Page 105 - Speedhorse March 2018
P. 105
Just because a man thinks he knows his horses better than anybody else doesnt mean he does.
Ron Mason bred Sugar Brier, but gave him away to Pete Durfey because he thought the colt was too runty to do anything. Sugar Brier is shown here after winning a 6-furlong race at Churchill Downs in Nov. 9, 1954, for owner/trainer Durfey, who told Mason to bet on him, but Mason said, I wasnt about to. A win ticket on the horse paid $101.40.
Ron Mason bred Nowata Dumpy, a name he got because Mason judged him hopeless since horse was too close to the ground. Nowata Dumpy went on to win 15 straight races including this one at the Rocky Mountain Quarter Horse Association race meet in Castle Rock, Colorado, on June 21, 1952.
decided it might be because he had a double dose of Insonomy in him. It comes through Light Brigade. Light Brigade’s dam, Bridge Of Sighs, was by Isinglass by Insonomy. Light Brigade’s sire, Picton, was out of Hecuba, also being by Insonomy.
“So, if you hold the way I do, that Star’s and Beggar’s maternal grandsire was one and the same, Bonnie Joe, well that put a double dose of Bonnie Joe into all the pedigrees of crosses between Star and Beggar.
“Two foaling dates come down for Oklahoma Star. One’s in May 1916. I hold with the one
that’s April 12, 1915. So, by my calculation, Star was seventeen years old when I bought
him out of a calf lot in 1932 – that’s where I found him – in a calf lot. He hadn’t been off the track too long. I hear tell that, give or take a little, he was on the track for a dozen years or more.
“As for Beggar Boy, he stood there with his owner, Widow Hoots, in Oklahoma. I bred some mares to him, but never ever dreamed that the widow might consider selling him. In fact, I think it was 1938, and Beggar Boy was fourteen years old when I went out there to talk to Widow Hoots about breeding a mare to her horse. In the process of the conversation,
I learned she was into a deal whereby she
might sell Beggar Boy to some Texans for two thousand dollars. Well, I almost fell down when
Beggars Lad (by Beggar Boy) with Carl Hanford, who wanted to buy the colt but Mason wouldnt sell.
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LOOKING BACK - AN EXCERPT FROM MAY 1981 ISSUE
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