Page 95 - July 2022

have beaten Truckle Feature on that day. Many will say I’m wrong. Maybe I am. Or maybe I’m just “behind the times.” In any case, that single race remains as clear-cut in my mind as anything I ever saw on a racetrack.
But the memory of Truckle Feature has apparently faded from the public’s perception. It didn’t help that he traveled to Los Alamitos later that year for the Champion of Champions, where he finished a close third to Charger Bar and Come Six. It also didn’t help that Mr. Howell was publicly dismissive of his horse’s rivals leading up to the race, and then he
was much less than gracious in defeat. When Truckle Feature was retired to stud, any of the top breeding farms would have been proud to stand him but no one could make a suitable
1973 World Champion Truckle Feature
deal for Mr. Howell. So, the great horse was given his first chance to be a successful stallion at the small, sandy acreage just across the street from Sunland Park—not exactly the lush green pastures of Oklahoma. In fact, if there had ever been a blade of grass on the Howell property
it had been eaten years before Truckle Feature arrived. Not exactly the place top breeders wanted to send their best mares and foals.
Another strike against Truckle Feature’s stallion career was the fact that he wasn’t syndicated at
the end of his racing career. Forming a stallion syndicate is similar to forming a fan club. If you have 40 shareholders on a stallion, enthusiasm for the horse grows naturally. The shareholders will send a diverse, high-quality group of mares, and then they will brag together on the resulting foals. Then they will mutually admire the offspring when they reach the yearling sales—continually adding to the stallion’s momentum in the marketplace. On the other hand, when a Champion goes to stud owned by a single owner, especially one as
boastful as Mr. Howell, other breeders turn a deaf ear to the bragging and look for excuses not to breed their mares. In Truckle Feature’s case, the excuses were plentiful.
It would be nice to say that 1973 World Champion Truckle Feature overcame all those obstacles and finally earned widespread success as a stallion, but that wasn’t the case. He did prove he was capable of siring a truly top-class runner when his gorgeous son 1982 World Champion Sgt Pepper Feature dominated
the gelding ranks during his career. And Truckle Feature’s daughter Brenda’s Feature was honored as AQHA Champion Broodmare and established one of the strongest female bloodlines in the breed’s history.
So, despite the obstacles placed in his path, Truckle Feature was finally able to pass along to the racing breed at least a small strain of the power and speed he put on display on that memorable afternoon at Ruidoso Downs in 1973.
1982 World Champion Sgt Pepper Feature
“Leonard and I both knew we’d seen something extraordinary. We looked at each other and then looked at our stopwatches.”-Tom Dawson
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