Page 136 - Speedhorse March 2019

The Eternal Gamble
by Lyn Jank
Vernon Pool grew up in Canadian, Texas, where his father owned a hotel and was a railroad contractor “who depended on horses and mules instead of the heavy equipment we have today.” Vernon and his brother, Jesse, also became contractors and, by the 1950s, were pri- marily involved in road and dam construction. The days when horses did the pulling, hauling and scraping were gone, and the only horses Vernon was concerned with were the ones he occasionally bet on when vacationing in Ruidoso.
The decade of the 50s belonged to such running horsemen as J.B. “Johnny” Ferguson, A.B. Green, Gene Hensley and Carl Mercer, men never known for backing off from a match or a wager. Their generation grew up
on the cusp of the old and the new. They knew the Quarter Horse as he had been, as he was, and envisioned what they wanted him to become. They advanced, sometimes separately, sometimes together, to shape an industry. Throughout the 1950s, Vernon’s contacts with men such as these became closer.
“I don’t think anybody has ever done more to promote the industry than Gene Hensley and Carl Mercer, from getting things going in Ruidoso, from bringing on the All American and Rainbow Futurities, and starting the All American Yearling Sale, on down the line.
“Johnny Ferguson and A.B. Green were close friends, but locked horns more than once. Of all the good horses they had, it was Top Deck and Go Man Go that they went all out for, at a time when “powers that be” didn’t want anything to do with Top Deck or Go Man Go.
“From the time Johnny bought Top Deck from Ernest Lane until the horse’s death, Johnny was his sole owner. But Top Deck spent most of his productive life with A.B., because Purcell, Oklahoma, was more convenient for mare own- ers than Wharton, Texas, where Johnny lived.
“Johnny got Go Man Go when he bred Lightfoot Sis to Top Deck in ’53, raced Go Man Go in ’55, then A.B. came in on the ownership, raced Go Man Go in ’56, but Johnny had the stallion again in ’57 and
Vernon Pool
owned him until Go Man Go was sold to Vessels in 1960 or ’61.
“Go Man Go was World Champion in ’55, ’56 and ’57. I’ve always wondered what would have happened to this industry if Johnny and A.B. had gone along with most everybody else and decided Top Deck and Go Man Go weren’t worth the effort.
“Somebody like me, who’s never been against enjoying a fast horse and the friendship of good men who’re hooked on the same thing
– well, it’s only a matter of time before you wake up and find yourself in the business.
“I was 39 in 1958 when Carl Mercer said he wanted a track built at his place in Ada, Oklahoma. My brother, Jesse, and I built it. What we got as payment was a package: a Thoroughbred mare, in foal, that Carl had bought from a Ronald Reagan consignment in a California sale; a yearling brother of his Aunt Judy, and a little weanling filly, Three-Fifteen, by Vandy out of Topaz Girl.
132 SPEEDHORSE, March 2019
Vernon Pool and Bruce Green
LOOKING BACK - AN EXCERPT FROM JANUARY 1982 ISSUE