Latest / StallioneSearch Podcasts / Ep.81 - Scott Wells - Former Horsemen and Racetrack Management Executive

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Ep.81 - Scott Wells - Former Horsemen and Racetrack Management Executive · StallioneSearch Podcasts

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_12: For October 1st, 2026.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Quarter horse racing fans, you're in the right place.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's the Quarter Horse Racing Talk Weekly Podcast.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_12: And it's the number one podcast in the country when it comes to quarter horse racing.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_12: Here on stallionesearch.com.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_12: And here's your host, Greg Thompson.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_03: And hello again, everyone.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_03: I'm Greg Thompson of StallionESearch.com, back here for another episode of Quarter Horse Racing Talk Weekly, the number one quarter horse racing talk podcast in the country.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm bringing to you one of these podcast episodes that I've been wanting to do for quite some time with an individual that I knew would be a home run as it pertains to his depth of knowledge in the quarter horse racing industry as well as his experiences.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_03: And prior to any of my efforts as it pertains to retaining and collecting quarter horse racing history, this individual, Scott Wells, was at the forefront of actually collecting quarter horse racing history, specifically about the All-American Fraternity during his time as the general manager at Rito Sedowns.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_03: As a matter of fact, a lot of the videos that I was able to obtain over the years of the All-American Fraternity have Scott narrating on top of the videos.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_03: So a lot of this history that we have as it pertains to videos of the All-American Fraternity, which there's plenty of them that actually don't exist, a lot of those efforts have to do with Scott having the foresight to actually look ahead and collect history for us to enjoy for years to come, specifically the All-American Fraternity.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_03: And he's also an author of many books on the sport of court horse racing.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_03: And I feel like you're going to find that with this episode of Scott Welds just because of the unique story and the twists and turns as it pertains to his career in the sport, as well as the depth of the people that are in the discussions that he had experiences with, are some of the people that made the headlines throughout the history of the sport.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_03: And it's all here for you on Quador's Racing Talk Weekly on this week's episode, as well as a great recap section and the previous section as we had the Grade One Albuquerque Championship this weekend, which contains a birth into the Champion of Champions for 2026.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_03: And Yancy and I take a stroll through the field as well as get one of the owners on the phone to talk about the upcoming Grade One event there in Albuquerque.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_03: So without any more delay, let me get out of the way and get to the commercial so we can get to our featured guest here on Quarter Horse Racing Talk Weekly.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_12: It's that simple when you think about it.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_12: Serious buyers wanting success in this game of quarter course racing, invest at the Riadoso Sales.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_03: Alright, we're back ready to jump in with our featured guest, Scott Wells.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_03: And one of the things that I really enjoy when I talk with somebody that's passionate about the sport is exactly that, is when their passion shines through through emotion, when they're discussing some of the things that have happened in their career, and I've been fortunate enough to capture a lot of those throughout my career, either on film or on this podcast.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_03: And this is no different as Scott is extremely passionate about his love for the sport of horse racing, not only on the thoroughbred side, but also on the quotor side, and some of the individuals that he's had the luxury of commiserating with during his career.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_03: And you'll hear it as he's discussing a lot of these subjects that me and him touch upon in this podcast.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_03: So let me get out of the way here and get right to our guest, Scott Wells.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_03: Scott, thanks for joining us here on Quarter Horse Racing Talk Podcast.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_03: I've been wanting to get you on for quite some time.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it's nice to be with you.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_03: Scott.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_03: You are a son of a horseman who's a son of a horseman.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_03: So literally it sounded like you didn't have much of a choice what direction you were going to go in in life as it pertains to career-wise, because you were introduced at such a an early age.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_03: But kind of give us the background of where all this horse racing love for the sport, as well as something that you made a life out of, uh, where did it all where it all came from, Scott?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_05: Well, my first my first memory is of uh being at the Osage County Fairgrounds at age three and seeing horses race.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_05: And by horses, I mean they had the milk run derby, they had mares with foals by their side, they took the mares and foals to the finish line down the track away, then they took the mares past the finish line, and upon a count, they released the foals simultaneously and they raced down there to their mothers.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_05: I guess they'd been doing that at Osage County for years.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_05: And uh I remember that distinctly and uh later realized that the horse that won that wheenling race the night I was there was Bandy's Flash.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_07: Wow.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_05: Uh D.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_05: Garrett's uh great son of uh of Garrett of Garrett's miss Pahaska.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_05: So uh that was my earliest memory, and and uh dad was a rodeo cowboy at that time, and uh my grandfather and uh Gene Jones had uh had bought Leo for a thousand dollars.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_05: They had seen him race at Pajasco and seen him get beat, he had a big old bad knee on him.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_05: They really liked him.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_05: And uh right after the war, I think it was 47 or 48, um they bought Leo and three Bronx mares, and uh dad went to Carlsbad, New Mexico to pick him up.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_05: Uh now he he had a bobtail uh stock trailer and um had Leo tied in there with uh some boards between him and those mares, and on the road between uh Roswell and um Portalis, he got run off the road and that truck tilted, and he said for a couple of hundred yards he fought life and death to keep the truck from turning over, and when he finally got it back up on the road, uh he was able to save the the wreck out there in the middle of the desert.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_05: But he often commented that if if that had gone differently, there never would have been a Leo because those horses would have uh uh definitely been injured or killed.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_03: I guess the the story of court horse racing could have been changed in just an instance there.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, that's something else.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_05: And then and then they bred uh the red Leo to the ranch mares there and uh two or three men there in uh in Osage County, and then Bud Warren got wind of him, and uh they sold him to Bud for the it's a disputed George Warren said it was$2,500, and uh dad said it was$3,200.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_05: But anyway, Leo sold for a pittance, and then by the time he was established sire, he was standing for$10,000 a a mare.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_03: And that's we're talking back when$10,000 was a ton of money.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_05: Right, right.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but dad was uh dad, thanks really in large part to Walter Merrick.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_05: Uh Walter spotted dad as being a good young horseman, and um dad started hanging around Walter up at uh Centennial Park in in Denver.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_05: Dad was uh had gotten quite close with Walter, and Walter decided to take some thoroughbreds to Omaha, and he left dad in charge of that stable at Centennial Park, and it was his first stint as a professional trainer, and he was leading trainer of the meat, loaded with those sons and daughters of three bars and Walter's good good stock and good help, and uh that really made some contacts for him that served us well later on, including uh the people that owned our All-American winner.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_03: Scott, as it pertains to that period of time, I'm assuming you were one of those racetrack kids that you were around the barn all the time with dad and and all so kind of talk about your introduction into the backside life.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_05: Well, dad had been raised on a ranch and was uh a true cowboy, and he didn't know any better than to put me on a horse and have me working like uh you know, pretty much like a grown man at an early age.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_05: I started leading horses from another horse because there were no walking machines then.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_05: You led horses uh what I consider the right way, either on foot or or by horse.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_05: And uh at age six, I was riding a horse named Seven and leading one off the side.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_05: And then by age ten, I was leading one off either side and uh making a pretty good hand around the barn.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_05: That was the year we moved from Oklahoma to Rio Doso.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_03: We know, of course, of G.R.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_03: Carter fame and all.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_03: During that period of time, there's plenty of like uh racing that we would call bush track racing.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm assuming y'all were participating in those races throughout all the smaller racetracks through uh for for whether it be Garfield Downs or what have you, uh Pahuska Downs and all.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_05: I remember going to the races at uh Garfield Downs with my grandfather and my father and waiting through the parking lot where the water was flowing over my boots, but they still had the races.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_05: And then in uh in 58, Dad uh leased the K County Fairgrounds there outside of Newkirk and had a little bush track there.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_05: Uh he raced on uh weekends in the summer, just two or three race days during the summer.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_05: But those were big events.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_05: My goodness, I got my first track, my first taste of racetrack management in those days because uh me and my sisters and mother would stay up at night making sandwiches, and dad would uh take me to the ice house, and we would get big blocks of ice and take them and put them in stock tanks around the grounds there and fill them with sodas.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_05: And there was a lot of uh unseen work that goes into running even a little one-day race meet, but uh it it stood me in good stead for later on when I was running two racetracks simultaneously.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_03: You had mentioned when you guys made the move from Oklahoma up to the mountain there, Riodoso.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_03: What year was that again?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_05: Uh we moved in 1960.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_05: In in 59, before the first All-American, dad called mom and me into the kitchen and said, they're talking about having a race in New Mexico worth$50,000.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_05: And the largest court horse race at that time was, you know, not a tenth of that, or about a tenth of that.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_05: And he said, I'm gonna give them a year and see if they pull it off.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_05: But if they do, we're moving to New Mexico.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I was pretty excited about that as a nine-year-old boy.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_05: And then, of course, that first purse wasn't$50,000, it was$129,000.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_05: And uh the next year there was a steady stream of horse million trailers headed for New Mexico.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_03: So take the listeners as well as myself, Scott, kind of describe the scene in 1960.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_03: What was Riadosa like as it pertains to I guess my first vision of Riadosa was on a movie called Casey Shadow, which I know you're more than familiar with, of even referring back to what it looked like in 1976, and of course, very familiar with what it looks like today.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_03: But give give folks a snapshot of what it looked like from a nine-year-old boy's perspective.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_05: I'll tell you one thing.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_05: The uh billboards started appearing in the Texas panhandle, and we had come from eastern Oklahoma, and I started seeing these billboards with pine trees covered with snow and horses racing beneath them.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_05: And the slogan was Playground of the Southwest, Rudosa Downs, come race in the cool, cool pines.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_05: But by the time we got west of Roswell, I hadn't seen a pine tree or any snow, and it was about 110.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_05: And uh we barely made it up that hill there outside of Roswell into the Hondo Valley.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_05: But the road, of course, up the Hondo Valley was a two-lane road.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_05: You know, it was a narrow two-lane road, and you could get behind somebody and go for that whole length of that valley and not be able to get around them.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_05: But when we finally did arrive at Ruedosa Downs, um actually the grandstand looked very, very much, the grandstand of the track looked very much like it did in recent years from the from the highway.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_05: Um, of course, the the outline of the track, the configuration of the track was changed in the 88.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_05: And they they lengthened the track from five furlongs to seven furlongs, and that brought the river into the circumference of the track, which as we know was problematic.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_05: But um and the barn area was a mess.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_05: Oh my god, it was the worst barn area that I've ever seen in my life.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_05: And the some of the shed rows were so small uh uh a six-foot man had to duck to get under the shed row, and um the spaces between the barns was very small.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_05: The manure would mount up and be a big problem, especially during the wet season.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_05: It was a far cry from the uh from the barn area uh in recent years, although you know it never was a glamorous barn area, but it was the pits back back then.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_05: And there were not enough stalls.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_05: Everyone that had made a nomination was supposed to get a stall, but there just weren't enough stalls.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_05: And there were horses scattered all over that part of Rhodosa Downs.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_05: It was it was mayhem, really.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_05: They were the the race grew so fast that it uh it really caused some some growth problems, and I have had a lifelong appreciation for stallmen and racing secretaries ever since because their job is uh never sufficiently appreciated.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_03: Never is, never is.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_03: Always.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_03: So that's another topic, another podcast for that.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_03: The Wells family history, of course, progresses over to the big horse Savannah Jr., where you guys were able to capture that big race, take us back to that magical summer there.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_05: Let me let me um kind of lay the groundwork for that, because that first summer, the summer of 1960, dad trained for Bud Warren and uh a few others, and we had about 10 horses scattered all over the barn area, and in the length of that summer, we won one race.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, and that was far below our expectations, and below the expectations of our owners, I might add.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_05: Now, he did go ahead and uh we won the Rocky Mountain Faturity for Bud uh later that fall.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_05: But we were on pretty hard times, and we went to some we went from Rudosa to Sunlin, of course, and dad got a call from Walter Merrick, and Walter sent us Linus Barr.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_05: And Linus Barr was uh six years old at that time, and in her day had beaten well, she had beaten Go Man Go and Vanetta D, and she'd beaten all of them.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_05: And um he had uh, I guess missed a year on her.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_05: But anyway, um he sent us Linus Bar, and she won her last six races with dad as her dreamer.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_05: She ran second in the Sunlin Championship, she won some some races and really put dad's name front and center again, and that's when um people started to reach out and give him better horses.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_05: And one of the former clients that he had had for uh Walter Merrick in Denver back in the 50s was Ray and J.R.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_05: Cates, and they sent us a filly named Savannah Cates in 61, and uh we qualified in the All-American with her in 61, and uh she was bred there in Tulsa and was by Ebert Jr.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_05: and out of their good mare Savannah Gray.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_05: Mr.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_05: Cates rest his soul um would never pay for a for a breeding, he wanted free breedings, so he he was getting to breed to Ebert Jr.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_05: for free.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_05: So he brought her back to Everett Jr.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_05: and uh had a cult thing named Savannah Jr.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_05: So in 60 um uh 64 they were they had Savannah Jr.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_05: in that sale.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_05: And Dad asked him over the telephone, says, I see you've got that full brother to Savannah Cates in the sale.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_05: And he said, Yeah, I think you'll bring$10,000,$15,000.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_05: And Dad said, Well, hell, you're gonna try to win the All-American with him.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_05: That's what you're in the business for.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_05: And uh he hadn't even seen the colt yet.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_05: So he said, Before you sell him, let me come out there and look at him.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_05: So Dad drove from El Paso to Tulsa because he had a stable of horses he was training, and he was very hands-on.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_05: But he drove nonstop from El Paso to Tulsa, and Mr.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_05: Cates brought that colt out and he tried to eat him up.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_05: Savannah was a rough, rank colt.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_05: And they had spoiled him, and and uh so dad took a hold of him and schooled him a little bit, and then stepped away and was able to get a look at him, and he said, Mr.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_05: Cates, if if you ever want to win the All-American fraternity, don't sell this colt.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_05: So they kept him.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_12: And we'll be right back after these words.
• 18:48
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• 19:59
  SPEAKER_09: All right, back to the show.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_03: All right, we'll pick right back up where we left off before the commercial break where Scott was talking about Savannah Jr.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_03: going into his two-year-old campaign that ended in the All-American Faturity win.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_05: The Colt didn't show a lot of promise early on.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_05: And uh he won his first race, but was very awkward and not that impressive.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_05: But uh he won his trial to the Oklahoma Fraturity, which was 330 yards at the time.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_05: He won it by five lengths and then won the final.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_05: And when we got to Redosa, he was one of the preseason favorites, you might say.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_05: But he he had some bad lugging problems.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_05: He would run crooked, and he was a difficult Colt to manage.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_05: And um he got disqualified in the rainbow trials.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_05: He was uh 11th fastest qualifier in the Kansas trials.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_05: He won his trial heat to the rainbow fraternity, but got disqualified, rightfully so.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_05: And then uh ran third in his all-American trial, but still qualified.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_05: But he was doing things better.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_05: Um actually, the all-American uh we we ran him one time between the rainbow trials, between, let's see, after I guess it's right before the rainbow trials, and he ran on a muddy track and he ran the worst race of his life.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_05: Ran seventh, the only time he was ever off board.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_05: And so we thought he didn't like the mud.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_05: Well, don't you know the day of the all-American, it rained ferociously at Rio Dosa.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_05: And about two hours before the race, dad sent me up to the grandstand to get our horses to come down and uh put new shoes on Savannah Jr.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_05: with stickers, jar cocks.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I found this horseshoe up at the bar.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_05: It was labor day when the work is finished.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_05: He was all dressed up, and I said, Uh, Dad wants you to come down and shoe this horse.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_05: And he said, Well, I ain't gonna do it.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_05: And I said, Well, you come and tell him then, because I'm not gonna go.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_05: Back there without you.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_05: And he thought about that for a minute and grumbled and went back to the barn and uh put front shoes on the horse.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_05: And sadly, Dad got all the credit for the horse and won the race by two and a half length.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_05: And uh people gave dad way too much credit because they just weren't going to beat Savannah Jr.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_05: that day, regardless of the change in shoes.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_05: But it is part of the story, and it's always uh it's a pleasant memory for me because um after the shore went back up to the grandstand, word spread fast.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_05: And he hadn't been gone for an hour when here comes the big uh Cadillac pulls in, and it's Mr.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_05: Cates and his son.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_05: And uh they had heard that we had changed shoes.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_05: So this is hours before the race, a couple of hours before the race.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_05: And he comes and says, uh, Ted, uh, I've talked to everybody in uh Buffalo Wooton says uh horses don't run well on this track with that kind of shoe.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_05: And of course, Dad was nervous and tense.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_05: And he said, Well, Mr.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_05: Cates, he says, tomorrow you can give this colt to Buffalo, but today he's mine.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_03: It worked out great.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_03: Scott, as it pertains to your recollection, uh, because we don't have video of the horse uh uh of the race, uh kind of give your your recollection of how the race went.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_05: Well, it was on the old five-eighths of mile racetrack, and Savannah had the one-hole, which was just death.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_05: No horse had ever won it out of the inside post position, especially on a muddy track.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_05: So uh we were worried about that.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_05: But he broke so well uh that Jack Wallace said after about three jumps, he thought he was in front, and he sneaked a look to his uh right and didn't see a horse right there by his elbow, you know, so he knew he was in front.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_05: Um down the racetrack, he he still wasn't getting caught.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_05: And the colt was, you know, by a thoroughbred, he got better the longer they went.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_05: And finally, about uh oh, a hundred yards or so from the wire, he cranked his head back a little bit.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_05: And I remember seeing that and yelling, don't look back, don't look back.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_05: But uh he uh he led from wire to wire and and just pulled away from them and won by two and a half lengths, which was the widest margin in the history of the race until special effort came along.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_03: Scott, back in that day, was it still billed as the world's richest horse race?
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_05: It was that was the first year, I think, that it was the world's richest horse race.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_05: It was$419,000.
• 24:39
  unknown: Wow.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_05: The Kentucky Derby was$125.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_03: Scott, you went on to become a trainer yourself.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_03: Kind of give us the the roadmap of of what it looked like when you hung out your own shingle and became became your own man as it pertains to being a trainer.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_05: Well, it was um not something that I had in my plan.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_05: I went to TCU and um majored in political science and had a miss by by that time uh uh dad who had been a former 460s cowboy was training horses for um for the Burnett Estates.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_05: And then uh we had we went to stud with Savannah Jr.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_05: in Azure Tay, and they owned a big portion of uh Azure Tay, and Mrs.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_05: Tandy, um Ann Burnett, offered me, offered to uh pay my way to any law school that I wanted to go to.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_05: And um I was honored by that, but and by the same token, I wasn't ready to sign my life away to, you know, and it was the late 60s.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_06: Uh-huh.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_05: So I took some time out.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_05: I quit, I dropped out of TCU and uh traveled to France on a one-way ticket and was over there for about seven months.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_05: And uh during that time, I um went to the races at uh Long Champ.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_05: And I was in the infield with some friends, and uh over a long way from the finish line, over on the turn, and uh a horse went down right there by us, and um I just naturally I you know wanted to catch the horse, and actually the horse went down.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_05: I I bolted the rail, and as the horse was uh struggling to get up, I saw that the rider was okay, and the horse just lay there, and uh I undid the girth on the horse, and I noticed that he wasn't breathing.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_05: His nostrils were flared, but he he was in oxygen deficit.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_05: And I had seen old Dr.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_05: Joe Miller at Riodoza uh do this, and he he pounced on the horse's chest with his knees, raised the front leg, and as he dropped it, he pounced on the chest and did it three or four times.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_05: And he had saved a horse there at Riodoza.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I did the same thing to this horse, and he got up in a moment and was all right.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_05: Had started breathing again.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_05: And uh anyway, as I vaulted back over that rail, I thought, you know, I've been out here searching for myself, but really what I am is a horseman.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_05: And so when I came back to the States, one of the first people I met was Wayne Lucas at the Rio Dosa sale, and uh he convinced me to go to California with him and uh worked for him for a while, and then uh he was just getting started, it was his first year at Rio Dosa.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_05: He left there everyone knows his he left there owing everybody money, and he went to Los Alamedos for their first winter meeting and um gosh, uh the vets, the tack people, the feed people, all from New Mexico were going to try to collect money from Wayne, but he hit it big there that first season at Los Alamedos and was able to uh recover.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_05: And and uh we had Native Empress who was the star of our stable.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_05: I learned a lot from Wayne, but frankly, uh it was later on after I had trained on my own for a few years that I went to work for uh Jack Vanberg, and I really learned a lot from Jack.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_05: Jack was a an amazing horseman, and of course a legend in his own right.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you had mentioned your father had started in thoroughbreds, but you know, made the name for himself in the quota horse world, and now you're throwing out two of the biggest names in thoroughbred history between Wayne and and uh Jack Van Berg.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_03: Uh when you decided to hang out your own shingle and uh and and take out your trainer's license, uh I believe you were more thoroughbred oriented, isn't it?
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_03: Wasn't that correct?
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_05: Well, initially, I just I uh my first table was uh uh court horses and I had one thoroughbred.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_05: And then uh then after I qualified a horse for the first constellation of the All-American, and I had a horse in the champion champions, and but I I had it in my mind I wanted to train thoroughbreds.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_05: And um when I went to work for Van Berg, uh when I uh when I left him, I I trained uh well actually I I trained a couple of quarters, I trained three, two Yankee, but mostly I trained thoroughbreds, and then in uh 84 I went uh to the East Coast and trained thoroughbreds exclusively until uh 90 when I came to Remington Park.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_03: We've covered a lot of ground so far, Scott, but the uh coming from your background and all, where we still yet to get to the part of the story of your career-wise, where you I would say you are way more known for as you're on the management side of of racing when you started to go into the management department.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_03: What what what was that decision?
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_03: Where where did that happen?
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_03: You coming from being a hands-on horseman to move over into a management role and at the racetracks.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_05: Well, it was uh it was one of those things where uh if you want to give God a good laugh, tell him your plans.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_05: I certainly didn't plan it.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_05: But um in the winter of 8990, uh I was training on the east coast, and I was winning about 19% of my races, doing doing rather well.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_05: I was very hands-on, I was shooing my own horses, I was galloping a lot of my own horses, and I had a 15-20-horse stable and racing on the east coast where there were 12 different racetracks that I could race at.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_05: And I was working myself to the bone, uh, racing day and night.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_05: And um there came a cold spell there in Maryland where for three weeks the warmest morning we had was one degree.
• 30:46
  unknown: Wow.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_05: Uh every other morning it was either zero or below.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_05: That'll make you question your sanity.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_05: And I was uh I was galloping a horse there one morning, and I I came back at the barn and was just unable to do, you know, unbutton my jacket, for instance, you know.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_05: Uh my hands were so cold, and I thought, man, I've I can do better than this.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_05: And Remington Park uh well had just opened in '88.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_05: And I had been there.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_05: And my good friend Corey Johnson, whom I had met uh working for Richard Hazleton back in the 70s.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_05: Um my good friend Corey Johnson had was the assistant GM at at Remington.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_05: And I called him and said, Do you have anything for me?
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_05: I'd like to do a six-month experiment and and you know, try my hand in the press box or whatever.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_05: And he said, Well, I've got a waiting list of people that want jobs, but he said, You are a pretty good writer.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_05: You should you should contact the Daily Racing Forum because they're looking for somebody.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_05: So I went to the races at Laurel.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_05: There was a stakes race that day.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_05: I typed an article.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um, this all seems so archaic now.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_05: I typed an article and uh FedExed it to the Daily Racing Forum's main office in Chicago and uh left a stable gate number where I could be paged and found, and uh actually got a call back and they hired me to uh come to Remington and and write for them.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_05: So I was writing five columns a week at Remington Park for about six months, and then uh they got shorthanded and needed some help with their TV work, and I started doing some of that.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_05: By the end of my two years at Remington, I was getting five or six different paychecks from different entities.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_05: And one day D.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_05: Hubbard called me from Hollywood Park and asked if I would come and help settle a dispute there.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_05: And uh so I went to Hollywood Park and was assistant general manager there for a while, and then he uh he made me GM of Rodosa Downs.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_08: And we'll be right back after these words.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_03: News coming from Wayne, Oklahoma at Royal Vista Ranch as Multiple Grade One sire.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_03: One Fabulous Seagull is back to his Oklahoma home, where he began his stallion career at Royal Vista Ranch.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_03: Now a multiple grade one winner with over$10.6 million in progeny earnings.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_03: One Fabulous Eagle brings all that speed, all that class, and its grade one resume back to Oklahoma Breeders for the 2027 season.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_03: 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, as they also stand for 2027, the multiple graded stakes finalist, a political J Streak, the legendary industry leader, a political jest, the grade one producing FTV going grand, the multiple stakes producing sire heart of the cartel, and the grade one winner Just Dulce.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_03: All this talent in one spot there at Royal Vista Ranch in Wayne, Oklahoma.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_11: A tremendously talented stallion roster of Roboshow Ranch.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_11: Grade 1 producing A Political Blood, Multiple Stakes Dire, and Grade 1 winning Gold Heart Eagle V, the sire of leading three-year-old beautiful, Kavian Corona, AQHA Champion Sire tempting Dash, and the All-American juvenile winning Visa, all standing in Bro Bridge, Louisiana.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_11: All right.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_11: Back to the show.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_03: If anybody's listened to the podcast in in the past, I've definitely lean a lot towards uh historical things that have happened up on the mountain.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that you and I both share that love, Scott, of quarter horse racing history and especially what had happened up there in Riedoso.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_03: One of the things that I've always pointed out is the archives and the quarter horse racing are uh not something that we've done a tremendous job of as a as a whole, and not and not necessarily saying you, Scott, but there's a lot of material that just doesn't exist.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_03: And uh it it's kind of just wasn't, I guess, preserved at the best it it possibly could have.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_03: But there's been plenty of reasons why that's happened.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_03: And when you started putting together a lot of uh things to kind of preserve that history while your your time there at Rio Dosa was there, kind of talk and discuss some of the things that you kind of ran into.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_05: Well, you're right, Greg.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_05: And and when I got to Rio Dosa in 94, there was no sign that it was anything special, you know.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_05: And I thought of all the history that had taken place there.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_05: And and um so we we made a initial stab at starting the Rio Dosa Hall of Fame just to give visitors a a chance to reflect on on this special place that they were standing in.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_05: And initially we didn't have any resources.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_05: My God, the place was losing money, hand over fist.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_05: And uh, and of course, that's a lesson that that a college dropout horse trainer has to learn is the economics of of running a racetrack, which is uh largely a losing proposition unless you have uh unless you have an additional source of income.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_05: But anyway, uh out of my background, picked three quarter horses and three thoroughbreds to represent an initial class for the ROADOSA Hall of Fame.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_05: And the three quarter horses were uh Go Man Go, Easy Jet, and Hotel Bars Hank, all of whom had raised a course at Roadosa.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_05: And of course, that that uh Hall of Fame has grown to quite a good repository of information.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_05: There, when the Museum of the Horse was open, Hubbard gave me a room there to develop the Hall of Fame further.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_05: And I tell you, one day I was there at the museum and uh I got a call from Rick Baugh and said, you know, there's a dumpster out there uh behind the grandstand that they're putting a lot of stuff in.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_05: There might be some stuff in there you ought to see.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_05: And I went over there and there were reel-to-reel tapes and photos and just all kinds of programs and stuff that I was able to salvage.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_05: And then the Hubbards gave me enough money to uh to put together a touch screen unit with different uh court horse racing subjects, like all the All-American Futurity videos were available on it, the ones that still exist.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_05: And we covered every All-American Futurity winner on the video.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_05: We had a number of uh touch screen elements on that thing, and and we got an old starting gate that Lewis Blackwell had used with his great horses, hard twist and those horses back in the day, and installed it in there.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_05: And it became a real uh work of passion for me because, as you said, I I do love the history of that place, and we had a lot of fun uh getting it started.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_05: And of course, Ty Wyatt and Walt Wiggins and others have done a great job with it ever since.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_03: Scott, I believe we're about eight or nine All-American Futurities that we don't actually have footage of, including your father's win with Savannah Jr.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_03: Uh easy jet's another one that that the video does not exist, and I've discussed with uh Joe Merrick several times, and he he'd actually never seen footage of of the race uh since it actually happened.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_03: What is your theory of what actually happened to some of those reel-to-reels or or or why why are we in a situation where I'm not talking about something that happened in the 1920s, I'm talking about races that had it happened in 1960.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_03: Why do you feel we have a scenario where we don't actually have footage of some of our signature races that uh happened in the sport?
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_05: It's uh it's impossible to know.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_05: I know that there was a fire and some of the things were lost in a fire, but if you look at them chronologically, the ones that were lost, it doesn't make sense that that only those were lost.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_05: So that's a question I can't answer.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_05: Um and you know, having run racetracks and seen so many racetracks fail and uh and uh become history themselves, I mean the same thing happened to Hollywood Park.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_05: Hollywood Park was the scene of some of the greatest thoroughbred racing of all time, and um its history is largely lost.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_03: I think that uh uh m the majority of the all American fraturities from that period of time come from the video that you put together while you were there.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_03: Uh as a matter of fact, you're narrating over several of them.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_03: So uh, you know, hats off to you, Scott, for having the the foresight to put this stuff down.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_03: And and some of the things that I'm doing as it pertains to the podcast of getting some of these people on to talk about their, I guess, headline making events in their life.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_03: You know, even I'm able to preserve those and and I'm losing those types of opportunities every passing year as people are passing away and not able to share some of the things there.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_03: But for you to have the foresight to do so back when you did it while you were there at Riadoso, just the quarter horse racing industry owes you a debt of gratitude for doing that and having that foresight for sure.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_05: Well, Joan Dale and and uh D.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_05: Hubbard and uh Doc Allred and Jim Helzer and many others uh were gave us the funds to do that.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_05: And it's something I'd always wanted to do.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_05: So uh my wife helped me with it, and the whole team there at the museum uh worked on it intensely, and uh it was a it was a labor of love.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, also talking about your writing career, one of the uh probably uh a prize book that I have is your book on Jerry Nicodemus and kind of give us the origins of where did that all come about, about getting together to write a book about him.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_05: Well, you know, it it's we I was thinking along the lines that we were just talking about how someone needs to tell this story.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_05: And um I had I had thought in the early 80s, I had thought about writing something about the great horses I had seen.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_05: Everyone, every time I talked to somebody, uh they had mentioned a certain horse, and and uh from a certain time period it became apparent that the horses of this one time period had everything had one thing in common, and that was they were ridden by Jerry Nicodemus.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_05: So I talked to him about doing a book, and we had become pretty good friends, and then in the course of the next year or two, we became very good friends and and were friends until uh until his life sadly ended a couple of years ago.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_05: But anyway, I I started just uh writing about uh I I spent some time with Jerry and went through his trunks full of wind pictures and picked out some highlights and uh worked with Speedhorse magazine to to put out a limited edition book.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_05: And there were we only did 1,500 copies, and each was signed.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_05: And I gotta tell you, signing 1,500 books is a chore.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_05: Anyway, it it covered a good period of of history, and and of course Jerry did me one better by winning another All-American after the book was finished.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_05: So with Ronus Ryan.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_03: And that was only the first of many books that you've written that's on the sport as well.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_05: Well, uh Scoop Vessels actually came to me a few years later when I was assistant to him at Hollywood Park, and and uh Earl Holmes was getting near the end of his life, and Earl was a very colorful character.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_05: And Scoop said, What would it take to write a book about Los Alamitos and its history?
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_05: I said, Well, it would take my time and your money.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_05: And so we came to an agreement and and I did uh what a way to go, which was a real a real pleasure because it was uh Scoop put together an event where uh a lot of those old-time uh Los Alamitos guys came to one place and I had them sitting around a bunch of tables and we had a big time uh telling stories and and getting the history of them.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_05: We had Farrell Jones there and Earl Holmes and uh a lot of the old timers, and that was a very satisfying book to write because he gave me real freedom in in writing about those colorful characters.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_03: How long has it been since you wrote the book about uh teaching narcissists to swim?
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_05: Oh well that that's been uh that's been about over ten years ago now, but um yeah, that was that was uh a story of uh of a young kid from Oklahoma that starts writing match races and makes his way to Ruido Sadown.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_05: And it's it's funny, after that book came out, I had at least half a dozen old writers from that time come up to me and say, by God, I didn't know you were following me around back then.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_05: You know, is they all they all thought a certain character was them.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_05: And in a way, the characters were an amalgamation of people I had really known in Ruidoza.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_03: As it pertains to your career, Scott, I think you would Agree you've shifted into high gear when uh when you came back to Remington Park and you became the general manager at Remington Park with the implementation of the Recino and what have you, and Remington Park being one of the pinnacle meets in the sport, and I would say that you were at the helm during that period of time when it was really shifting in in high gear on all 12 cylinders.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_05: Well, it it it was, and actually we were I was uh running the national racetrack of Uruguay and got a call that the uh actually I watched on the internet we knew about state question 712, and I had heard that Remington Park was going to close if it didn't pass, and I saw on the internet where the bill passed, and I told my wife, well, it looks like Remington Park will survive after all.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_05: And the next day I got a call from Corey Johnson and he hired me to to come back.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_05: And uh I will admit that I took a substantial pay cut at first to come back, but I really wanted to be back at Remington.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_05: And uh we put in the casino, we put in the big screen, we started hair testing, we did a we did a lot, I think, in terms of you know working with the horsemen and the commission to help improve the uh the quality of the sport and the quality of the racing.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_05: And then that when the Chickasaws bought Remington in 2010, they immediately sank 18 million dollars in the first 15 months to uh help bring it back to its former state of appearance and so on.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_05: It had it had begun to be a very run-down facility.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_03: I do.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_03: Uh in the early years of how pristine uh the early, early days of Ribbington Park, it was just it seemed artificial because everything was just perfect.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_03: It was everything was painted perfectly, and and uh it did go through that period of time you were talking about, but uh it has certainly returned back to its former glory.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_05: Well, a lot of good people there, and we're very proud of the the meet.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_05: And um the the day-to-day purses are so exceptional that that's that's really your your bread and butter for the sport, is those those everyday races.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_03: Scott, with all of the history that you've been able to witness in the the sport of quarter horse racing, dating back all the way back your the inception of the all-American Futurity you were just referring to earlier in this conversation until the modern day, you've seen all of the horses that we're talk that we call legendary in the sport, as well as all the horsemen you've you've at one time or another probably had exchanged pleasantries or had big discussions on there.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_03: As it pertains to some of the top horses that you've seen in your span of your career, what are some of the ones that just jump off the page that uh if if I were to impress you for give us a list of some of the the top ones that you ever seen or or or some that you are like your go-to to talk about, which one are those?
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_05: Well, let me let me begin by saying that uh that today's quarter horses are running 440 yards eight lengths faster than Go Man Go, who was three-time consecutive world champion.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_05: That's that's astonishing.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_03: That is astonishing.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_05: I s I still get back to um I mean, look, Danger, one of the greatest horses I've ever seen.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_05: And and in recent times, he stands out as as an exceptional horse.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_05: Um Truckle Feature breaking the world record by half a second that day at Rodosa Downs was uh was just astonishing.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_05: He had, I think, two All-American fraternity winners behind him and a bunch of really good horses.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_05: Our sport is the margins are so slim.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and you know, time does mean something.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_05: So uh I see all these horses in recent years that uh and some of them I haven't seen run personally, and so I can't judge them.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_05: So I never say this was the fastest horse of all time because um, you know, we just don't know.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_05: Uh horses from different eras and so on.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_05: But that's why I say that the the breed has advanced so much, and um, you know the 21-second flat quarter mile just seemed an impossibility for a long time, and now it's you need to do that to even qualify.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, we had a whole field of horses in the All-American Derby this year that was sub-21.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_03: So it's just amazing the difference.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_03: You're absolutely right.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_03: Now, as it pertains to the horsemen, you you've been able to meet at the the highest level as it pertains to horsemen.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you've even talked about several of them on the podcast already here.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_03: Uh some of the ones that really stand out that you've that you've always been an admirer of that this this individual is ultra special.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_05: I've known Jack Brooks since I was a teenager.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, what can you say?
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_05: Man won eight All-American fraternities.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_05: It's the toughest race in the world to win.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_05: You don't just win the one race, you have to you have to get there.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_05: And he won it eight times.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_05: No one else has ever won it more than three.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_05: Um that just says it all.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_05: Uh you know, Blaine Schwaneveld never won it, Wayne Lucas never won it.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_05: Some pretty good hands have tried to win it.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_05: And this one guy won it eight times, and that was his goal.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_05: So uh some of the best horsemen, period, that I've ever known have have been former quarter horse trainers or or are still quarter horse trainers, you know.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_05: Um a lot of these thoroughbred trainers can read a racing form, and I'm not talking so much about here in Oklahoma, but but in some areas of the country, back east for sure, a lot of those guys are are rich guys that can read a racing form, a condition book, but they have other people at their barn that are really doing the hands-on work with the horses.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_05: And um most of the quarter horse guys came up doing it hands-on and and then they delegate.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_05: So, you know, uh guys like Wayne Lucas and Bob Baffert, um they really did learn their trade working with quarter horse.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_05: And Paul Jones is another one who's and uh he grew up in the schedule and then he he treated it as a business and was tremendously successful.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_03: Still is.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_03: So Scott, it came but it came a time you decided that to it was time to retire and uh move away from racetrack life and all, and and kind of talk about that decision as well as how do you uh occupy yourself now that you're in retirement?
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_05: Well the retirement itself was was wonderful.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_05: They threw me a big party at Remington Park, and it was uh it was a wonderful occasion.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_05: But I tell you, for a a year and a half or two years, I really uh struggled with with what to do with myself.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_05: And I just I and my golf game didn't get a lot better right away either.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_05: But uh I've I've settled into retirement very comfortably, and uh one of the reasons that I retired when I did was we have one grandson, and he was five at the time, and I've got to say these last five years, uh he's 10 now, uh, have been some very, very happy times we've spent together.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_05: And uh wouldn't have had that otherwise because uh running two racetracks is in two different states is akin to being mayor of two towns in different states.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_05: Anyway, um I'm very happily retired, and I I did want to share along the lines of what we were talking about, I did want to share some of my memories of of past events, and so I have a long history of writing for Speedhorse magazine.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_05: Uh I think I've done 25 articles over the past five years, uh or maybe maybe uh even a few more for Speedhorse, and I've covered a lot of the uh past events that we've talked about in this uh podcast.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_05: So that has kept me uh as busy as I want to be, I'll put it that way.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_03: Any chance we can get another book or two out of you, Scott?
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I'm I write pretty frequently.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_05: I I don't write daily, but I write I write steadily.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_05: I've I've got a lot of pages.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know what I'll do with them, uh, but there might be a book in there someday.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_03: Well, Scott, I'd again I want to circle back and say that your work, especially in the the his uh I guess preserving history and quarter horse racing, is certainly one of the legacies that you're going to to take with you, and it's going to be carried in the industry here as long as we have an industry.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_03: But I definitely want to take an opportunity to thank you for for doing that for the industry and having that foresight.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_03: But uh obviously want to help thank you so very much for getting on the podcast today and taking us down a trip down memory lane of your career as well as some of the events that uh have been legendary in the sport.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_05: Well, Greg, your your podcast and all the work you do is uh is helping save the history of the industry, and we all appreciate that.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_05: So it's been an honor and a pleasure to uh be part of your work.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks so much again, Scott.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_03: You bet.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_03: Hold on one second.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_08: And we'll be right back after these words.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_12: He's one of the top three second-year sires in the country, and he's Eagles Fly Higher, with his top earner being Eagle on a June bug, the graded stakes winner with earnings of nearly$375,000 on the track.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_12: Eagles Fly Higher is a grade one winner and two-time champion.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_12: And he stands at the Louisiana Center for Equine Reproduction in Opalousis, Louisiana.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_00: Stand by for an announcement.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_00: In three, two, one, go.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_12: 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 Quarterhors' near Wayne, Oklahoma.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_12: And not only that, but Uncle D has also been named as one of the stallion in the Fuego Stallion program.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_12: He was the winner of the Grade 1 Rainbow Futurity, was named both the AQHA Racing Champion two-year-old and champion two-year-old Colt, and retired with earnings of over$689,000 before siring a grade one winner already in his stud career.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_12: So that's the big news.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_12: His top 30-year sire Uncle D will return to Oklahoma for the 2027 breeding season at Cavnaw Quarter Horses in Wayne, Oklahoma.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_12: Make your plans now to book your mayors for the upcoming breeding season.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_12: All right, back to the show.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_02: All right, we're back here in the preview section looking at two great stakes races, one out in Albuquerque and one at Lone Star, but let's stay in New Mexico, Yancey, and talk about the Grade 1 Albuquerque Fall Quarter Horse Championship, a grade one event.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_03: It has a berth into the champion of champions on the line for the lucky winner to come out of this race and go into that big race out in California.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_03: A stacked field.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, we could sit here and talk about multiple ones we have, probably I'm counting up here, uh, at least five of them under s under 10-1, and including the all-American Gold Cup winner who is the morning line favorite, Paradise Pete at 5-2.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I mean, we have to start with Paradise Pete after the performance that he put up in the Gold Cup last time out.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, I remember being there watching that race live, and I was like a hundred yards from the wire, I was like, oh, he's got it.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_07: And he definitely isn't gonna slip under anyone's radar now.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_07: Now he's got approved.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_07: Now he just has to we just have to see if he's consistent at running at that level, which he's won his last three races in a row, including the grade two Mr.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_07: Jetmore.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_07: And then, like I said, the race he won on the go ran in the gold cup last time out was really impressive.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_07: He put up a 102 speed figure, clocked at final time of 2069.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, it's hard to knock this horse.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_07: He's look super good right now.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_03: And Yancy, we were able to get on the phone with owner Stephen Harris of Paradise Pete to talk to Steven about his pursuit of getting this horse into the champion of champions.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_03: And of course, that route goes through Albuquerque.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_03: On the phone with Stephen Harris, owner of Paradise Pete, the winner of the All-American Gold Cup, and the favorite going into the Albuquerque Championship, the grade one event, which of course earns a birth to the champion of champions.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_03: And Steve, I think that's probably more than reason enough for you to be in this field.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, absolutely.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, we're we're definitely excited and uh just just uh the nerves are already kicking in, to be quite honest.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_03: You've seen a lot of these horses that are in the field.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_03: Um many of grade one winners, Toast and Heroes, RC, Corona King, uh as well as KJ Desperado, but uh the three-year-old Philly is on the outside there.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_03: GSC Senfill for Wes Giles.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_03: Uh that was a surprise for me.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I was a little bit surprised when I when I got the list um of the nominees before they were actually entered.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_04: I said, Well, you know, she she ran third, I think, in her last out, uh the the derby, and maybe they're trying to redeem herself or something.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_04: You hate to think that a Philly can come in and and beat all those boys, uh, but uh I I guess anything's possible.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_04: That that 10 hole for me hasn't been a great hole, at least for for Paradise Pete.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_04: It's you know, sometimes they can get a little lost or something, and uh, but yeah, I guess it just depends on the horse.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_03: As it pertains to Pete, how has he been training since the Gold Cup win?
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_04: Well, you know, I'll tell you, David said he could he acted like he could have run a a week later, you know.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_04: He's he he came back feeling really good, uh, much better um than you know some of the previous uh 400-yard races.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_04: Uh he he was um you know if you got a video of him, you know, he's pinning his ears back and everything the day after, you just um he's full of himself, you know.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_04: So only thing about it, you just hope um they can he can maintain that up till Saturday night when when it's time to lay it on the table, you know.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_04: Just got my fingers crossed.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_04: I I think he's good enough, that's for sure.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_04: You know, if he's hitting on all eight silinders, uh it should be a heck of a race.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_03: Another horse to look at is a surprise in the field for me, Yancy.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_03: It's the fastest qualifier for the all-American Derby.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_02: She's a Philly, three-year-old Philly going up against older horses than West Gile trained GFG Central.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_07: You know, we know how fast this horse is, and we know how impressive it is.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_07: Track record holder now at 440.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_07: Um winner of the Rainbow Oaks.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_07: She's a rocket ship from the gate, but yeah, I was kind of surprised too to see her go into this field.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_07: Uh I did put down too that I mean Noah Garcia, he's been riding both GFC Sinful and KJ Desperado, who's in this race as well, and he elects to stay on GFC Sinful.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_07: And from the outside, if she breaks, she's going to be hard to outrun.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_07: Just a matter of if she can run with the older horses or not.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_03: Three-year-old Philly.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_03: Uh certainly if she would have ran huge in the All-American Derby and won the race, she would have earned a berth into the champion of champions.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_03: And I imagine that's what Wes Giles' logic here is going up against these older horses, taking a chance that clearly she must be in good order coming out of the All-American Oaks, or more than likely Wes wouldn't have even really considered going into this race.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and of course, she's going to face her stablemate, KG Desperado, who ran a third in the All-American Gold Cut behind Paradise Pete.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_03: But, you know, he's one of those horses.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_03: He shows up some on some of the big occasions.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_02: He's almost$3.5 million earned in the bank.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_02: He's a horse probably on the tail end of his career.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_03: So I would imagine taking a shot at the Albuquerque Championship to try to get into the champion of champions, this is his horse's opportunity to shine.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I agree.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_07: Can't agree with you more on that, on KJ Desperado, Greg.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, he's been right there all year.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, the race he ran in the in the Debbie Shaf, we've talked about how good a race that was, and he was right there in the Gold Cup.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_07: Um, but I agree.
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_07: I think it's kind of his kind of his last stance.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_07: I think they're trying to hopefully get him qualified to the champion of champions and and give him that chance to run out there.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_07: Um another one that we have to talk about and that I put from a handicamper's view, the nine horse toast and heroes, getting eight to one on toasting heroes.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, if you're betting that's the horse you would want to bet.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, this horse you throw the Debbie Schaff out, and this horse has competed at the top of the game this whole year, ran against the best of the best, beat the best of the best.
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, in the D Raper, he beat Impressum, um run second in the Gold Cup, kind of didn't break that good, but really finished.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_07: And he's run good at Albuquerque before.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_07: He won the La Fiesta Derby last year, so you cannot leave the nine out in this race.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_03: Without a doubt, and if you go all the way back to February, the championship at Sunland Park faced the world champion FTD Dreams, took him down.
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_02: So, like you're saying, if this horse didn't have a bad race in the Debbie Chaff, we'd be sitting here talking about a horse is more than likely either co-favorite or right off of being second choice in the race.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_02: But getting eight to one on a horse of this caliber, as well as just finishing second behind Paradise Pete in the All-American Gold Cup, he has to step up and earn his way into the champion of champions.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I know that this is definitely what owner Gene Cox is hoping to get.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_02: And that'll lead us over to Lone Star Park, the grade three BF Phillips for Texas bred three-year-olds and up, going 400 yards for a$50,000 purse in definite standout in this field, and that's the four.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, the four Caspretito.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_07: He's the nine to five favorite in the race.
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_07: Um comes out of the Carlos Sanchez barn with Luis Angel Maldonado in the irons.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_07: Um this horse has competed in stakes races all year.
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_07: He's had five starts, three wins, two seconds.
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_07: Um he had a really good campaign at Sam Houston.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_07: He he won two grade twos there earlier this year, the Willie Hickman and the Sam Houston Classic Stakes.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_07: And then more recently, he he ran second in the grade two TQHA Classic Stake, and then last time out he won the Heel County stakes at Golips County Fairgrounds.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_07: So on the Texas circuit, he's been in stakes all year, and looks like he's shaping up good for this race.
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_03: One of the key races a lot of these horses, or contenders you call them, are coming out of it was the Dr.
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_03: Glenn Blodgett stakes last time out.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_02: 9-1-1 won this race against multiple others that were just right behind 9-1-1, but yet 9-1-1 is not even really the second choice in the field.
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_02: He's at 5-1 behind a horse that he actually beat in his last time out.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_02: So other than the favorite being a bona fide clear-cut favorite in the field, I believe this race is wide open.
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_02: Theoretically, if if the four-horse, for instance, scratches, I think this race is completely wide open.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I I mean 9-1-1, you never know what horse is gonna show up when when he's at the top of his game, he's really hard to beat.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_07: But and like you said, he he won the Glenn Blodget last time out, and Blood's Valiant Policy was in that race, and she was the morning line favorite going into that race, and she just threw us a dud.
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_07: Um, this horse is Blood's Valiant Policy is a horse that she acts up in the gate a lot and she doesn't always break good.
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_07: But man, when she breaks, she's super hard to beat.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_07: I've kind of watched her all year.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_07: She's has six starts, four wins.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_07: Uh, she was first in the Mystery Thomas stakes, uh, she was second in the Sam Houston stakes.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_07: So she's another one that on her best day, and she puts up really fast speed figures as well, but you just never know if she's gonna behave herself from break from the gates.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_07: But I agree those are the three horses that I think are the top horses in this race, and we'll see which one shows up on race day.
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_03: All right, and that'll do it not only for this preview section, but also for this episode of Quarter Horse Racing Talk Weekly, as we do absolutely appreciate all our listeners as we're closing in on our first year anniversary of when we switched over to the weekly podcast.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm hoping to bring you an extra special show to celebrate our anniversary here on the number one quarter horse racing talk podcast in the country, and that's Quarter Horse Racing Talk Weekly.