Page 163 - SPEEDHORSE April 2018

Mason and Beggar’s Lad, whom he refused to sell.
“The best” for Oklahoma Star mares, in Mason’s eyes, was another black horse, another very fast black horse, Beggar Boy TB by Black
Toney out of Useeit
by Bonnie Joe, and
a full brother to the 1924 Kentucky Derby winner Black Gold.
stallion to be registered. P-6 was thereafter attached to his name.
“Everybody looked on Star as a Quarter Horse, but the main thing I cared about in
his pedigree was the black horse, the very fast black horse, Dennis Reed. That Thoroughbred was by Lobos by Golden Garter by Bend Or. With another Thoroughbred, Bonnie Joe, as
his maternal grandsire, there sure wasn’t much Quarter Horse in Star when AQHA took him in.
“Any way you viewed Star, any way at all, he was one hell of a horse. I say I looked at him in ’32 and knew what he’d turn out to be. Because you never really know where the great ones
will come from. Star was already quite a horse when I got him, and he became what he became because he had it in him. The only hand I had in it was just trying to give him the best, the best I had, of everything,” said Mason
“The best” for Oklahoma Star mares, in Mason’s eyes, was another black horse, another very fast black horse, Beggar Boy TB by Black Toney out of Useeit by Bonnie Joe, and a full brother to the 1924 Kentucky Derby winner Black Gold. Foaled the same year that his big brother won the Derby, Beggar Boy was fourteen years old when Ron Mason paid two thousand dollars for him and hauled him to the Cross J in 1938.
As it was with the Stars on the ground in the 1930’s, so it was with the Beggars. Many would live and excel and never be known in registered ranks. Mason was never known for overbreeding his stallions or for accepting many outside mares. The luster on Beggar Boy’s name in AQHA archives comes only from a modest number of offspring.
AQHA lists four ROM race qualifiers by Beggar Boy, including three out of Star daughters:
of Grey Wing (said to be a granddaughter of Steel Dust); Diamond Jessie out of a Mason mare; Karen M out of a Mason mare; Quarter Lady Star out of Quarter Lady; Spadie out of Penoche by Old Red Buck; Star Babe out of Bay Babe; Starbird C and V’s Peaches out of Mason’s matriarch J4. Other Star daughters achieving status as producers were Betty K, Clegg Brown, Dona Hunt, G Fern Red Ribbon, Oklahoma Stars Sweetheart, Star Baby B, Wisconsin Sue and glimmering there . . . Star’s Lou, dam of Leo’s daughter, Miss Meyers.
Miss Meyers, foaled in ’49, was World Champion Quarter Running Horse and Champion Running Mare in 1953, as well as a multiple track record holder, stakes winner and dam of Supreme Champion Kid Meyers, sire of the 1971 All American Futurity winner Mr Kid Charge.
When AQHA was incorporated in 1940, the Association chose to honor a small band of stallions by defining them as the foundation sires of the breed and giving them the first nineteen numbers in the registry. Oklahoma Star, twenty-five years old, was the sixth
Bred by Ronald Mason, Beggar’s Honor (Sea Dog-Beggar’s May, Beggar’s Lad) is shown here after winning at Churchill Downs on June 17, 1976.
SPEEDHORSE, April 2018 161
LOOKING BACK - AN EXCERPT FROM MAY 1981 ISSUE
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