Page 16 - 8 June 2012 Special Broodmare Edition

Eyes A Shazoom was one of the first of Annie Eye Over’s foals to be produced by embryo transfer.
of her two 2007 foals started. First Teller is a winning son of Teller Cartel that has earned $18,913 and is still racing in 2012.
“We kind of thought maybe she might finally throw something that would be really, really good,” Wootan said of Annie Eye Over. “When we first bred her to Teller Cartel, I was talking to Matt Witman (of Lazy E Ranch) and I said, ‘My mare is probably one of the least known mares bred to Teller Cartel.’ Matt said, ‘She’s ready to fire. She’s ready to produce a big-time winner.’ And lo and behold, here come Llano.”
In 2008, Annie Eye Over again produced two foals. Whonew, by Lil Bit Cuervo, is a full brother to Eyesa Lil Cuervo. Whonew is stakes- placed with a third-place finish in the 2011 Remington Park Dash, and is still running in 2012. Annie Eye Over’s other foal of 2008 is the Teller Cartel foal that Witman predicted would be the mare’s big winner, and he was right. That 2008 gelding is Llano Teller.
THE BIG HORSE
Most great broodmares can be defined by one “big horse,” and for Annie Eye Over, that horse has been Llano Teller.
“She pretty much stamped Llano. They were the same type of individual,” Wootan said. “She wasn’t a real big mare. She looked
a lot like Llano Teller except a little wider, a little thicker. She had a little swayback. She was really wide in her front, a lot of chest, really nice, clean neck with a big ol’ hip. She had a lot of white on her like Llano Teller, that’s where he got his face and his legs.”
And also where he got his speed. As a 2-year-old in 2010, Llano Teller qualified for some of the biggest futurities around, first making a name for himself by winning the Grade 1 Remington Park Futurity. Trained by Heath Reed, he followed that up with a third- place finish in the Heritage Place Futurity-G1, then moved to Ruidoso, where he was seventh in the Rainbow Futurity-G1. He finished out the year with a fourth-place finish in the Texas Classic Futurity-G1.
Returning as a 3-year-old in 2011, Llano Teller was just as strong. The bay gelding won the Grade 1 Ruidoso and All American derbies, splitting those two races with a seventh in the Rainbow Derby-G1. He went to Texas to run fourth in the Texas Classic Derby-G1, and
then on to California where he was sixth in the Grade 1 Champion of Champions against older horses. He is an AQHA Superior Race Horse, Supreme Race Horse, and a millionaire.
Annie Eye Over only had one more crop after Llano Teller, producing the Jess Louisiana Blue son Big Chop and the Teller Cartel son J D in 2009. That same year, when Llano Teller was just a yearling, Wootan made the tough decision to put down his good mare.
“She just got to where she was hurting too
“The second one was a Corona Cartel that died on the operating table. He was not even weaned,” Wootan said of the suckling colt that was undergoing surgery to remove a minor bone chip. “It was July, I was at Ruidoso, and they called to tell me he died on the operating table.”
Despite the loss and setback, Wootan bred Annie Eye Over back to Shazoom and in 2003, she foaled Shazaming. The sorrel gelding would become her first stakes horse, qualifying to and finishing eighth in the East Derby Challenge-G3. Racing through his 5-year-old year, Shazaming won three of 19 starts and $19,283.
A return breeding to Shazoom resulted in Annie Eye Over’s first daughter, Lil Annie Eye Over, born in 2004. While Shazaming had been Annie Eye Over’s first stakes horse, Lil Annie Eye Over was her first stakes-placed runner. At The Downs at Albuquerque, Lil Annie Eye Over finished second in the Manuel Lujan Handicap-RG3 in 2007 as a 3-year-old. Her lifetime record of 2-1-2 from 11 starts resulted in $33,222 in earnings.
At the same time that Annie Eye Over was beginning her career as a broodmare, Wootan was also starting the career of the young stallion Lil Bit Cuervo. Wootan and his wife, Karen, had campaigned Lil Bit Cuervo, a 1999 Chicks Beduino stallion who is a three-quarter brother to World Champion Whosleavingwho. When the horse went to stud in 2003, Wootan bred some of his best mares to Lil Bit Cuervo, including Annie Eye Over. And in 2005, Eyesa Lil Cuervo was born.
Up until that time, each of Annie Eye Over’s foals had performed better than the last, and Eyesa Lil Cuervo continued the trend. As a 2-year-old, she finished seventh in the Grade 3
New Mexico Juvenile Challenge. As a 3-year- old, she became the first stakes winner for her dam when she won the 2008 La Villita Stakes. Eyesa Lil Cuervo also was sixth in the Mile High Derby-G2, seventh in the Manor Downs Derby-G2, and qualified for the Longhorn Derby-G2 that year. She retired with five wins in 17 starts and earnings of $63,947.
Eyesa Lil Cuervo was the last foal Annie Eye Over would carry herself. Wootan began breeding the mare by embryo transfer in 2005.
“She ended up having really bad feet. She had bad feet in her racing career,” said Wootan. “We babied her and babied her, and after a few years we started flushing her so she wouldn’t have that extra weight on her.
“She was real aggressive, especially when she had a baby. She was real protective. She had attitude...she’d pin her ears and you had to watch her when she got to feeling good. She’d come running by you and jump and kick at you, playing. You really had to watch her. But she was sweet, she’d come up to the fence and you could love all over her.
“She hated it when she didn’t have her own baby. She was one of the best mommas I’ve ever had,” Wootan continued. “She would adopt a baby across the fence. We always put her next to mares, and if there was a baby across the fence from her, she’d make buddies with it.”
Annie Eye Over produced two foals each
in 2006 and 2007. Her 2006 crop—Overeasy Annie, by Holland Ease, and Eyes A Shazoom, by Shazoom—were both fillies. The former finished second or third in half of her 10 starts, while the latter earned nearly $40,000 while winning six of 21 races and running seventh
in the Harrah’s Distaff Stakes-G3. Only one
14 SPEEDHORSE, June 8, 2012
Gene Wilson & Associates