Page 71 - September 2023

He focused on the task at hand and over the next few weeks we began to see a slightly different Savannah Jr.
SPEEDHORSE September 2023 69
that time was disallowed. We were devastated. An hour or more after the race, after he was cooled out, we brought Savannah Jr back into his stall and prepared to bandage him for the night. As I sat on the straw rubbing the horse’s left front leg with my father sitting on the right, he noticed as I felt tears slide down my cheek. That was the moment he delivered a lesson I’ll never forget.
“Son, this is the best thing that could’ve happened to us.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Now while all those other colts are running in the Rainbow, we’ll get this colt’s mind right and he’ll be tough to beat in the All American.” I’ll never know how much of what he said was blind hope. But it doesn’t matter. He focused on the task at hand and over the next few weeks we began to see a slightly different Savannah Jr. Dad tracked him a little harder, in keeping with his Thoroughbred blood, and he seemed to behave a bit better. He put a burr on his D-bit on the inside, then made the decision to run him in an allowance race to see if it worked.
The track came up sloppy for that race and despite an uneventful warmup gallop, when the gates opened Savannah Jr crow-hopped away from the gate and finished seventh—the only off-the-board finish of his career. To make
The Tuesday before the All American Futurity trials, Ruidoso Downs conducted training races. Jockey Jack Wallace rode first call for our stable, so naturally he rode our entrants. As he was unsaddling a green colt after a race, the colt wheeled and kicked him full blast, landing mainly on his right thigh. Jack went down in a heap on the racetrack
and had to be hauled the short distance to
the jockeys quarters on a stretcher. We were
in shock. Jack had been the only jockey Savannah Jr had ever known! And he was such a challenging horse to ride! But there was no way Jack would be able to ride him in the trials to the All American Futurity.
Dad called on the best to fill in for Jack.
He named Charlie Smith to ride Savannah Jr, figuring he was horseman enough to handle
the task for the trials. We knew that Charlie rode first call for Newt Keck, having won the 1963 All American with Goetta. He would almost certainly qualify for the finals with Ruby Charge. But if Charlie could qualify the colt, Jack could make it back in time to ride him in the finals. And that’s just the way it happened.
The All American Futurity trials was just another dance for Rapid Volley, the undefeated filly from California who happened to be stabled just across the tow ring from our stable. She was by Three Bars TB and out of Table Tennis. She had won all six of her starts in
California and won her trial convincingly, posting the fastest time of all the competitors. Savannah Jr finished third in his heat under strong restraint from Charlie Smith as he struggled to keep the colt from lugging inward. But his time was good enough for the fifth- fastest qualifying time. The stage was set.
At the draw for the final, Savannah Jr drew the dreaded one hole. The monsoon rains had begun and the old Ruidoso Downs racetrack continually got deeper and deeper on the inside portion due to the deep banking for
the Thoroughbred races which comprised the majority of the races. The only person outside our family to notice was Charlie Smith who admitted later, “I hated it when Savannah Jr drew the one hole. He had tried to lug in with me in the trials and I thought he might run big out of the one hole.”
Of course we set up a 24-hour watch on Savannah Jr as soon as the qualifiers were announced and for me that meant spending nervous nights alone at the barn, staying up to help with morning training and then getting in a noontime nap. Our whole family was on edge and the days seemed to crawl by.
On Labor Day, the morning of the big race, a pair of photographers from the Quarter Horse Journal showed up at our barn asking directions to the stable of Rapid Volley. I directed them toward Cotton Newby’s stable just across
Savannah Jr
Trans Photo
matters worse, on the way back to the barn he tried to mount the saddle horse I was riding! He obviously hadn’t exerted himself at all. Jockey Jack Wallace said that as soon as that slop splashed up under his belly, he took his mind off running and just played and looked around the rest of the trip.
Dad was quiet after the disappointing loss. I didn’t ask him what he was thinking about doing to turn the colt around. I figured he
was thinking on it pretty much around the clock. One morning we were sitting in the old track kitchen at a table with Newt Keck, who had won three of the first five All American Futurities. He and Dad were good friends. They were both the quiet type and were often content to sit and drink coffee and not say a word. So it was something of a surprise when Newt broke the silence and asked, “Ted, have you thought about cutting that colt?” I noticed Dad’s jaw clench.
“Yes, I thought about it early on. But I didn’t want to cut the best thing I ever got my hands on.”
Newt nodded his head in agreement and nothing more was said.