Page 39 - August 2016

“I see veterinary work and the race industry from a different perspective now, and I understand better how the owner and the horse feel.”
year’s sixth leading owner slot with $429,019 in earnings. Keeping it in the family, Duke owned the 17th leading trainer position with $484,165, and Mixer homebred A Tres Of Paint sat 24th in leading runners with $147,270 for the year.
Robert is also active in the breeding end of The Mixer Ranch. “He used to help his father with his horses,” Jill says. “Robert raised some horses of his own, then got away from it for a while. But, he got back into it when we met.”
BREEDING AND RACING
The Mixers started breeding with one mare, Stylish Sign, by Vital Sign and out of the First Down Dash mare Down Pillow. “I acquired Stylish Sign from John Purcell,” Jill says. “He claimed her at Lone Star in 2000 for $6,250 and I kind of instigated that claim. I said, ‘John, if you claim this mare, can I have her for a broodmare after you’re done racing her?’ So, that’s how that came about.”
Stylish Sign’s first foal, a Strawfly Special colt named Stylish Strawfly, went to Mexico and unofficially won $150,000 in four wins in 2003, Jill says. “That’s when people took notice of Stylish Sign and her foals,” she adds. It was Robert who suggested they keep some of her fillies for their broodmare band.
“We kept Signs Zoomer, who placed fourth
in the Oklahoma Horsemen’s Association Futurity-G2 and sixth in the Black Gold Futurity, both in 2008,” Jill says. Among her first three foals
to race, Signs Zoomer produced stakes winners Wagon Tales and The Fiscal Cliff, both by PYC Paint Your Wagon. Wagon Tales earned $427,579 in three years on the track, winning the Remington Park Juvenile Stakes, his Heritage Place Futurity trial, and his All American Futurity trial in 2013, the A Ransom Handicap in 2014, and his trial for the Los Alamitos Winter Championship in 2015. The Fiscal Cliff — bred by Thomas D. Lepic and ranked fifth by wins and 38th by earnings in 2015 on Equibase — won $230,407 in two seasons, including his Heritage Place Futurity trial and
the Heritage Place Juvenile Invitational and his trial and the final for both the Iowa Double Gold Futurity and the Jim Bader Futurity in 2015, and then the Ruidoso Derby Challenge trial in 2016.
First Painted Sign, both Stylish Sign and PYC Paint Your Wagon’s first stakes-winning foal, came along in 2008. In two years on the track, she won $284,911, winning her trial and the final for both the Oklahoma Futurity-G2 and the Speedhorse Gold and Silver Cup Futurity-G1. She went on to produce graded stakes winners First Valiant Sign ($696,960, winner of the Ruidoso Futurity-G1 and his trials to the All American Futurity and the 2016 Rainbow Derby); A Tres Of Paint ($509,184, winner of her trials to the Remington Park Oklahoma Bred, Heritage Place, All American, and Texas Classic futurities and both her trial and the final to the Remington Park Oklahoma Bred Derby-G3); and Apollitical Sign ($96,523, winner of the Hobbs America Derby-G3).
“First Painted Sign is a beautiful mare with picture perfect conformation,” Jill says. “We hear from people who buy yearlings out of this family that they’re just willing to please and do whatever you ask them to do. They call them ‘gentle as puppy dogs.’ A little kid could handle them, they’re so easygoing!”
In 2009, Stylish Sign produced Second Painted Sign, a colt who earned $101,604 in two years including wins in his trial for the Speedhorse Gold & Silver Cup Futurity and the Remington Park Oklahoma-Bred Derby; his trial and the final for the Oklahoma Horseman’s Association Derby; and the Will Rogers Derby Challenge. He now stands at stud at Bowlan Farms in Tecumseh, Oklahoma. “His first crop will hit the racetrack next year, about 10 of them,” Jill says. “We really just wanted to breed him to our own mares at first, but this year he bred about 120 mares.”
In 2015, two of Stylish Sign’s daughter First Painted Sign’s foals (First Valiant Sign and A Tres Of Paint) and one foal out of Stylish Sign (Mr PYC To You) qualified for the Rainbow Futurity final. Now 20 and retired, Stylish Sign will live out her days at The Mixer Ranch while her talented offspring take over her duties in the broodmare barn. “We have five broodmares right now, and with the two fillies Sara has in training, that’ll increase to seven over the next couple years. We don’t really want to get any more than that,” Jill says.
Jill Mixer with son Duke Shults, husband Robert, son Ryan Shults, and daughter Sara Leann Morgan receiving awards at the 2016 Oklahoma Quarter Horse Racing Association banquet.
SPEEDHORSE, August 2016 37