Page 117 - February 2017

Gregg Sanders and Wade Helton are longtime friends. Gregg has trained horses for Wade for the last 10 years.
Wade Helton (center) in the winner’s circle for his first stakes victory with trainer Alfredo Gomez (left) and jockey Cody Jensen (right).
Wade’s first stakes winner was Oilwagon, shown here winning the 2012 Dash For Cash Juvenile at Lone Star P
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“ H H e e ’ ’s s a a s s e e v v e e n n - - d d a a y y - - a a - - w w e e e e k k w w o o r r k k e e r r w w h h o o d d o o e e s s n n ’ ’ t t t t a a k k e e a a n n y y t t h h i i n n g g f f o o r r g g r r a a n n t t e e d d . . ” ”
The first race Wade entered a horse in was in 1990 at Remington Park. “I don’t even remember the horse’s name,” he says, “but she was really slow! I do remember that!”
He raced sporadically for about 15 years. “I’d break them myself and then take them to a trainer,” he says. “I didn’t make much money at all. My goal was to get just one win picture. “Before I could afford the horses, I could afford to read about them and study them and talk to people,” he adds. “When you have a passion for it, you catch yourself going over pedigrees and all, and you come up with ideas because you’ve dwelt on it a lot.”
“So, at first I wasn’t breeding,” he continues. “I’d buy at the sales or from individuals around — from racehorse guys. I bought some from L.G. Clifton — I ran some that he’d raised, and I bought a few others. I never had anything spectacular up until about five years ago.”
HIS BIG BREAK
Wade’s first stakes winner was named Oilwagon — an apt name for an oil man’s horse. A 2010 brown colt by PYC Paint Your
Wagon and out of Dash Thru Traffic daughter SR Dash Thur Faith, Oilwagon won a $10,000 claiming race at Fair Meadows soon after Wade bought him, and then Wade paid him into the Dash For Cash Futurity where he won his trial.
“We were the 11th fastest qualifier,” says Wade, “so we made the Juvenile, and he finished with a faster time than the horses that ran in the finals in the very next race!” Oilwagon went on to take fourth in his Oklahoma Derby trial in 2013 and after an allowance win at Remington Park, he closed out his track career placing 10th in the James Isaac Hobbs Stakes-G2 at Zia Park.
“All I wanted was that win picture,” he says, “so to be holding the stakes trophy was pretty unbelievable!”
ESTABLISHING A PLAN
Oilwagon’s success led to Wade buying the stallion’s dam, stakes placed SR Dash Thur Faith, as a broodmare. ”I pulled some embryos out of her; she made it possible for me to breed a higher quality,” says Wade.
Meanwhile, Wade had also bought Joker On Jack, a 2010 PYC Paint Your Wagon geld-
ing out of Miss Six Fortune. Joker On Jack was ranked 43rd for earnings by Equibase in 2013, up from 62nd in 2012.
Joker On Jack reached multiple graded stakes winning status for Helton by winning the 2012 Oklahoma Horseman’s Association Mystery Futurity-G2 and Hialeah Laddie Futurity. “Joker On Jack had made the finals to the Mystery and Llano Cartel had also, but I didn’t own him yet,” says Wade. “Llano Cartel was the main horse I was concerned about beating us in the Mystery. Joker On Jack ended up having an outstanding day that day, and Llano had some trouble at the starting gate and ran sixth. A couple of months after that, Llano was in the [Heritage Place Win- ter] Sale. He was just a little horse and didn’t really look the part, but I’d made up my mind that I was going to buy him no matter what.
“I’d saved up $20,000 to buy him and wound up having to scrape together $30,000, but he ended up winning me about $400,000, so it worked out. He ended up winning the Leo Stakes-G1 in 2014!”
Llano Cartel stands out for his ability to run and win at any distance. “He’d run at 440
114 SPEEDHORSE, February 2017
photos by Reed Palmer