Page 114 - Speedhorse July 2018

J
erry Whittle and His Bug
Je
It
broodmare legend. Jerry was the young man who put the first saddle on her fleet- footed colts. He broke her 1959 foal, Lady Lasan AAA; the 1960 Leo’s Showman AAAT; the 1961 Lady Bug Leo AAA; the 1963 Lady Bug’s Bar AAA; the 1964 Top Ladybug AAAT; the 1965 Barne’s Ladybug AAAT; the 1966 Lady Bug’s Moon AAAT; the 1967 Go Bug Go AA; and the 1968 Miss Paula Bug AA. With a broodmare like FL Lady Bug, a man wouldn’t need but one in his band.
It all began in 1958, when Jerry was still living in Ada, Oklahoma, with his mother and step-father, Lela and Marvin Barnes.
He says, “My mother was operating a beauty school at that time, and Marvin was an RCA calf roper, so I roped, too, and I’d go with him to Cheyenne and shows like that. Cow horses were what we knew back then. Marvin also traded horses and was running a small used car lot there in Ada. He had two cars on his lot, and he drove one of those. He made
a trade in 1958 and allowed $1,000 for a 14-year-old mare. He called around and tried to sell her, but nobody wanted her.” Marvin thought he had really bought a clunker! The ol’ mare was FL Lady Bug, and Marvin was to buy her and sell her four times before she finally came home to stay at the Barnes ranch, where she lived out the rest of her life. She
by Jane Pattie
Some people worry about
having bats in their belfry . . .
well, Jerry Whittle of Aubrey, Texas, has Bugs in his barn, and he’s
not worried at all! In fact, he’d be darned upset if he didn’t! He likes ‘em, especially the flying kind
that take wing when it comes to covering ground at the race track. This is the story of Jerry Whittle and his stallion, Jerry’s Bug.
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Beall, her eighth owner, who finally brought to light the mare’s breeding.
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Marvin decided he wanted her back. She was in foal to Olee San by Leo San, and it cost him $1,250. He kept her until she foaled a colt, which the Barneses named Leo’s Showman, and bred her back to their cutting stallion Leopie. Barnes decided to keep the colt and sell the mare. She was consigned to the Carl Mercer sale and sold, but when the buyer had second thoughts, Marvin bought her back again.
Meanwhile, Art Beall of Broken Arrow
had done some checking on FL Lady Bug,
and pedigree-wise, she was a mare he wanted. Beall contacted Barnes and after the prescribed horse trading once again FL Lady Bug changed hands. This time the selling price was $1,500.
Whittle reflects, “Up until this time, we never had thought about running horses. We had roped calves and bred a few horses, but they were using horses. Leo’s Showman was a yearling in 1961 and a little bitty horse. He was just 15 months old, but Marvin and I broke him and I rode him around a little bit and galloped him, and we decided we’d run him. Marvin’s friends thought he’d lost his mind! Leon White was at the Echo Ranch in Ada training horses, and we took the colt down to Leon, who trained him in the gate for us. Then we took him to the Oklahoma Futurity.
“We didn’t know much about running horses! Leo’s Showman was 19 months old when we took him to the track for the trials. Marvin unloaded him out of the trailer, and
Lady Bug’s Moon’s dam, FL Lady Bug, a
112 SPEEDHORSE, July 2018
She had been purchased as a foal by the Likens Flying L Ranch near Ardmore, hence the FL on her name. She was sired by Sergeant by Billy McCue and out of Yeager’s Lady JA. As she was to prove, she was a gold mine in a broodmare’s hide! But no one recognized her real worth until she was an old lady.
She stayed on the Flying L until she was sold in the ranch’s dispersal sale as a four year old. She was bought by Jim McDaniel, who took her to his ranch out in Roff, Oklahoma, where she lived for the next six years. She was bred and foaled regularly and produced good using horses, such as the calf roping horse Rocky Bert. Rocky Bert had that quick speed, and he was match raced some but never really tried seriously because he was too good a using horse.
Next, Forrest Simpson bought FL Lady Bug and had her only a couple of months when he traded her to Marvin Barnes, and Marvin couldn’t find one soul who wanted her. She was in foal to Cowan’s Lasan, and she foaled a filly, Lady Lasan, in 1959. Barnes called A. W. Hubich and Pete Winters and other horsemen around the area, and finally, Winters agreed to take the mare for $1,000. Well, Barnes figured he was getting his money back out of her, so he kissed her goodbye – but not for long . . .
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