Page 148 - Speedhorse, February 2019

Horse Association. Dwight was an AQHA Judging Contest awards breakfast sponsor for many years.
Later in their lives, Kaye was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Kaye passed away January of 1997 at the age of 62 after a valiant 9-year battle with the disease.
Then Dwight married Peggy Noble in April 1999. Ebonys Moonbeam owned by Peggy Van Dorn and shown primarily by Roger Branch had an impressive AQHA career.
Easy Date
1972 bay m. (Easy Jet-Spot Cash TB, Roman Sandal)
A look at the pedigree of Easy Date reveals exactly why the bay filly took the racing industry by storm in the mid-70s. Easy Date is from Easy Jet’s second crop of foals, and she was out of the Roman Sandal TB mare Spot Cash.
With bloodlines rich in speed, Easy Date outshined the other racing prospects because
of her even temperament and her aggressive attitude on the track. Legendary breeder and owner Walter Merrick of Sayre, Oklahoma, first noticed these traits.
Easy Date won the 1974 All American Quarter Horse Futurity, before a crowd of more than 20 million people who watched the live telecast of the $766,000 race. She was the first All American Futurity winner by an All American Futurity winner.
Easy Date won nine stakes at six tracks
in three states, including the Kindergarten Futurity, Rainbow Derby, Champion of Champions at Los Alamitos and Golden State Derby at Bay Meadows. Easy Date finished off the board only twice in her career. She also set the 1/4-mile track record at Bay Meadows in May 1975. The bay retired with $849,710 in earnings, putting her at the top of the all-time money earners list in 1977.
She produced 11 foals that earned $101,931. The highest individual money earner was Toast The Host, a stakes-winning son of Raise Your Glass TB.
Easy Date was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 2002.
Laico Bird
1965 br. m. (Good Bird TB-Paula Laico, Laico TB)
Laico Bird was foaled in April 1965. A daughter of Good Bird TB and out of Paula Laico, she was bred by B R Campbell of Frederick, Oklahoma. Floyd H Jones Sr. purchased the filly for his two sons, Floyd H
Jr. and Jimmy Ray Bailey Jones. The delicate feminine filly, standing just over 14 hands, garnered every laurel for which she was available, in the voting for the 1967 year end championships, by the American Quarter Horse Association racing Committee.
Laico Bird’s most outstanding accomplishments was becoming the world’s richest Quarter Horse with the astronomical earnings of $ 406,399.20. She achieved this
by winning the All American Quarter Horse Futurity, Los Alamitos Futurity, Raton Futurity, Texas Futurity, Columbus Futurity, and placing second in the Rainbow futurity and Blue Ribbon Futurity. At age two, in 17 starts, she amassed; 11 wins, 5 second place finishes.
Laico Bird came back, as a three year old to win the Button and Bows Derby, placed second in the Raton Derby, Sunland Park Fall Derby, and third in the Rainbow Derby and Ruidoso Championship stakes. She retired with a race record of 34 starts, 17 firsts, 12 seconds, and 3 third place finishes, earning $ 435,653.00 in her lifetime.
Retired at the end of 1968, she was bred to Jet Deck to produce two fillies, both stakes horses. She died of a twisted intestine in May 1971.
The Ole Man
1963 sor. h. (Three Bars TB-Chicado V, Chicaro Bill)
The Ole Man lived up to his name. Foaled in 1963, he was breeding well up to the day he died at age 32. The stallion was named for his Hall of Fame breeder, Frank Vessels Sr., The Ole Man who founded Los Alamitos Race Course, and both his sire and his dam are Hall of Famers.
Bred by Frank Vessels Sr., The Ole Man is by Three Bars TB, arguably the most all-around
influential Thoroughbred sire in Quarter Horse history. The sorrel colt is out of the Chicaro Bill mare Chicado V and was foaled shortly after the death of Vessels.
Rated SI 100, The Ole Man garnered eight wins, four seconds and seven thirds, and earned $20,657 out of 33 starts. From the time he earned his AAA rating, he won the Stallion Stakes and the Lightning Bar Stakes, and possessed the stamina, heart and soundness to run 24 races his 3 year old year.
In September 1966, The Ole Man was purchased for $100,000 by Roy Browning who stood the stallion on his Roy Browning Ranch at Shawnee, OKlahoma. A true all-around horse, The Ole Man sired 1,878 named foals in 28 crops, to be one of the very few sires of Superior champions in racing, performance and halter.
The Ole Man sired 554 horses that started in official Quarter Horse races, with 250 returning as winners and 15 of those in stakes, for earnings of $1,077,061. In AQHA shows, the stallion is represented by 10 AQHA Champions; 78 horses that earned 1,335.5 points in open halter and 14 that earned 702 points in youth halter; and 106 earners of 1,439.5 points in open performance, 21 earners of 48.5 in amateur performance
and 35 earners of 1,029.5 points in youth performance classes, for a total of 4,555 points.
The Ole Man died in February 1995. The Ole Man was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 2018.
Belle Mere Farms, Ltd (Dee & Betty Raper), Norman, OK
At one time, Belle Mere Farm Ltd. was one of the largest breeding farms in the Southwest. Owned and operated by Betty and her husband, 2010 Oklahoma Hall of Fame Inductee, Dee Raper. The early beginning was a farm just outside of Lexington, Oklahoma in 1983. In 1992, the farm moved to its present location in Norman, Oklahoma.
Over the past 50 years, Dee and Betty personally worked every aspect of the farm operations to ensure the high quality of care that Belle Mere Farm has built its reputation.
Laico Bird
The Ole Man
Belle Mere Farms, Ltd.
144 SPEEDHORSE, February 2019