Page 119 - Speedhorse July 2018

daylight, but Jerry’s Bug did in AAA time.” When Jerry’s Bug was loaded in the gates
for the Blue Ribbon, it was clear and cold and the track was frozen. He was far from being
the favorite. The money was on Bugsy Moon, Buck’s Top Buck and Top Tew. The total
purse was $99,736.65. Jimmy Maroney was his jockey, and he knew what Jerry’s Bug could do. Fifty yards out of the gates, Jerry’s Bug took the lead and at 250, he shot forward, and it was his race. He daylighted the others at the wire. He covered the 330 yards in :17.20 ahead of Thrust On Dial and Moonshine Susie. It was Jerry’s Bug’s race, and he sacked up $39,894.66. Whittle says, “He never ran again after that. The first time we ran him at Ross Downs, the track was fine, and the second time we ran
him was at Stroud. We started at nine o’clock in the morning, and it was seven degrees and the track was solid ice, and he ran :15.82 on that ice. In the Finals the track was muddy, so that was much better. In the trials at Sallisaw, the track was in good shape again, but in the Finals, it was solid ice, and he never ran again. He could hardly gallop.
“We turned him out. We should have x-rayed him after the Blue Ribbon, but we won it and he didn’t show he was hurt. After those two times on solid ice, he’s chipped both knees real bad. We turned Jerry’s Bug out after the Blue Ribbon until March, so he had 90 days rest. We were trying to do the right thing, and it would have been the right thing if we had noticed these chips earlier and operated on
him then instead of waiting until after he was
a three year old. We had Dr. Zargas in El Paso to operate on him, but because I had waited
so long, removing the chips could have caused more problems than we already had. We took a chance and gambled that he could extend with- out rechipping his knees. We were only able to remove a few, and we brought him back. This was after his three-year-old year. I wanted to run the horse in the Champion of Champions if he could run like he started out. I brought him back and galloped him and got him fit.
I never did work him here at home. I just gal- loped him, and Marvin was out at Ruidoso, so I sent him out there to him.
“Gary Sumpter was riding Marvin’s horses at the time, and Marvin told Gary to take
this horse and work him. This was the last
of August, and he worked real good. One morning he chipped again, and Dr. Zargas said it was the biggest chip he had ever seen.” The old injuries that had calcified made a
lip that extended out over the knee. Zargas hoped Whittle might be lucky enough that Jerry’s Bug could extend his knee and not chip those lips off that had grown back from those previous chips. But when Jerry’s Bug really extended, he just tore his knee all to pieces,
Jerry Whittle and jockey Jimmy Maroney broke and started horses for the racetrack at Whittle’s Ladybug Ranch near Aubrey, Texas.
so Whittle took his horse home. He’d have to prove himself as a sire.
Dr. Jerry Rheudasil at Lewisville had stood Jerry’s Bug as a three year old, and from that first foal crop, he had 10 starters of which seven earned their ROM in 1977. Jerry Whittle’s attitude is if you can’t win it all one way, try another. He’s a young man that bad luck can’t keep down.
“The first year we bred this horse was 1974. He was a three year old. We bred him and then sent him back to the track. He had that good a nature. We did his daddy the same way. If this horse makes a good stud, Dr. Rheudasil will be the reason why he did. Doc says he is one of the smartest horses he ever saw in his life and the easiest breeder
he has ever had, and he has bred horses ever since he was big enough to work. For his first
crop of colts we had bred 15 mares, and the only two mares that were proven producers, one of them aborted and the other one was killed by a tornado. Then we had one mare that had twins, so that narrowed it down again. We had 10 to start, of which seven have earned their ROM. I guess there are only two that haven’t been broke. In December, Orange Bug by Jerry’s Bug and out of Mae Midget Go, qualified for the Brazos Valley Yearling Futurity. Nerrel Bruney was the trainer and Jimmy Maroney rode him.
“Right after the Blue Ribbon race, a leading trainer offered me $100,000 for Jerry’s Bug and I turned it down. I thought he was trying to buy his halter!
There were several times after that before his colts got to running that I sure would have accepted such an offer!”
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.
SPEEDHORSE, July 2018 117
LOOKING BACK - AN EXCERPT FROM JANUARY 1978 ISSUE
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