Page 59 - Speedhorse November 2019

Multiple stakes winner Ima Reb Hot, shown winning the Oregon Bred Juvenile Championship at Portland Meadows on Oct. 30, 1993.
Multiple stakes winner Check This Reb, shown winning the Malibu Beach Handicap at Los Alamitos Race Course on July 29, 1994.
“One time we turned this old guy out. It was one of Chris’ horses we called Phil,” Billy continues. “He’d been out on pasture for about a month and a half. Baxter was reading the condition book and he said, ‘Here’s a race for Phil!’ I said, ‘Phil?! He’s been out in the pasture!’ He said, ‘Oh, he’ll be all right.’ We called the farrier and gave Phil a bath, nailed a pair of shoes on him and he won by so far going 350 yards — he’d just needed a little rest.”
One of Andy’s most gratifying years came in 1994 when Check This Reb (Check The Charts- Reb Hot, Ima Easy Reb) came within one horse of qualifying for the All American Futurity. Earlier that year, the gelding won the Portland Meadows Futurity, then crossed the wire first in three of four races at Grants Pass. He then claimed the winner’s circle for the Malibu Beach Handicap
at Los Alamitos. At Ruidoso, he ran second in
the All American trials and second in the first consolation, then hauled back to the Evergreen Futurity-G3 at Sun Downs in Kennewick, Washington, and won that. He won three
more races that year as well. “I think he was the winningest horse in the nation that year,” Andy says. He finished his two-year racing career with a 26-14-4-2 record and $117,551 in earnings.
Check This Reb’s half-brother, Ima Reb Hot (Beda Cheng-Reb Hot, Ima Easy Reb), had outstanding seasons in 1993 and 1994 as well,
winning the Pot O’Gold Futurity, the Far West Futurity Div. 1, the Evergreen, the Oregon-Bred Juvenile Championship (forerunner to Baxter’s namesake race) and the Far West Futurity Div. 2.
In 1994, Ima Reb Hot took the winner’s circle for the Northwest Championship Challenge-G3 at Portland Meadows and the Northwest Derby Challenge at Les Bois Park. In three years on the track, he built a 25-17-1-2 record and earned $121,166.
Also on Andy’s list of top horses is Fabulous Form (Rare Form-Venice, Easy Jet), who became an AQHA World Champion. “Andy ran her here at Portland a few times, and she was good enough that we sent her to Los Alamitos with Kevin Gould,” Chris says. The mare won 12 of 40 starts, including the Mildred N Vessels Memorial Handicap-G1
and the Z Wayne Griffin Director’s Stakes Division 1-G3, tallying $206,334 from 1996 to 1999.
Through all the years, Andy has followed his heart and spoken his mind. “If it hadn’t been for him, Northwest racing wouldn’t have been what it was,” Billy says. “He had people get mad at him, but they respected him and he and others got things done. And kept the racing going.
“Very few people get to spend their life doing what they love and are successful with it. It’s been his passion and he was able to do it his whole life; that’s a pretty rare thing.”