Page 120 - Speedhorse July 2018

Shu Shu Baby Doll
Kopecky’s Match Race Mare
by Raymond Kopecky Introduction, Notations & Epilogue by Jane Pattie
“He started pulling his shirt off and he bet his shirt, and then he bet his undershirt. Then he pulled his boots off and bet them, and he bet his hat and his Pontiac automobile and all the money he had.”
Wade Johnson came out there, and he always wore the fanciest clothes. He was a nice looking fel- low, an Indian. The betting was getting heated! He started pulling his shirt off and he bet his shirt, and then he bet his undershirt. Then he pulled his boots off and bet them, and he bet his hat and his Pontiac automobile and all the money he had. And he said, “I’ll bet my wife if you all want to bet!” Nobody said anything to him, because it might have caused a fight. It was time for the race. Wade Johnson was stripped naked, might near, and he said, “Let me start the mares!”
I said, “Hell, anybody can start my mare.”
So James Reese said, “Let’s get ready. Flicka’s loaded.” It had begun raining as I led ol’ Shu up to the gate. She walked up and stuck her nose in that gate and shook her nose in that gate and shook her head about twice. Right then, they opened that gate and she showed light to Flicka right from the gate clear to the other end, and it was raining so hard you couldn’t see the horses. She outran Flicka 25 yards. Oscar Cox and A.B. Green just laughed about it, because they had all the money in the world. James Reese had money, but he didn’t have that kind of money, but he thought he
Shu Shu Baby Doll, under rider Doug Morgan, following a victory in 1949 over Pretty Boy. R.J. Kopecky stands in front with the bat.
Racing horses has long been a favorite pastime of Texans, and when it comes to matching horse races, Raymond Kopecky of Odessa, Texas, knows
how to go about it. It was way back about 1949 that an old car with Oklahoma plates rattled up
to the race track in Duncan, Oklahoma. A little brown mare was in the trailer in tow behind the car. A hayseed-looking feller was driving. He had on an old flop hat, split-legged possum-belly overalls and his random gold teeth flashed in the sun. When the crowd gathered for the match race, they didn’t even know who was running against Oscar Cox and James Reese’s horses, Flicka (the eventual dam of 1952 Champion Black Easter Bunny) and Chipper H. Cox and Reese, along with A.B. Green, had contacted Paul Mason to match a race. Mason had asked, “How much you want to run for?” Cox, Reese and Green put up $2,500 to run each of the two horses for $1,250 a race.
They asked, “What’ve you got? Are you open to the world?”
Mason answered, “Yes, and I’ll have a horse in the morning that can outrun either of yours!”
Mason then telephoned Raymond Kopecky in Richmond, Texas, where he was living at the time. “Load up Shu Shu and get right up here. I got two races
matched for $1,250 apiece.” Shu Shu Baby Doll was just a three year old, but Kopecky had raced horses all of his life, like his father before him, and he knew a race horse when he saw one. He had raised this filly out of Baby Doll, a Joe Bailey mare that produced 13 good foals. Shu Shu was already known as a fast mare.
Kopecky drove all night and pulled into Durant about daylight. Wade Johnson had a stall ready for the mare. Tow sacks covered it so no curiosity-seekers could see who was to be Flicka and Chipper H’s competition. Johnson had the little horseman Shorty Lawyer to stay right in the stall with Shu Shu, and Kopecky lay down right by the mare’s stall for a snooze, as was always his habit. Any time he had a horse away from home, he slept right at the barn.
When it got close to race time, Johnson and Mason laughed as Raymond got into his “disguise.” They left his Texas pickup hidden and went to Duncan in an old car and trailer. Green, Cox and Reese were there waiting to see what Paul Mason was going to run at them. From the looks of things, they didn’t have much to worry about! He had found some hayseed out in the boondocks!
They were almost countin’ their winnings! As Kopecky tells it...
118 SPEEDHORSE, July 2018
LOOKING BACK - AN EXCERPT FROM NOVEMBER 1974 ISSUE