Page 51 - NMHBA Summer 2017

1947 Champion Stallion Pelican, shown here under jockey Tony Licano, was the first horse Walt ever ran at a pari-mutuel racetrack.
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and came back the next year with a combined harness and Quarter Horse meet. Bay Meadow’s Bill Kyne helped Frank Vessels to open the doors of Los Alamitos in 1951, and Quarter Horse racing began to prosper.
maker, too. He was a horse of tremendous strength and a rogue’s manner which required some special handling. Bart was ridden around the barn area instead of walked because of his free spirit, and he ran in a Citation overcheck bit every race. He was a very popular campaigner with betting crowds in California, and they would clap for him as he paraded to post.
In the summer of 1950, Walt and his wife Dorothy went to work for Lewis Blackwell on his ranch property near Tucumcari, New Mexico. He did all types of ranch work for Blackwell, including the care of his racing stock. But when Blackwell held a dispersal and sold all but two racehorses, Walt decided to quit. Still, Lewis had other plans for Walt. He gave him a new pick-up truck and a two- horse Miley trailer, and packed him off to Bay Meadows for the Fall meet.
Tommy Chavez was bugboy that year, but Walt knew talent when he
saw it. The only problem was the other jockeys at Bay Meadows saw it too, and contrived to get Tommy days so that
he was unable to ride Bart B.S. in the Shue Fly Purse. So, Walt made a trip
to Santa Anita to get well known Las Cruces born rider Jimmy Nichols. Even though Jimmy hadn’t ridden a Quarter Horse since he’d been a kid, he accepted the mount on the big grey. It was the only time Jimmy ever rode Bart B.S., and they won by daylight going the 330 yards in :17.2. Jimmy lost both stirrups coming out of the gates at the start, but neither he nor Bart lost one stride.
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Lewis Blackwell may have only kept two, but what a two! These two with lots of ability between them were Hard Twist and his lightning fast daughter, Legal Tender B. Hard Twist had devastated his opponents as a young horse, and ended up being named Champion Running Horse of 1946-47. He was retired from racing, and Blackwell bought him to stand at stud. The year Walt took Hard Twist to Bay Meadows he had been
bred to thirty mares, and even had colts running at the track. The horse was
nine years old when Walt put him back into racing condition, and Hard Twist’s first out at Bay Meadows left a lot to be desired. Then old Hard Twist turned it around in the Barbara B Handicap when he set a new track record for 400 yards in :20.3. Legal Tender B took more time, and Walt didn’t start her until her three- year-old season at Denver. She won her first out there, and would later do well
at Los Alamitos. She was the first big name filly Walt ran in California, but she was only the beginning. During this time Walt’s stable was growing, and 1951 also brought the year that J.C. Skirvins and his partner V.F. Yorba brought their horse
to him. After making a trip to Tucson to run Hard Twist, Walt took the Skirvins/ Yorba grey and bugboy Tommy Chavez back with him to California. So two more champions made the return journey to the sunny clime with the Harris stable: Tommy and Bart B.S., The Grey Ghost.
Bart got left at the gate his next
trip, and was narrowly beaten by gutsy Clabbertown G. Clabbertown G. was
the type of horse who ran every step of the way, but it was a different story in
the Northern Handicap (T. Chavez up) where Bart got another bad start. Left at the gate packing 128 pounds Bart B.S. ran like a big freight train to easily collar Clabbertown G. and Barbara L. in the time of :18.3. He ended out the year with a world’s record effort at Los Alamitos going 400 yards. Throughout his racing career, Bart B.S. was plagued with calcium in a knee, and Walt only started him a total of seventeen times in three years. The horse won the Rocky Mountain Championship the last year he ran.
Harris and Monita got along famously. Monita wasn’t a big mare, and she was
a finiky eater. It took a very quiet barn, and races spaced comfortably apart, to cater to her. In Walt she had someone who understood her, and for him she did some of her best running. She became a good gate horse, but couldn’t stand to
be roughed coming out of the gate so racing in California suited her very well. Pari-mutuel racing was a better regulated sport, and Quarter racing benefited from the bigger, well run tracks giving them racing dates. It would be of interest to New Mexico horsemen to know that although Monita ran well for her regular rider, Israel (Ike) Garza, someone else also got considerable run from her. Almost everyone in the local racing business knows valet Dell Jessop, and respects this avid fisherman very much. Walt told me that Dell and Monita made a very good team.
Of the many good horses Walt trained, Bart B.S. keeps a special place in his trainer’s heart. Bart knew he was a racehorse, and he was a big mischief-
It was during this stay in California that Walt first saw Monita. She had made an auspicous start in Del Rio when she set a world’s record in her first out as a two year old, but things had started going wrong. Walt told Lewis Blackwell about Monita and, after she flipped in the gate at Bay Meadows, Blackwell bought her for five thousand dollars. Walt turned her out immediately, and the only time she spent indoors off her grass paddock was when she was put up at night.
Horses he loved with a passion, and racing became his life.
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