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FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Dear Members,
All of us here at the breeders’ office loaded
up and drove down to Ruidoso Downs for
Zia Festival weekend! It was quite the ordeal. Since our trophies were so nice and so big this year, we had to haul them in a horse trailer! I’d like to thank Sam Flores for all his help with that and to Andy Golden of Elite Trophies for doing such a wonderful job for us! I would also like to thank Annette McCloy, who volunteers a lot of her time to our Zia Festival Party and Awards Banquet and has done so for the past several years now. Crystal Sifuentes and her crew did a beautiful job as usual. Thank you
to Leslie Simmons of Speedhorse magazine for taking all the award photos.
We had our Town Hall Discussion Saturday morning at the Sale Pavilion. Thank you to Ralph Vincent for leading the discussion and
supplying a chart showing the trends in our registration numbers. There was a lot of good input from our members and a task force was created to work on this issue. We would also like to thank Walt Wiggins for setting up for our meeting and supplying refreshments.
We had some exciting Zia Festival races and congratulations to all of the connections. It is so wonderful to have a New Mexico Bred star like Bella Dona! She won the Lincoln Stakes and then went on to win the Carlos Salazar Stakes in Albuquerque giving her ten wins
out of eleven starts! The Driggers, Iveys and Buechlers are sure spending a lot of time in the winner’s circle. On the Quarter Horse side, I would like to congratulate Johnny & Kathy Lee & Ruben Mares who own KJ Daddys Money, the winner of the Zia Futurity. She was bred by Johnny & Kathy Lee and is trained by Wes Giles.
Speaking of horses... How about that New Mexico Bred filly named Slammed that won a really nice Allowance Optional Claiming race and came in second in the Rancho Bernardo Handicap that were both run at Del Mar racetrack in California. She is trained by Todd Fincher and is owned and was bred by Fincher Racing LLC, Brad King and Suzanne Kirby. Her sire is Marking and her dam is Hennesey Smash by Roll Hennessy Roll. Way to go!! You make us proud!
The New Mexico Bred Sale turned out to be pretty darn good this year. Congratulations to all the consignors and buyers who
participated. Congratulations to Fred & Linda Alexander of A & A Ranch who sold eight of the top ten Thoroughbreds, three of which brought over $100,000. The Quarter Horses did well too and most of them are paid up
into the New Mexico State Fair QH Futurity for 2023 that is estimated to have a purse of $1,000,000. Remember to make your next payment due on November 1st. That is when the weanlings will need to be nominated to the 2024 futurity as well. At the time that I am writing this letter, we are preparing to go to the Select Sale and there are 27 NM Breds in that sale who are all paid into the 2023 NMSF QH Futurity as well.
I attended the New Mexico Racing Commission meeting on August 25th and was saddened to see our race dates cut yet again. There were two proposals. Proposal #1 cut racing by 18 days for a total of 188 days, and Proposal #2 would have added another ten days for a total of 216. The vote was 3 to 2 with Commissioner Branch, Chairman Bregman and Commissioner Smith voting for Proposal #1. The 2022-2023 race dates can be found on our website at nmhorsebreeders.com as well as the NMRC website.
Sincerely,
Mary M. Barber
NMHBA Executive Director
DID YOU KNOW?
All our forms are accessible online. You can fill out and even pay for the forms you need right on our website. Go to nmhorsebreeders.com, click on All Forms under Quick Links on the left side of the home page. The Online Forms will populate in a new window.
You can also find a downloadable PDF version as well.
8 New Mexico Horse Breeder