Page 61 - 8 February 2013

Bob Gentry
price but they paid something like $275,000 and that was a lot of money in those days. They brought the horse back to Texas and Mike had a big party out at his ranch east of Austin. The ranch had a landing strip and it seems like everybody showed up. All the big breeders were there because they were going to syndicate the colt. Mike and Dad bought him as a yearling and two months later they syndicated him for a profit. They even had to turn people down on being able to buy a share.
“The best part of this story is about Dad telling Bruce about buying the horse and
of course Bruce’s reaction was, WOW that
was a lot of money! But with this party, they syndicated him for a lot of money, and ended up making a lot of money by buying one of the first sons of Secretariat.”
Sweet Legacy, a daughter of Secretariat, was another horse that came into the fold through a partnership. Bob partnered with several others to get the mare as a yearling. She raced to a record of 2-2-2 in 12 starts and earned $12,165. When the partnership dissolved, Bob bought her and she became a Gentry broodmare.
Sweet Legacy, with her modest race record, showed her ability to produce good Quarter running horses through her son, Cash Legacy, by Dash For Cash. This 1985 stallion was
the Gentry Brothers’ 1989 Champion Aged Stallion. Cash Legacy made 25 starts, placing first, second or third in 22 of those and earning $263,872. One of his wins was the Quarter Horse Breeders Classic at Sunland Park. He set a track record in that race, covering the 440 yards in :21.28. This was the fastest 440-yard time in a Grade 1 race since the AQHA started grading races in 1983, and the third-fastest 440-yard time run to that point.
Cash Legacy retired to stud and, like Velox Bar, had a limited career as a sire in that he produced only seven crops of 229 foals. He sired 125 ROM and six stakes winners. His foals made him a million-dollar sire with earnings
of $1,811,689. His leading money earner was Auditions Legacy, an earner of $190,689 who
Bob and Kirk Gentry
won the Remington Park Championship-G1 in 1996 and was a finalist in the Champion Of Champions-G1.
The next year, Sweet Legacy showed her versatility as a producer when she foaled Sweet Diva, a Thoroughbred by Triple Crown winner Affirmed. Sweet Diva won the Lifes Magic Handicap and the Frontier Lakes Stakes, setting a track record at Remington Park for a mile and sixteenth in 1:40.
An indication of the desire of the Gentry Brothers to breed quality Thoroughbreds
as well as Quarter Horses came with the farm’s purchase of Princess Rooney in 1995. Princess Rooney won the first Breeder’s Cup Distaff in 1984 and was named the 1984 Champion Older Female. She is in the Racing Hall of Fame. Pensioned in 2004, Princess Rooney died in 2008 from complications of EPM. She left two daughters in the Gentry Brothers broodmare band. One of those mares is Rooneys Princess, the dam of Prince Rooney, by Tale Of The Cat, winner of the Mountaineer Juvenile Stakes.
Some other stakes horses from the
Gentry Brothers Farm in Lexington include Commitisize, an earner of $784,887 with stakes wins in the El Rincon Handicap-G2 and the Hollywood Prevue Stakes-G3. Receiver was a Robert Gentry-bred Thoroughbred runner that earned $350,000 with stakes-placed finishes in races like the Forgo Handicap-G2.
The Gentry Brothers Farm in Lexington has become the focal point of the commercial breeding program. Kirk went on to explain why they moved all the mares to Kentucky, “We were running the Thoroughbred farm there and a Quarter Horse farm here in
Texas and so we consolidated them in one place. We found that with the use of shipped semen, it made sense to put the mares in
one place. It also opened the door to make it more convenient to breed the Quarter mares to Thoroughbred stallions, as they are only used through live cover and the mares have to be readily available the same as with the
Bob Gentry at Heritage Place in 2010.
Thoroughbred mares.”
It has been 43 years since the Gentry
Brothers entered the main stream of the Quarter racing world with a young colt named Velox Bar. That third-place finish in the All American Futurity must have fueled the fire
for the brothers from Lubbock, Texas. The continued success of their breeding program
is apparent in the record books through the money they have won as owners and breeders. Today, they are the breeders of Quarter Horses that have earned $5,641,537 on the track in the Gentry Brothers name. Bob Gentry has bred in his name the earners of $3,734,871, giving them a total of $9,376,408. Bob is also on the leading owners list with $2,591,086
in earnings. So now we know a little bit of
how it all came about. We also know that the Gentry-bred runners will continue through Kirk and the Gentry Family so when we see the Gentry name down the road we will remember Bob and Bruce—the Gentry Brothers, the entrepreneurs from Texas.
Bob Gentry
SPEEDHORSE, February 8, 2013 59
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