Page 72 - September_2023

the way. They brought Rapid Volley out and took several rolls of film of her in various
poses. Afterwards they came back and asked
to see Savannah Jr. Dad stepped off his horse and presented the colt to the photographers, positioning him the best he could. They snapped three or four shots of the horse, never catching him in a good pose, then thanked us and walked away to their next assignment. Dad surprised
me then. As they walked away, he told them in a slightly louder than normal voice, “You know, you might want to get some better pictures of this colt tomorrow morning!”
After the 11 o’clock meal Dad and I returned to our home, a trailer house parked in a stand of pines. When we walked in my mom was just carrying a tray of dishes across the narrow kitchen. She looked at Dad anxiously and asked him, “Well, what do you think?”
His reply astonished me. “I just think we’ll win the whole damned thing.” His words shocked me and Mom dropped the tray of dishes she had been carrying. As she stooped to pick them up
he told her, “Last place in this race gets $2,000. My commission on that would be $200 so I want you to bet $200 to win on him.” It was by far the largest bet I had ever heard my Dad make.
We ate a quick breakfast, then returned to the barn. It was September 6, and everyone knows how tricky the weather can be in Ruidoso that time of year. The morning had been clear and sunny. But around noon those dark clouds began to gather in the canyons and our worst fears were realized when it began to rain. It rained hard
and just kept coming down, drowning our hopes
as our colt’s only race in the mud had been the worst race of his life. As the Labor Day crowd was filling the grandstand Dad came up with
the idea to walk the one hole of the straightaway, checking for rocks. We came across a few and tossed them into the infield. I remember thinking we must have looked a crazy sight to the people in the grandstand, two solitary figures in the rain searching for something.
Back at the barn we waited. The early races on the card seemed to take forever. The time came to put Savannah Jr into his ankle-high ice boots. We waited some more. Then Dad gave me an order. “Son, ride up to the grandstand and find Clyde Falgren (he was our farrier) and get him down here. We’re going to change shoes on this colt.”
I jumped on Little Zeke and loped him up the horse path to the paddock, tied him up and went to the bar where I felt sure I’d find Clyde. Sure enough, there he was, all dressed up and celebrating Labor Day. He wore a red satin shirt and black pants, neatly pressed. When I told him he was needed at the barn he resisted at first. Then I guess the thought of an angry Ted Wells occurred to him and he met us back at the barn. Dad picked out a pair of Louisiana Jar Caulks (mud stickers) and made Clyde nail them on without taking the colt out of his ice boots—a cumbersome and messy way to do it.
Word spreads fast around a racetrack— especially on Labor Day. Before an hour had passed, here came a new Lincoln and out stepped J.R. Cates. He had already heard that Dad had changed shoes and had apparently gotten some feedback from others.
“Ted, they’re saying that those Louisiana shoes don’t work on this racetrack.” Mr. Cates was in a panic.
“Who says that?”
“Buffalo Wooten for one.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what to do then, Mr.
Cates. Tomorrow you can come down here and take this colt over to Buffalo’s barn—but today he’s mine.” End of discussion.
The purse for the 1965 All American Futurity was $419,900—the first year it was the World’s Richest Race. ABC Wide World of Sports was there to televise the race and A-list actor Robert Mitchum was on hand to present the trophy. Savannah Jr was a picture of perfection in the paddock. Dad, mounted on Little Zeke, accompanied him onto the racetrack and to the starting gate. I scrambled to a crowded viewing point on the back fence of the old winner’s circle and experienced an unimaginable tension in those long moments until the gates crashed open.
I could tell that Savannah Jr had left the gate well. As the field came onto the main track I could see he had a lead! Then about 100 yards from the finish jockey Jack Wallace turned his head around to make sure nothing was closing from the outside. I remember yelling at the top of my lungs, “Don’t look back!”
Savannah Jr had run the race of his life on the day it mattered most. I rushed out onto the sloppy racetrack to meet Dad, who came loping up with his eyes pinned on the far turn, looking for our colt. “We did it, Dad! He did it! He won by daylight!” And after that it was
Savannah Jr wins the 1965 All American Futurity over a muddy track.
Speedhorse Archives
Then came Savannah Jr, his neck arched, blowing no harder than if it had been a Saturday morning workout.
70 SPEEDHORSE September 2023