind of talk us through that big race.
• 1:09:48
  SPEAKER_07: She ran a huge race on there on the outside.
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_08: Thank you.
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_08: Thank you.
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_08: Uh actually she did.
• 1:09:53
  SPEAKER_08: She ran good on the outside out there in Albuquerque.
• 1:09:56
  SPEAKER_08: You know, she likes running on the on the lights as well, so she had that good break.
• 1:10:02
  SPEAKER_08: She ran good with the voice.
• 1:10:08
  SPEAKER_08: I really just went with sinful because she's three years old, you know, she's really stunning, she's fresh.
• 1:10:22
  SPEAKER_07: How good is this Philly?
• 1:10:24
  SPEAKER_07: Obviously, going out there in the West Coast to face all those big name horses, I'm assuming is the goal.
• 1:10:30
  SPEAKER_07: But how good is this Philly?
• 1:10:32
  SPEAKER_08: It's a tough one.
• 1:10:33
  SPEAKER_08: I honestly don't know how good she is.
• 1:10:36
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, I've got on good horses, you know, and but I wonder if she's still figuring out how good she can be, you know.
• 1:10:43
  SPEAKER_07: And good luck moving forward with her going towards the champion of champions.
• 1:10:47
  SPEAKER_07: Thank you, Boss Y already know.
• 1:10:49
  SPEAKER_07: And lastly, the 2026 Sam Thompson Memorial Jockey Award recipient has been named.
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_07: Ramiro Harrow Garcia has been named the 2026 recipient of this most prestigious award for quarter horse racing jockeys.
• 1:11:04
  SPEAKER_07: Named in the memory of late jockey Sam Thompson, the annual award is voted upon by the past recipients.
• 1:11:11
  SPEAKER_07: With Garcia receiving the most votes being his first year as a nominee.
• 1:11:16
  SPEAKER_07: The Mexico Native will be on hand for the awards presentation on Texas Classic Futurity Night at Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie, Texas.
• 1:11:25
  SPEAKER_07: And that's what's in the news here on stallionesearch.com.
• 1:11:29
  SPEAKER_07: Alright, that's all the time we have for this episode of Quarter Horse Racing Talk Weekly.
• 1:11:33
  SPEAKER_07: And I'm hearing more and more from people as they're going online to stallionesearch.com and going into the catalog podcasts that we've done with all the legends of the sport.
• 1:11:44
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, there's interviews with Wayne Lucas, there's interviews with Sleepy Gilbert, there's interviews with Danny Cardoza, Jerry Burgess, Jackie Martin, GR Carter.
• 1:11:53
  SPEAKER_07: The list just goes on and on and on.
• 1:11:55
  SPEAKER_07: And there's multiple others on my short list of who I want to get on this podcast, and they're coming up for you.
• 1:12:01
  SPEAKER_07: But go on to stallionysearch.com if you're enjoying the podcast.
• 1:12:04
  SPEAKER_07: Look at all the past podcasts out there and pick one of them out there.
• 1:12:08
  SPEAKER_07: And I'm sure you'll enjoy those podcasts just as much as you're enjoying these most recent ones.
• 1:12:12
  SPEAKER_07: And we'll be back next week with another exciting guest and another discussion about some big races on the horizon here in Quarter Horse Racing.
• 1:12:20
  SPEAKER_07: And I'm Greg Thompson of stallionesearch.com, and we'll see you here on Quarter Horse Racing Talk Weekly.