Page 121 - Speedhorse July 2018

had a race horse, but we got things settled,
and we had to set a race to match Shu Shu and Chipper H. So, they said, “We’ll run this other race Sunday over at Purcell.” That was where A.B. Green and James Reese lived. This time they knew what they were up against.
We got down there on Sunday and I got up to the gate and Reese said, “Mister, will you do me a favor?”
I said, “What is it?”
“You put your mare in the gate first and then let me bring mine and put her in, because she’s bad and my handler’s not here. If I put her in there, she’ll stand about a half minute and then she’ll go to raising hell.”
I thought to myself, well, hell, you’re whipped right from the start. I said, “I’ll tell
you what I’ll do . . . I’ll do it just one way, Mr. Reese. I’ll load my mare, and if you want to take ol’ Chipper H and put her in the gate, you don’t even have to close the tail gate. When she walks in there and stops, you can jerk it.”
He did that very thing, and that’s the worst thing he could have done. My mare was cocked and ready, and when his mare walked up there and stopped, he jerked that gate and Shu showed them daylight clear from that gate.
He said, “Well of all the things!”
Reese told Ed Miller, “I’m going to send to Texas and get me a damned horse!”
Ed Miller told him, “There ain’t no need to send down to Texas to get anything to outrun this mare, because we brought all there was from Texas over here.”
Reese came to me and he said, “I’ve got a little money. How much will you take for that mare?”
I said, “I’m going to run her. I’ve been want- ing a race horse, and I’ve sure got one. What would I want to sell my race horse for?”
We had matched Two Star, a Texas Dandy horse that was at Dumas, and the money had been put
up. When we got there, they found out we had Shu Shu Baby, and they loaded up and went to Arizona,
so we didn’t get to run. Everybody laughed about it, and we headed back home. We got to Little Beaver, Oklahoma, that night, and all the talk there was about how fast a mare named Sister Bee could run. So, we matched the next morning before we got ready to go. We just matched them out there on a turf track, which was nothing but Bermuda grass. I had Shu Shu shod with old-style Louisiana grabs, and they were sharp. When Sister Bee came out of the gate, she started so fast she was like a duck on water; she was sitting there slipping. When Shu came out of there, she got a hold on that grass, because those grabs went down in that old hard ground. She’d stick those old grabs in there and just throw that dirt up like a salamander digging. Of course, Shu just ran off and left Sister Bee.
After the race, an ol’ boy came over to me and said, “Hey, if you’ll stay here a day or two, I’ll get you a match for that mare.”
I said, “Where are you going to get a horse?” Wade Johnson was sitting there listening,
and the man said, “I’ll go down to Temple, Oklahoma, and I’ll get a horse that can outrun her! I know, because I ran at him.”
I said, “If I’m going to run the horse, what’s the horses name?”
He said, “Chipper H.”
I said, “Hell, we just outran Chipper H. They ain’t gonna run Chipper H at us!”
Shu Shu Baby Doll
(above) wins a 300-yard contest in 1948, beating Poor Boy at Arrowhead Park in Houston, Texas.
Shu Shu Baby Doll nosed out Red Chick W to win in 1951 at Mercedes Texas.
Shu Shu Baby Doll came out the winner over George Parr’s Slow Motion in a match race in 1950 at Eagle Pass.
SPEEDHORSE, July 2018 119
LOOKING BACK - AN EXCERPT FROM NOVEMBER 1974 ISSUE
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