Page 38 - July 2022

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He trained him right there on the base when he got done with his military training.
be in the first part of the war because they were still training the army guys to ride horses. He’d tell us that they were going to send them over there for some pictures of them on the horses fighting the Germans and their tanks. That shows how far behind we were at the start of World War II,” Clay continued.
“Anyway, they were at some bar there in El Paso. The army guys were on a pass or something like that. The people were there that owned Miss Bank, and she
was a top Quarter Horse that was open
or as they called it, open to the world.
In other words, anybody who wanted
to match with her could come to them.
He overheard the owners of Miss Bank talking. Dad had trained Clabber before he went in the army. The Nichols had
kind of semi-retired him and he’d already bred. I think he said he’d been bred to
20 mares, so he hadn’t run in a while. They were standing him at stud there in Gilbert, Arizona, and I think he was eight years old at the time. Dad went over to the table and said, ‘Well, I’ve got a horse l’ll match with you.’ But first, he had called Hugh Nichols. My dad and Buck Nichols were raised together, and they were best buddies. He told Hugh, ‘They’ve got that Miss Banks down here,’ which is originally where she was from or where the people were originally from. They want to match her with anybody, and he wanted to match that ole horse. Hugh told dad he’d bred 20 mares, and he has been out of training for a year or so. Dad said, ‘I’ll see if I can come and get him. I’ll put him in training right here at the base.’ Nichols said, ‘If you can, come and get him.’ So, dad went to see the Colonel. I don’t know the Colonel’s name, but the Colonel gave him a three day pass to go get the horse and bring him to the base to put him in training to get ready for the race.
“I don’t know the exact dates that they matched, but anyway, he got him ready however long it took him to train him,” Clay continued. “He trained him right there on the base when he got done with his military training.
“So, each party put up $5,000 winner take all. He didn’t tell him who the horse
was, but they found out that it was Clabber that he had there at the base. One owner said, ‘He is over the hill, he can’t beat this mare. He is eight years old, and he hadn’t run in over a year.’ They put
up the money and they had the match race right there at the base. I don’t know exactly where but they stepped out 400 yards, and they made a straight away track somewhere on the base. Dad said that every soldier or damn near every soldier on that base and the people came out of El Paso to watch it. They were betting amongst themselves, and the soldiers bet on Clabber and the people from El Paso were betting on Miss Bank.
“If I remember right, he told me Mike Trevino rode Clabber, and I don’t know who rode Miss Bank. Trevino was one of the top Quarter Horse riders at the time and they got him to ride him. It was a lap and tap deal, there was no starting gate. They swarmed them around there for 5 or 10 minutes before they got together to where it was an even start. So that’s the way that deal was about the starting arrangements for the race-as there was no starting gate.
“Anyway, Clabber outran her by a head. Dad took the horse back to the Nichols a day or two after the race. The Colonel gave him another pass to take him back. Anyway, that’s basically what the story was.”
When I asked Clay about anything else his dad had said about Clabber, he responded, “Just that he was one hell of a horse, you knew you could rope on him, herd cattle on him and then take him to a match race and he’d win that.” He then added, “I’ll tell you how he got his name. He told us this many times. He had big
feet, the biggest feet for a Quarter Horse he had ever seen. So, when he galloped, he made a clabber sound so that is how he got his name Clabber. I had never heard the clabber milk story. He always said that it was his big feet, and back
in those days, they galloped on those hard racetracks, so he made the clabber sound.” One source tells that when Nichols entered him in his first race he was entered as “Clab Foot.”
The AQHA sire record shows that Clabber listed 116 foals in the AQHA registry records. This includes 34 that are not registered in the AQHA, with some of them registered in National Quarter Horse Breeders Association that were not transferred to the AQHA when the two organizations came together. There may have been others that were raced and documented
CLABBER THE SIRE CONTINUED
with the old American Quarter Racing Association but never made it into the AQHA registry when it was absorbed into the AQHA.
Clabber did sire 52 official race starters with 27 official ROM, four stakes winners and four stakes placed runners. Here are some of the runners that we didn’t cover at length in our first look at Clabber. The stakes winners include Flicka L, winner of the 1946 Arizona Derby. This mare had 12 starts with three wins, five seconds and three thirds. She ran AA time, which may have been the highest rating at that time.
She was second in the Arizona Derby in February of 1946, and third that year in the Rillito Championship. This mare was bred by L. E. Douglas of Higley, Arizona.
They were betting amongst themselves, and the soldiers bet on Clabber and the people from El Paso were betting on Miss Bank.
36 SPEEDHORSE July 2022