Page 205 - October 2016

Game ChanGeR
Breaking the $500,000 benchmark for offspring earnings in only three years, Game Chicken rewrote Paint racing’s Leading Dam record books.
by Jessica Hein, courtesy APHA
When it comes to producing winners on the track, it’s been as easy as 1-2-3 for Shirley Wheeler’s great broodmare, Game Chicken.
With only three running-age foals, Game Chicken became only the third mare in APHA history to surpass $500,000 in offspring earnings in May 2013. Since then, her foals have continued to tear up the track, and her four starters have earned in excess of $715,000 to put Game Chicken atop APHA’s Lifetime Leading Dams list for racing money-earners.
Sadly, this legendary Paint racing broodmare died unexpectedly on Sept. 11
at her lifelong home at Wheeler Ranch in Boynton, Oklahoma. We pay homage to the impact Game Chicken has had on Paint racing thus far, surely only the beginning of her APHA legacy.
Born To Run
Game Chicken’s success shouldn’t come
as much of a surprise to anyone familiar with Shirley and Jim Wheeler’s breeding program. The Boynton, Oklahoma couple have founded an impressive dam line that spans three breeds, passing on conformation, ability and heart generation after generation.
The story starts with Emma W., a 1959 chestnut Thoroughbred mare owned and raced by Jim. Relegated to broodmare duty following a modest career on the track, Emma W. produced Kita Wheeler, a 1977 sorrel appendix Quarter Horse mare by Kitaman,
The late Game Chicken is only the third mare in APHA history to surpass $500,000 in offspring earnings and is the APHA’s Lifetime Leading Dam of Racing Money-Earners
Raising and running their homebreds has been a rewarding experience for Shirley & Jim Wheeler
a son of Go Man Go and out of a Three Bars (TB) daughter.
“My husband and I have been married 34 years,” Shirley said. “Emma W. had already died, but when I married Jim, I married him and Kita Wheeler.”
In 1994, the Wheelers bred Kita Wheeler to one of the Paint industry’s hottest young racing stallions: Judys Lineage. Named 1992’s Champion 3 Year Old and 3-Year-Old Colt, the sorrel tobiano stallion was entering only his second year at stud, so his sire power was still relatively unknown. The result of the breeding was Kickin Chicken, a 1995 sorrel tobiano mare.
Raced eight times, Kickin Chicken amassed one win, one second and one third, good for earnings of $4,415. Though her
race record lacks substance, Kickin Chicken’s production record speaks volumes. The
dam of eight, Kickin Chicken produced six runners by a medley of high-powered running stallions. Among them were 2008 Champion Aged Gelding Kickin Texas, a stakes winner
with $33,308 in 38 starts and a speed index of 100; and 2011 Champion 3-Year-Old Filly Eye Opening Chick, earner of $21,393 in 11 starts. But it was Kickin Chicken’s 2003 filly, Game Chicken, who is really leaving a mark on the industry.
With a strong dam line coupled with an infusion of running genetics from her sire, Game Patriot (QH), Game Chicken was bred to run. A graded stakes winner himself, Game Patriot—sired by AQHA Hall of Famer Chicks Beduino and out of a First Down Dash (QH) daughter—racked up more than $225,000 in earnings from 15 starts, with a 7-3-3 record and a 109 speed index.
“We just try to breed to the very best that we could afford,” Shirley said. “My husband was the one who liked Game Patriot real well. We tried to do shipped semen with him, but couldn’t get that done. We went by the vet’s one evening and he said, ‘She’s still not in foal—you’re going to have to take her to the stud farm and breed her that way.’ So we loaded up and took off for Louisiana.”
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