Page 169 - Speedhorse February 2018

Quarter Horse racing has changed a great deal over the years. Nowadays the race
tracks have starting gates for the horses to start from, the horses are handicapped by adding weight to those horses whose records indicate that they are much faster than others in the same race. The race tracks are made to be smooth, level and soft to prevent injury to the horses hooves and legs. And probably the biggest change of all is the spectator facilities. There is comfortable seating available with a good view so that all can see the race from start to finish. Also, at many tracks there are lights installed so that racing can be conducted at night.
During the 1930s in Arizona, there were more than enough races held. The racing facilities were a far cry from what we have today, however. There is no comparison actually. People had to stand along the sides of the track, stand in the back of trucks and trailers, or hang from trees. Even the horses look different today. They should be faster since selective breeding has been in use by professional horsemen a considerable period of time. Perhaps if we could average out all of the horses that race, they are faster. I have a strong feeling, however, that a
good many of the horses that ran during the 1930s could beat most of those running today.
Perhaps the people who own and train the horses have changed the most. Those old time Arizona Quarter Horsemen knew their own horses, and they tried to know as much as possible about all the other horses around. In match racing they had to know the horse they were racing against. As one old timer told me, “You don’t have to own the fastest horse in the country to win at match racing. You just have to know the other horse well enough to know that yours can beat him.”
Also, if one horse won every race that it was in, it became of little value since no one would race against it. To overcome this, some of the shrewd race horsemen would see to it that their horse lost occasionally. Of course, when they did this, they would have very little money riding on the outcome.
One horse of the late 1930s that always comes to mind when I think of Quarter Horse racing is Clabber. Clabber was one of a kind. Clabber’s owner, A.A. (Ab) Nichols, was also one of a kind. Ab not only knew running horses, but he also knew a great deal about running horse people. It was indeed a pleasure to watch
b by y J J i i m m D D a a w w s s o o n n
Clabber run, but as I look back on those days now, it was almost as good as listening to Ab Nichols getting a match race arranged. And I feel certain that Ab derived a certain amount
of pleasure from those preliminary discussions, otherwise he would not have been so adept at it.
I remember one such occasion when I
was treated to Clabber’s running and Ab’s arranging. Several other teenage boys and I rode our horses out to where certain races were to be run. We arrived at the track, which consisted of running a road grader over a stretch of the desert and knocking down the sage brush and smoothing down most of the bumps, fairly early in the morning, but a good sized crowd had already arrived.
We noticed Clabber tied to the back of a horse trailer with a small boy close at hand. We tied up our horses and went to locate Ab Nichols. When we saw that the preliminaries were under way, we would get close enough to hear it, but not close enough to interfere. We caught up with Ab just as he approached the Skinner trailer where Mrs. Skinner had a beautiful sorrel filly and a rather large heavy muscled bay mare tied.
SPEEDHORSE, February 2018 167
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