Page 80 - March 2017

THE EARLY DAYS
Lonnie, who was born in Ransom, Kansas, just 20 miles down the road from where he lives now, got involved in horse racing through his parents, Dwight and Peg. “My mother’s father ran match races back before I was born, and I remember back in the ’40s when I was a kid and my father was involved in racing, too,” he says.
“My father bought a little mare [ironically] called Dwight’s Leona. She was a little Leo mare that was hardly any bigger than a pony, and he’d take her around and run her at the small meets around here. He took her down to Oklahoma, and he took a young kid named Jerry Fisher along to do the riding.” Jerry went on to train Vessels Stallion Farm’s Timeto Thinkrich and Go Farth- erfaster, who won and placed fourth, respectively, in the 1973 All American Futurity.
“After that,” Lonnie continues, “my father bought a mare called Miss Wewonka and bred her to that Leo horse that Bud Warner stood. I think Dad bred her to him four times, and the big run- ner from that cross was a mare named Oleo. She set a track record back then, I think it was in 1953 or 1954, at La Mesa Park in Raton, New Mexico.
“At the time, the fellow that was training
her was named Clifford Wilson, but he went by PeeWee,” Lonnie adds. “He came back here and worked on the farm with us for about 60 years after he quit training there. He wanted to raise his kids here on the farm.” Sadly, Pee Wee passed away this year.
During those early years, Lonnie met Cheryl, whom he calls “a local gal that I’d seen in a little town next to where we lived. I kind of had my eye on her,” he jokes. “I guess that’s probably the
smartest thing I’ve ever done in my life is marry her. She was used to the climate and the hard work, and the days when the dirt blows and you can’t see much!”
They raised two sons: Stacy, 48, who works as an architect in Wichita, Kansas, and Shawn, 45, who works on the Terwilliger farm.
filly, Go Liz Go, on her side. So, when it came weaning time, we took Quincy Liz down.
“Bob raised some pretty good colts out of Quincy Liz and her daughter Miss Top Liz,” Lon- nie continues, “—Mr Big Wheel and The Wheel Horse and a few others. He bred her to Easy Jet two or three times.
“Then we took another of Quincy Liz’s daugh- ters, Go Liz Go,” continues Lonnie. “We ran her some, but she was best as a broodmare. She was the mother of Ima Liz, a Tiny Charger mare that produced Nadica, whose babies we partnered on with Vicki Coldiron [at Maui Farms].” Trained
by John Hammes, as were most all the Terwilliger horses, Nadica, a 1988 mare, won the Canter- bury Park Derby-G2 in Minnesota. Ima Liz also produced Dighton Drifter, whom Butch Gleason trained. “Dighton Drifter was a good 870 horse,” Lonnie says.
In 1982, Dwight and Lonnie bred their homebred Alamitos Bar mare Ima Stella to Raise Caine TB, producing one of Lonnie’s top all-time runners: Master Kane. “He wasn’t a very pretty horse,” says Lonnie. “He had a club foot and kind of a Roman nose, but he was just so hard-knock- ing that he was tough to outrun. When he won the Jayhawker Futurity [in 1985], I think he broke out of the nine hole and came through and won it. He broke last and finished first; that seemed like quite an accomplishment for, I think, 350 yards. He was a solid horse that ran good throughout his life, and Rick Escobel rode him for us.”
One of their horses that had a slow career start was 1970 mare Go Stella Go, by Go Man Go and out of Stella Reward by Sheilas Reward. “We bought her from the Mullendore dispersal at the Haymaker Sale, now Heritage Place, as a coming
Bred by Lonnie and his father Dwight, Dighton Drifter was a good 870 horse who won 26 of his 97 starts.
“. . . his focus has shifted to having been involved in the bloodlines that he’s raised through the years.”
THE COMEBACK
After the Miss Wewonka/Leo breedings, Dwight sold out for a few years. When he decided to get back into racing, he bought Quincy Liz from Ed Honnen in Denver. “Her first filly was
a 1968 Go Man Go mare named Go Liz Go,” Lonnie says. “Bob Moore [at one time part owner of the Heritage Place Sales, among other ventures] and Dad got to talking one day down there in Oklahoma about him buying Quincy Liz. My father said he’d sell her but we wanted to keep her
78 SPEEDHORSE, March 2017
One of Lonnie Terwilliger’s top homebred running horses was Master Kane, whom he bred with his father Dwight. The gelding won of 14 of 49 starts including 1985 Jayhawker Futurity.
Terwilliger purchased Go Stella Go from the Mullendore dispersal
at the Haymaker Sale (now Heritage Place). The mare was so slow Lonnie’s father said he, “could’ve run along behind her and kicked her in the rear every jump!” Go Stella Go ended up winning 7 of 10 starts, including 2 futurities, and produced the dam of Master Kane.