Page 152 - Speedhorse August 2018
P. 152
Pass Over in the winners after winning the Columbus Triple Crown Futurity at Columbus Race Course on March 18, 1973.
Pass Over was the winner of the first All American Derby on Aug. 25, 1974.
handy fashion and now has her sights on the next leg, the Rainbow Futurity on Aug. 5 to be run for a $250,000 purse.
Another comment that proved to be memorable came from Walter Merrick, one of the top breeders and trainers in the Quarter Horse industry. As every horseman in the racing business knows, Merrick has spent a lifetime working and improving the Quarter Horse.
He made history with his Easy Jet, one of the immortal Jet Deck’s best known colts. When retired to stud, Easy Jet was the leading all-time Quarter Horses money earner with earnings of $445,721.21. He now stands for Merrick at his ranch in Sayer, Oklahoma.
In the Kansas trials, Walter Merrick had works of praise for the colt he was training that had been sired by Easy Jet, Easy Jet Arrive. The latter had racked up the fastest qualifying time in the trials. He added some words about Pass Over. His remark was, “Pass Over is a super horse with a stride and way of running that looks like perpetual motion.” After the Kansas was over, it well looked that way.
Trainer James Bertrand is a young man who can’t have been in the business too many years. Yet, he has ideas all his own. He says, “A lot of horsemen don’t agre4 with me, but I believe in feeding a horse all he wants to eat. Pass Over gets two buckets of feed in the morning and two
150 SPEEDHORSE, August 2018
LOOKING BACK - AN EXCERPT FROM JULY 1973 ISSUE
