Page 104 - May 2018 Speedhorse

Pam (Perner) Upton aboard Talent Bar as they make the fastest barrel run at the 1972 Ft Worth Stock Show.
Talent had won more than his share of saddles and trophies, so in 1972 he became a full-time stud. From then on,
he would leave it up to his colts to prove him.
Futurity, but wasn’t fast enough to make the finals, and he was so sore he couldn’t walk all the summer. It was a shin buck, so we brought him home and rested him that winter. I leased him to Aubrey Stokes to run as a three year old, and as a three, he was second in the Rainbow Derby and he was second in the Three Bars Handicap. Aubrey ran him through the meet, and in Sunland he got a bad quarter crack, so we terminated his lease in the fall of 1970, and
I bred him to about half of my mares. His first foals will start in ’74. We’re pleased with how his colts look, but it’s got to be proven whether they can run or not.”
From Talent Bar’s second colt crop came Talented Lady, Bobby Syke’s filly out of his
mare Chiquita Punkin. A.B. Crosby of Cristoval trained her. She won the Midland Futurity, and that fall, as a 30-to-1 long shot, she outran the year’s two going-jessies, Tony B. Deck and Rocket Wrangler, to win the Sunland Fall Futurity. She then made the finals in the Championship and ran fourth in the Classic. The following year, she was tough derby competition, and in the spring, she was bred to Azure Te and then bred back to him the next year.
Talent Bar colts had a good year in 1971 and ’72 on the Texas tracks. Texas Talent won the Brady Futurity in ’71 and ran good all year,
ol’ Talent. The stallion took to barrel racing the same as he had to Quarter racing. His last time out was at the tough 1972 Fort Worth Stock Show. He was entered in both the Invitational Barrel Race, which is four go-arounds, and the registered event. There were 75 entries in the open competition and he won two of the four go-rounds and Pam won the registered race with 88 entries by four-tenths of a second. Talent had won more than his share of saddles and trophies, so in 1972 he became a full-time stud. From then on, he would leave it up to his colts to prove him.
So that gets back to My Talent, the palomino colt from his first crop. P.C. says, “Fred Barrett called me in December of 1968 and asked me
if I’d be interested in buying the colt; that he didn’t want to run horses anymore, and I asked him what he wanted for him. He told me, and
I told him I’d go look at him. His son-in-law, James Kinney, was taking care of the horses
up at the D Ranch this side of Carlsbad. We hooked on to our trailer, and Philip and I went up and looked at him. I told James that I’d buy him. I told Philip to go get the trailer and bring the halter and we’d load him. James said, ‘Well, a halter’s not going to do you any good, because that horse has never had a rope on him in his life.’ He was a coming two.
“I told him, ‘Well, I don’t want to buy him and have to wrestle him around here and skin him up trying to get him in that trailer.’
“He said, ‘Don’t worry. We’ll load him, I’ll guarantee you.’ So he whistled, and five cowboys came around there. They ran the colt in a little round pen and James roped him, and those
five boys just went down that rope and picked him up off the ground. We backed the trailer right up there, and they just slid him in that trailer and never turned a hair on him. He never moved in that trailer until we got home. We unloaded him and went right on with him. He had just as good a disposition as Talent.
“We took him to Sunland and I entered him in the Sunland Spring Futurity. I took him out there between Christmas and New Years, and they started him in February, and he hadn’t ever had a rope on him until I got him right before Christmas in December. He won his first two outs and then qualified for the finals in the Spring Futurity and came back and ran second with a top AAA speed rating in the finals. That horse never won a stakes race, yet the first two years, he outran every good horse he ran.
He ran second in the Sunland Futurity and he qualified in the Kansas and ran sixth in the finals, and he got sore for the rest of the summer. He won his trial heat in the Rainbow
102 SPEEDHORSE, May 2018
LOOKING BACK - AN EXCERPT FROM JANUARY 1974 ISSUE