Page 161 - Speedhorse, December 2018

Johnny Dial is the sire of Champion Anna Dial and the broodmare sire of Champion Hank’s Dial Doll.
1963 & 1964 Champion Mare and 1962 Champion 3-Year-Old Filly Anna Dial. 1969 Champion 3-Year-Old Filly Hank’s Dial Doll.
known Johnny Dial was for sale and had not known how much he truly believed in the stallion. This may be one of the few times in history when the man from Festus, Missouri, was left without anything to say, but he was thinking plenty:
“I hadn’t been seriously into the Quarter Running Horse business for too long. To the best of my ability, I had made up a list of prominent sires. I had checked into the mares they bred, how many were AAA, etc., and I had checked into what the offspring did. I
had come up with the idea that Johnny Dial’s percentage of winners and producers was amazing because he had always sort of been isolated. He had belonged to some fine people. And I guess the broodmare band at Quincy Farms, those Leo and Three Bars mares, was one of the best ever assembled. But Denver was off the beaten track. So was Pinon, and so was Miami. Miami was in Oklahoma, all right, but not in the Oklahoma City area, where
the top mares gathered. So, the way I saw it, Johnny Dial never had a consistent chance at top mares, but his offspring always had a lot of want-to. They tried.
“I knew what it would take to buy him. Nerve and money. He was already twenty years old, but he was still Johnny Dial and would never go cheap. So, I sat on the plane and thought about the horse and wished I had the guts to get him.”
Ed Honnen was in the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas when Earl Shapiro came up and took him by the arm. Beneath the din of spinning roulette wheels, the rattle of rolling dice and the metallic serenade of legions of slot machines, Johnny Dial went to his last owner in one of the briefest trades on record.
“Is Johnny Dial for sale?” “Yes.”
“How much?”
Ed Honnen named the price. “I will take him,” Earl said.
WINTER
About 50 miles south of St. Louis, the highway swings into wide S-shaped curves through hills and dales, on the outskirts of
the small town of Festus. Most of the year this countryside is a study of colorful beauty. In the winter time, it is bleak, cold and bare, No Man’s Land. It is difficult to spot the Shapiro spread along this stretch, though it includes about
300 acres and extends from both sides of the highway. No fancy trappings here.
“I have what the rich guys can never buy. Poverty.”
It is hardly poverty ridden, but no attempt has been made to “pretty it up.” The pipe fences are unpainted and rusting. Patches on the Quonset huts – stallions in one and stalls and the collection room in the other – are rusting. The old bus (Greyhound type) parked on the grounds is used for storage. No decorations,
but no superficiality, either. This is a down-to- business horse farm, and you see that in the Blood that dominates it.
The Thoroughbreds, Zevi (Cornish Prince-Spire) and Kannapali (*Hawaii- *Megalong), have stalls that take up half of one of the Quonset huts. They are young, full of themselves, and very aware that they are studs. The ground rumbles when they cavort in their paddocks. Far away, in all directions, are the steep hills where the Shapiro mares roam free, taking the hills as they come.
The mares are Johnny Dial daughters and granddaughters by other patriarchs like
Jet Deck, Rocket Bar TB, Royal Bar, Deep Fathom, Go Man Go, Easy Jet, Triple Chick and Spy Song.
The mares live outdoors year round. They do not come in at feeding time. Small feed storage bins dot the hills.
“Feeding is easy around here. All you need is a bucket and a good pair of legs.”
The groups of mares wander to the bins at feeding time. They are strong but gentle mares, quite feminine when they circle a visitor and nudge him a friendly, inquisitive way.
Johnny Dial won his first start at Albuquerque in 1950, and ended his career the same way he began it, with a win on Dec. 20, 1953, running 440-yards in :22.3.
SPEEDHORSE, December 2018 159
LOOKING BACK - AN EXCERPT FROM JANUARY 1978 ISSUE
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