Page 99 - Speedhorse April 2019

After that meeting, Lee returned home and started researching local individuals. He met breeder Geral Baxter, intending to buy a broodmare to breed to Wave Carver. While there, a 2-year-old filly caught his eye, so he bought Racie Rebecca (Ichie Tichie Dancer-Striking Rebecca, by Striking Distance).
“She put me on the map,” Lee says. “On January 15, 2018, she won her first race — also my first win as an owner. That was also Martin Luther King Jr. Day, so it was quite symbolic in many ways. Every trainer who has ever trained her, including Mr. Tom Mosely and Mr. Trey Ellis, told me that she’s the
type of horse that will make a heck of a broodmare because she has a bunch of heart to go with her skill.”
Of 23 outs, Racie Rebecca hit the boards 10 times. She just retired, and as of publication,
is at the breeding shed of Ivory James. The sire
is significant to Lee not only because of his accomplishments, but also because of his namesake, a black man who helped raise the stallion’s owner, Sylvia Shaw Pitman, and her brother, John Shaw.
A ROLLER COASTER DAY
As high a high as Racie Rebecca’s first win brought for Lee, the day also brought the lowest low. About 15 minutes after the mare crossed the finish line, Lee’s mare Shinnie, whom he’d bought from Buddy and Patty Newsome, took a turn for the worse as the result of a systemic infection.
“Shinnie was by Valiant Hero and out of Dash Of Perry, who ran second in the All American,” Lee says. “I was on Cloud 99; we’d just won our first race at a pari-mutuel track and I was ecstatic. I was on the phone with Maurice and I said, ‘Hold on, it’s Dr. Sabrina Jacobs and I just talked to her a while ago so this can’t be good.’”
Dr. Jacobs told Lee that Shinnie had become septic and they were going to have to put her down. Lee was devastated. “I told Dr. Jacobs that she
was in foal to Hes Relentless but she said the baby wasn’t big enough to survive. So not only would we lose Shinnie, we’d also lose her foal.
“I told Dr. Jacobs she was such a great animal and I didn’t want her to suffer, so I thought we should just bury her, but she told me Shinnie was sedated and not suffering, and suggested harvesting her ovaries and inseminating her using ICSI [intracytoplasmic sperm injection]. I’d never heard of it, but I got on the phone to stud farms of sires I was interested in, and I ended up calling probably the most influential person in Quarter Horse racing, Mr. Butch Wise. I explained what had happened and that I had already been looking at Wagon Tales, who stands at Lazy E, at some of the stallion service auctions.”
Long story short, Butch came through for Lee, and from 14 eggs, eight matured and two produced Wagon Tales fillies out of Shinnie this year. “When they say to make lemonade when life gives you lemons, I’m all about lemon meringue pie, lemon bars, lemonade ... ,” Lee says. “You’ve got to make the most of whatever comes your way, and I think we did that with the help of a lot of good people.”
With school athletics behind him, he set about finding another outlet for his competitive nature. He found it in horses.
Lee’s mare Shinnie,
shown here at Sam Houston Race Park in 2014, had to be put down due to sepsis, but her ovaries were harvested and ICSI fertilization produced two foals.
Two fillies by Wagon Tales and out of Shinnie were born this year.
SPEEDHORSE, April 2019 97