Page 117 - Speedhorse July 2018

in 1966.” When Top Ladybug was at Ruidoso when she was a two year old, Jerry and another boy stayed at the track with the horses and Marvin came and went between Ruidoso and Oklahoma. Top Ladybug had run in the finals of the Kansas Futurity, and even though they had always bedded her on sawdust, Marvin got soft-hearted and put a bale of straw in to bed her on and she ate it, and Top Ladybug foundered in the stall. Jerry found her an hour or so later. He says, “We stood her in the creek for two weeks. She went ahead and ran good, but foundering in a two-year-old horse can be serious.” Top Ladybug ran third in the 1966 All American Futurity and became a leading money earner, winning $195,942.
“The year after that, we ran Barne’s Ladybug and Showman’s Squaw the same year. Showman’s Squaw was by Leo’s Showman
and out of Hittson’s Squaw, a roping mare
that Marvin and I had. Of course, Showman’s Squaw is the mother of Showum Jet (the sire of 1979 Champion 2-Year-Old Gelding Rocket Jet Bug, who was out of Miss Rocket Bug by Lady Bug’s Moon). I broke every one of them for Marvin, and they were all smart horses. At the time, we were just running one or two a year. Marvin wouldn’t take any outside horses.”
In 1963, FL Lady Bug foaled a filly by John Bar. Lady Bug’s Bar ran AA before she died prematurely. Whittle says, “Lady Bug’s Bar was really fast. She could fly. After she was foaled, we took FL Lady Bug to Top Moon, and the next year she had Lady Bug’s Moon. When he was old enough, we broke the horse, and Boyd Morris came over. Boyd would always come to the ranch at the time we were working a colt out of the gate against another horse. The first time we worked Lady Bug’s Moon, Quinn Hill brought a horse over. I had jumped Lady Bug’s Moon out of the gates one time by himself was all. Quinn Hill had brought a AA three-year- old gelding, and Boyd Morris came over and worked Lady Bug’s Moon for us. Boyd worked head and head with that three year old, which was a really nice horse. Boyd came back to the house after they got through working. He had won the All American (Futurity) in 1964 on Decketta, and he said, ‘Marvin, I can win the All American on this horse.’ And of course, he came very close to doing that.
“Boyd didn’t train Lady Bug’s Moon. We kept him. His first out was when we took him to Little Dixie Downs over at McAlester, Oklahoma. Boyd broke Top Bug, out of Lady Lasan and Top Moon, and during this time, Top Bug had jumped out from under him and Boyd had hurt his wrist real bad. Boyd said, ‘Really, my arm is too sore to ride. Jerry Vaughn, why don’t you ride him?’ I said, ‘No, you’re going to be the one to ride him.’ When the money’s down, Boyd has all the nerve in
Marvin Barnes & Jerry Whittle broke Leo’s Showman (Olee San-FL Lady Bug, Sergeant), their first foray into running horses. “. . . the men at the track teased us about our Shetland, he was so danged little,” Whittle said. “We had his legs wrapped, and he was so little and his wraps so big that the wraps rubbed together when he walked.” Leo’s Showman qualified to and then won the Oklahoma Futurity consolation. Marvin and Jerry were hooked, and Marvin began looking for some of FL Lady Bug’s other offspring.
the world! His arm was hurting more than we knew, but we had him go ahead and ride the horse. This was in his first race, and it almost cost us a lot of money due to the fact that Boyd couldn’t whip the horse. Lady Bug’s Moon
got out five or six lengths ahead of them and saw the crowd like any young horse will do, and since Boyd was riding with one hand, he couldn’t turn loose to whip. The horse went to pricking his ears and actually went across the wire loping. From then on, once he got ahead, he’d drop back and just loaf along. He didn’t really get over that until the Kansas Futurity, and he ran all the way in that race! Jet Deck Jr. ran third and Parr’s Request was second. J.B Montgomery conditioned Lady Bug’s Moon for this race, and in my opinion, was the main reason the horse decided to run.
“Actually, we had done everything in the world to overcome this loafing. We’d work this horse hard and just whip him all the way down the track every time we worked him just to keep him running. At Ruidoso, he would act like he was going to the track just fine, and then he’d wheel and try to come back to the barn because he was sore. He had chips in
his knees. All of a sudden, one morning Boyd took him to the track to gallop him, and he just went right on to the track without any problem at all, and the next race was one of the biggest races he ran. That was the trials
to the Rainbow Futurity, in which he had
the fastest time. But the chips in his knees continued to be a problem. In most cases when a horse gets sore, he may run one or two races for you, but after that, he usually learns that the slower he runs, the less he hurts. On the other hand, there’s that one in a million like Lady Bug’s Moon that did run with an extreme amount of pain.
“We did take the chips out after his two- year-old year. Dr. Proctor took them out in Kentucky. He’s a specialist. He operates on a lot of great Thoroughbred horses in Lexington. There are a lot of veterinarians taking chips out now that weren’t then. He had chips in both knees. We brought him back as a three year old, and after his two-year-old year we bred about 70 mares to him and galloped him at the same time. Most of those were outside mares. (1973 Champion 3-Year-Old Gelding) Chicory Moon came out of that first crop of
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LOOKING BACK - AN EXCERPT FROM JANUARY 1978 ISSUE
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