Page 137 - Speedhorse March 2019

The Thoroughbred Top Deck TB is the sire of 5 AQHA Champions, including World Champion Go Man Go.
“Jesse was upset at first, he didn’t care anything about horses. But I was getting a kick out of it, so all Jesse said was he guessed three horses wouldn’t hurt anybody.
“In 1959 I went to the AQHA Convention in Amarillo with A.B. and Les Gosselin,
and while we were there, we got together with Gene Hensley and Audie Murphy one afternoon at our motel. Audie had an option to buy all of A.B’s horses, but couldn’t come up with the money. Everything was down on paper, including the time of day when the option ended. It ended while we were in the motel room.
“Audie had asked me to come in with
him and put up the money, but I knew Jesse wouldn’t go for it. But I sat there, thinking about A.B’s horses. I’ve always been somebody who does things on the spur of the moment, so I asked Audie if he minded if I tried to strike a deal with A.B., and he said he didn’t.
“I asked A.B. what he would take for his horses, his ranch, everything, then he put on his hat and walked away. A.B. started pacing the floor, looking at the ceiling with his eyes squinted, everything got quiet, and then A.B. finally said he’d take half a million. I told him that he’d just sold out.
“A.B. wanted to go home and talk things over with his wife, Kathalyn, but I told him to call her, then and there, and he did. Kathalyn let him know in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t going to sell Barbara L or Polly Jane and that she didn’t want to give up her fishing pond.
“I’ve always thought a lot of Kathalyn Green, so I told A.B. she could go to the pond any time she wanted to, said she could keep Polly Jane and the other one, too, Barbara L, or whatever her name was. When I said that, every eyebrow in the room lifted, but at the time I didn’t know Barbara L from Joe Blow.
“The next thing I had to do was call Jesse and tell him what I’d done. When he got his voice back, he said it was like buying a beer and enjoying it so much you went out and bought the whole brewery.
“Once the deal was on with A.B., Les Gosselin wanted to sell me his horses, includ- ing Goetta, Josie’s Bar – he even threw in Go Man Go. He’d just leased Go Man Go from Johnny Ferguson, with an option to buy, and was planning on standing Go Man Go at his place in Edmond. Les said I could have the whole bunch for $175,000. Then Gene Hensley said he’d sell me Ruidoso Downs for less than that. I felt surrounded by men who were a lot smarter than I was, all of ‘em wanting to sell me something, so I backed off. If I’d known then what I know now, I’d have given my
brother a heart attack by going all the way. “When I went to Purcell to close the deal,
A.B. offered me fifty thousand to call it off, and I refused. He went out and bought the farm next door, and kept the name Green Pastures. He later sold it, and it became Briarwood Farms.
“Jesse and I called our new place the JV Ranch, and it’s lucky for us that we were able to keep A.B.’s manager Dobb York, and his trainer, Jerry Fisher. We’d come a long way from just three horses, but didn’t know the first thing about managing a horse farm.
“When I bought A.B.’s horses, a lot were in California with Jerry – like Oh My Oh, Miss Olene, Mr. Meyers, and Angie Miss. It was late fall, and Go Man Go’s yearlings from his first crop (1958) were there, too. All his first foals except one, Dynago Miss, owned by Les Gosselin, were in the bunch I bought. Go Man Go still didn’t have his number, neither did his foals, so they weren’t worth much at the time.
“Three-Fifteen, the filly that was part of the package we got from Carl Mercer, made her first out in ’60, went off the board at about 30 to one, nobody thought she could do anything, and I told my friends not to bet on her.
What she did was get the lead on the first jump, and she never lost it.
“Angie Miss, a Go Man Go daughter out of Johnny Angel, also made her first start in ’60, with Ronnie Banks aboard. She bucked all the way to the wire and finally did what she wanted to do – unseated Ronnie ten yards short of the wire, so her win didn’t count. She came back and redeemed herself more than once, later on.
“When I sold Angie Miss to Hadan Livestock after she was through racing, they
3-time World Champion Go Man Go, by Top Deck TB, is the sire of 5 Champions including World Champions Goetta and Go Josie Go.
Go Man Go Goetta Go Josie Go
SPEEDHORSE, March 2019 133
LOOKING BACK - AN EXCERPT FROM JANUARY 1982 ISSUE