Page 118 - Speedhorse July 2018

Jerry Whittle won his first race at Ross Downs in 1965 aboard Leo’s Showman Jr. Jerry is in the winner’s circle with his mother and step-father, Lela and Marvin Barnes, who owned and trained Leo’s Showman Jr.
colts. As with most young horses, he didn’t breed many great mares. We didn’t have but four or five mares at that time. Right then we were more interested in the running end than the breeding.”
When Ruidoso opened the next year,
Lady Bug’s Moon was ready. He showed it by winning the Three Bars Handicap and the Rainbow Derby. The rest of Lady Bug’s Moon’s story is well known to horsemen.
Jerry Whittle has put the first saddles on lots of good horses. He says, “You can tell the first time you let them down if they are runners. You can tell that the AA or bottom AAA horses can run better than the average horse, but when you get on a run- ner, there’s no question about it. You can tell he’s going to run. Every horse we broke there for four or five years was a runner. There are lots of good AA and AAA-minus horses, but very few runners. I broke both Lady Bug’s Moon and Brisk Deck the same year. When horses like that leave the gates, you’re not thinking about trying to get them to run faster . . . You’re trying to gather them up and slow them down so they won’t hurt themselves. It never enters your mind that you’re going to reach back and hit them or worry about getting outrun by another horse. They never leave there hard and they run straight. They’re just born runners. You can tell by the way they move . . . There’s no ques- tion about that!”
Lady Bug’s Moon’s three-year-old year, they bred him and galloped him and got him ready
to go back to the track while they were breeding him. Marvin took him out to New Mexico when he was ready. That was the year they bred Jerry’s Bug’s mama. Marvin had bought four mares from John Phillips at El Paso in 1970. Phillips had an old mare there, Bobby Maud, that was
19 years old. He said, “Marvin, these mares have been together most of their lives, why don’t you buy this last mare. I’ll include her for $200.” Barnes agreed, so he went home with five mares instead of four. Marvin had been running his Ladybug horses, and Jerry had broken them all for him, so Marvin bred the old mare to Lady Bug’s Moon and gave her to Jerry. The colt from that breeding was Jerry’s Bug. Bobby Maud had had one other colt to race, Diamonte Prince by Prince John, and he earned his ROM.
After Jerry’s Bug was foaled, Whittle bred her back to Lady Bug’s Moon and got a filly called Miss Houck’s Bug that had an 89 speed index. She was killed by lightning, and the mare’s next filly, another full sister, was unraced. Bobby Maud died, so Jerry’s Bug remains one of a kind. Jerry’s Bug was Lady Bug’s Moon’s first stakes winner, and his first offspring to sire a stakes winner. From his 10 starters in 1977, his first colt crop, seven are ROM winners.
Whittle recalls, “My wife Judy and I were living at Lewisville, Texas, when I broke Jerry’s Bug. We also had Mr. Dial Bug, another Lady Bug’s Moon out of a Johnny Dial mare. We sold Mr. Dial Bug, and he won two futurities in
Michigan and had a 98 speed index. Judy and I started Jerry’s Bug at Ross Downs at Colleyville as a yearling. He really ran impressively and won real easily there, and Sonny Stanley, my uncle, bought half of him right after the race. Sonny gave Judy and me the option to buy him back at the end of his three-year-old year. That was the last of ’72. Two weeks later, we ran this horse at Stroud, and there were about 150 colts in the trials. The second fastest time was :16.02. Jerry’s Bug ran :15.82. He came back in the finals and ran second by a nose. He reared up in the gates and didn’t get out as fast as he should, but he took home $10,111.09.
“Next came the Blue Ribbon Futurity at Sallisaw, and we schooled the colt in the gates more. We put him in the gates and made him stand there right and then backed him out, which in his case was a mistake, because in
the trials when the gates opened, he just kept standing there. He broke dead last, but he
had enough speed to win his heat, and he was lucky enough to qualify with the sixth fastest time, which got him in the finals. The Blue Ribbon in January is as hard to win as any futurity. They run good horses there. One
year I remember, Laico Bird ran second and Sea Nymph won it. In September, in the All American, Laico Bird won the All American and Sea Nymph ran second. Easy Jet won the Blue Ribbon Futurity the year he ran in it, too. Top Bug ran in it, as did Ralph’s Lady Bug. Very few horses ever win the Blue Ribbon by
116 SPEEDHORSE, July 2018
LOOKING BACK - AN EXCERPT FROM JANUARY 1978 ISSUE