Page 86 - April 2017

A delightful and refreshing part of the Carter story for me was meeting and visiting with the family members who are alive today. The term “his horses” had deep meaning and was used by everyone. Wilma Carter is 86 years old and lives in Caldwell, Idaho. I asked her what she did on the ranch. She answered, “I did all the cooking, washing, cleaning, raised five kids and mowed the lawn.” She respected and admired Jim Carter very much and called him “granddad.” She was with him from the time she was eighteen years old until his death. Jim Carter once said to her, “I have no first name.” She asked what he meant, and he replied, “Everyone calls me Mr. Carter.”
I asked Wilma how Jim Carter figured out the breeding program that developed such great world class horses. She lit up and answered with pride, “He just knew and understood how to do it. He was a great horseman.” In an earlier interview, she shared that he had stacks of horse books around his chair that he read. I inquired and found that part of these “horse books” were AQHA Chart books. For those too young or new to the industry, Chart books were perfor- mance and breeding records supplied by the AQHA before we had computers.
Jim Carter made three major strategic moves that supported his vision and action plan.
He purchased several mares by Midnight Jr, the 1939 Quarter Horse stallion, from H. S. Bissell of Las Cruces, New Mexico. He drove his cattle truck to New Mexico, where cowboys
Some of “his horses”
include top names
such as . . .
• Top Moon, multiple Champion sire including World Champion Moon Lark. (bottom left)
• Moon Deck, multiple Champion sire including World Champion Jet Deck. (bottom right)
• Miss Night Bar, dam of World Champion Jet Deck. (top right)
• 1963 World Champion Jet Deck, multiple Champion sire including World Champions Easy Jet and Mr Jet Moore. (top left)
rode for several days in the desert, to find horses he wanted. He also wanted one mare by the Thoroughbred stud Nassak that they had on the ranch. One filly by Nassak was Caprica, the dam of Champion Caprideck and the grandam of
the great Top Moon. Finally, he found enough horses even though not all were the exact ones he had come for, and he began loading the horses to start home. Another filly raised such a fuss over being separated from the group that Carter said he would take her and loaded her in the truck. She turned out to be Belle Of Midnight, a 1943 Quarter Horse mare by Midnight Jr and the dam of the great mare Miss Night Bar, who is the dam of the immortal World Champion Jet Deck.
Carter then made the decision to buy a son of Three Bars TB and settled on Barred, a 1946 AAA Quarter Horse stallion. He reportedly purchased the horse without seeing him and did it on breed- ing and performance alone. Barred was purchased to breed the mares by Midnight Jr and Nassak.
Next, he made the decision to buy Moon Deck, the 1950 Quarter Horse son of Top Deck TB. Jim Carter was focused, but he did not attend meetings or conventions, and rarely attended sales. He worked his entire life and stayed close to his ranch, family and “his horses.” Moon Deck had finished racing and was entered in a sale, however, and this was one of the times Carter decided to go to a sale. He called to make sure Moon Deck was going to sell, then drove across several states to the sale and bought him. His purpose was to breed
Moon Deck to his daughters of Barred out of mares by Midnight Jr and Nassak, thus complet- ing his vision and plan for “his horses.”
These strategic moves by this quiet, focused, visionary horseman from rural Oregon helped produce horses that would forever change the face of Quarter Horse racing and breeding. Without his creations, there would be no First Down Dash, Mr Jess Perry, Corona Cartel, or thousands of other great horses we have in our industry today.
I found “his horses,” Moon Deck, World Champion Jet Deck, Top Moon and others
in the AQHA Hall of Fame. Great horses like World Champion Easy Jet that are the result of his breeding are there. I read of the accomplish- ments and great honors his horses and individu- als who owned them received. “His Horses”
are in the AQHA Hall of Fame but Mr. Carter, “The Forgotten Man,” is not.
Editor’s Note: “His horses” carry on his legacy, however, through the majority of our runners today. The world of Quarter Horse racing would not be the same without Mr. Carter. “I believe he would have made a difference wherever he was and would have went about his own business the same as he did in the remote west by himself,” said Ed McNelis. “Special people do special things regard- less of the challenges and hardships along the way.”
The Pacific Coast Quarter Horse Racing As- sociation gives out an annual award in honor of James V.A. Carter – the James V.A. Carter Award for Outstanding Broodmare.
84 SPEEDHORSE, April 2017