Page 215 - September 2018

Queen For Cash had about a head on the gelding, and one of the most thrilling races since Medley Glass and Town Policy waged battle in the same race three years ago was shaping up.
Forget that Billy Hunt has proven to
be the top stakes rider for the New Mexico megabucks. Higheasterjet won this race. That is all that can be said.
The filly was not coming back as Cardoza was forced to go to a left-handed stick in tight quarters. But Higheasterjet dug in and probably made the lead in the last jump. After all, he is a winner and he knows where the Ruidoso finish line is after narrowly beating the high flying Mighty Deck Three in last year’s All American Futurity and winning the 1981 Rainbow Derby by a scant head over Dr Depot.
They don’t pay for how much you win by in Quarter Horse racing and Higheasterjet has earned $1,009,362 because he is a fighter.
While Higheasterjet was setting records because he is a lean racing machine, his half- brother set a record later that evening because he is Higheasterjet’s half-brother and has enough meat on him to qualify as a halter prospect. A gray son by All American Derby winner Mito Wise Dancer, Himito Dancer set an all-time record for a Quarter Horse yearling sold at public auction when Don Hughes of Enid, Oklahoma, shelled out $510,000 in the first Ruidoso Super Select Sale. That surpassed the record of $500,000 set for the Dash For Cash- Hot Idea colt earlier in the same sale.
It would be nice to be writing a bloodlines column about the breed’s first millionaire and be able to unveil some revolutionary breeding plan that led to the existence of Higheasterjet.
But, as seems to be the rule in our society,
it was economics instead of romantic planning that got Alamitos Doll Two to Pine’s Easter Jet.
“A friend of mine was standing Pine’s Easter Jet,” Higheasterjet owner and breeder G.D. Highsmith said the day after the All American Derby. “We decided to breed Alamitos Doll Two to the horse for two years, with me getting the second. Well, the way that it worked out, my friend needed some money when she was carrying the second foal, so I bought him
while she was in foal. He turned out to be Higheasterjet.”
Somehow it seems fitting that Quarter Horse racing’s first millionaire had a bit of horse trading involved in his existence. Ott Adams would have been proud.
Ott Adams would also have been proud
of Higheasterjet for another reason. The legendary breeder was a firm believer in Quarter Horse blood as opposed to the Thoroughbred influence. In Higheasterjet’s pedigree, you
have to go to the third generation to find any Thoroughbred blood. There you find Miss Pines, the Thoroughbred second dam of
Higheasterjet’s sire Pine’s
Easter Jet, and Three Bars, the sire of
Higheasterjet’s maternal grandsire Alamitos Bar. I doubt that Adams would have complained
about the Thoroughbreds that are in Higheasterjet’s five generation pedigree. They are all stalwarts that helped build the running Quarter Horse . . . they include War Bam, Top Deck, Three Bars and Depth Charge. In fact, Higheasterjet is bred 5x3 to Three Bars and 5x5 to Depth Charge.
What is also important in Higheasterjet’s pedigree is the relationship between his genetic background and his conformation. He probably has more Quarter Horse blood than any horse we have discussed in this space recently, yet he has Thoroughbred conformation and all of his stakes wins have been at the 440-yard distance.
However, his size is not a throwback to the Thoroughbreds in his third generation and beyond. Highsmith reports that both Pine’s Easter Jet and Alamitos Doll Two
have size, while Dr. Jay Belden, the owner of Higheasterjet’s second dam Goldy Niner Two, says that his mare has considerable substance.
The dam of Higheasterjet, Alamitos Doll Two, was sired by the leading sire Alamitos Bar and out of the above mentioned Goldy Niner Two.
Alamitos Bar has made a strong influence
in the breed over the past two decades, both as
a sire and a maternal grandsire. By Three Bars and out of the Vessels family matron Do Good Bam, Alamitos Bar is the sire of two-time World Champion Kaweah Bar, Champion Band Of Angels, and Champion Alamitos Angel. Alamitos Bar daughters have produced recent Champions Mr Doty Bars, Dickeys Fireman and Easy Angel.
It is very important to note that 1979 Champion 2 Year Old Easy Angel and Higheasterjet possess the same cross, since they are both by sons of Jet Deck and out of Alamitos Bar mares. Easy Angel is by Jet Deck’s all-time leading siring son Easy Jet and out of Alamitos Bar’s Champion daughter Alamitos Angel.
Alamitos Bar hails from the family of the grand matron Do Good, his second dam. Do Good is the dam of Co-Champion 2-Year-Old Filly Chicado
V, who produced Champions War Chic and Table Tennis, the dam of Champion Rapid Volley.
Do Good Bam, the dam of Alamitos Bar, also produced the dam of $200,000 stakes winner Fishers Favorite. Runnerup to Easy Angel in the first Skoal Dash For Cash Futurity, Fishers Favorite has recently been retired as a 4 year old and will be bred next year.
Higheasterjet wins the 1980 All American Futurity.
Higheasterjet wins the 1981 All American Derby and becomes Quarter Horse’s first millionaire.
Higheasterjet wins the 1982 All American Gold Cup, becoming the first to win all three All American races.
SPEEDHORSE, September 2018 213
LOOKING BACK - AN EXCERPT FROM OCTOBER 1981 ISSUE
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