Page 30 - February 2016 Speedhorse

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HEZA DASHA
pedigree on page 44
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FIREby Larry Thornton
see Heza Dasha Fire’s
Breeding the Best to the Best
When Heza Dasha Fire won the 2015 Champion of Champions-G1, he put an exclamation point on his performance for the year that gave him the title of 2015 AQHA World Champion. He went five for five in 2015, with dominating stakes wins in the Golden State Derby-G2, the Los Alamitos Super Derby-G1 and of course the Champion of Champions-G1 win. His earnings for the year totaled $726,432.
Don and Kathy Meneely and their
son Shawn bred Heza Dasha Fire in
the name of their S-Quarter K LLC of Kennewick, Washington. Heza Dasha Fire
is a Washington bred that is owned by his breeder. Heza Dasha Fire was piloted by Cruz Mendez and trained by Jose Flores. Heza Dasha Fire also took home the titles
of AQHA Champion Three Year Old and AQHA Champion Three-Year-Old Gelding.
When the AQHA Racing Champions were named at Heritage Place on Jan. 20, 2016, the Meneely family had a banner night. Their two-year-old half brother to Heza Dasha Fire, Ima Fearless Hero, took home the title of AQHA Champion Two- Year-Old Gelding. He won the 2015 Los Alamitos Two Million Futurity-G1. Both of these geldings are out of Dasha Freda, who received her award as an AQHA Dam of Distinction and S-Quarter K LLC was
named the AQHA Champion Breeders for 2015. What a night!
When you look at the pedigree of Heza Dasha Fire, you are reminded of the old saying “breed the best to the best to get the best.” This saying has been around since the beginning of horse breeding. The first goal is to improve your horse, and the best way to do that is to breed the best you’ve got to the best the industry has to offer. As you will see, the pedigree of Heza Dasha Fire is a combination of some of not only the best horses in our industry, but also some great nicks as well.
When you visit with Kathy Meneely, you get a clear picture that the plan from the beginning was to limit the quantity but not the quality, which goes along with breeding the best to the best. When Don and Kathy started out, they had some racehorses that ran in the Northwest and they were successful. Then, Don suggested that they sell the horses they had and buy one good mare and breed for quality, not quantity. This is a plan that has certainly paid off.
The mare they bought was First Down Dream by First Down Dash and she was out of the legendary mare Tinys Effort by Special Effort. First Down Dream would earn her ROM and an 87 speed index while winning only one of seven starts. But as a broodmare, she is the dam of nine starters
with eight ROM, one stakes winner and one stakes placed runner. The stakes winner is Ima Chickie Two by Chicks Beduino. She is the only filly to win both the PCQHRA Breeders’ Futurity-G2 and the PCQHRA Breeders’ Derby-G2. First Down Dream and Ima Chickie Two are now broodmares for Don and Kathy Meneely at S-Quarter K LLC.
The second mare to come into the fold
was Dasha Freda, the dam of Heza Dasha
Fire. We will let Kathy explain how this
mare comes into the program. “We went out looking for some really well bred horses and ended up with our first mare, First Down Dream. We took Dream, as I call her, down to Los Alamitos to run with Donna McArthur. Donna had a sister to Dream, also out of Tinys Effort. She had been successful with that mare, so we thought why not continue on with Donna as the trainer for Dream.”
Kathy then explained, “It was James McArthur that bought Freda for us. I had asked James to look at some horses at the Heritage Place Sale, and when we got down there, Donna told us James had gotten us a horse. And I thought, ‘No way,’ as I hadn’t got any paper work. I thought Donna was just kidding. So when I got back to the hotel, I called Heritage Place and I asked who bought hip number what ever it was and they said Quarter K, Inc. I thought, ‘Oh my
28 SPEEDHORSE, February 2016
SPEEDLINES