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SPEEDLINES
12 is a foal by Ashwell in 1915. A look at the produce record shows that this foal was Lena Pearl and she was a full sister to Hazel T, foaled in 1914 and both sired by Ashwell. Sister Fanny was listed in the 1915 American Stud Book as owned by Jesse Dean of Benonine, Texas. Nelson Nye in his writings states that “all four of these mares had
track performance records and were highly considered.” He reported that Sister Fanny had 65 starts with an amazing 62 wins.
Ralph Dye’s story “Leo Was A Mighty Horse” (Quarter Racing World, November 1973 now Speedhorse), tells us that Little Fanny had two starts as a two year old and then she was bred to Joe Reed II. No one else reports her to be raced. Little Fanny produced 11 foals with 10 starters, five ROM and one stakes winner. She foaled the ROM Leo first and her other ROM
by Joe Reed II was Little Sister W, a stakes winner of the 1951 Pacific Coast QHRA Handicap and the 1951 Christensens Tack Shop Handicap. She was second in five more stakes including the Shue Fly Stakes. The other ROM from this cross include Firebrand Reed and Fanny’s Finale.
Leo found his permanent home with Warren, and we saw what Warren wanted in his new stallion as far as racing ability was concerned. But there was another way he saw potential for Leo as a sire. Warren was not only looking for a stallion, but he was adding broodmares to his new broodmare band. He added Swamp Angel and a mare originally known as the Triangle Mare that became Julie W in the AQHA. These two mares produced Leota W and Flit, the two fillies he owned when he bought Leo. It was their success that reinforced his decision to buy Leo.
Warren bought Swamp Angel for $30. Just like Leo, he was warned not to buy her. He described Swamp Angel as “a little ole bay mare” that foaled “a big beautiful bay filly.” He named her Leota W. He described her as a mare with the “biggest hindleg” he’d ever seen. He was sure she was “the best looking and possibly the best he raced” in all the years he was in the racehorse business.
Leota W certainly proved to be an outstanding runner. She started 16 races for Warren, and she won 14 of them. She won the first running of the Oklahoma Futurity in 1947. She was third in the 1949 Tucson Speed Stakes. She equaled the track record at Fair Meadows going 220 yards in a time of :12.400 which was in her the Oklahoma Futurity win. She set six track records at
three different tracks. She set three track records in 1948, one in Tucson at 330 yards in a time of :17.600; two in Enid going 250 yards in :13.700 and 350 yards in :18.500. She came back in 1949 to set three more records, one again at Enid going 250 yards in a time of :13.6; two at Rillito going 300 yards in :16.000 and one for 440 yards in a time of :22.600. Her record shows that she started 55 official races with 20 wins, eight seconds and four thirds earning $4,639.
Leota W became a broodmare after her racing career ended in 1951. She produced eight foals with seven starters that earned five ROM with one stakes winner. Her stakes winner was Stepping Star by Top Deck. She won The Bardella Handicap in 1966. Little Leota was an AAA rated runner and the dam of horses like Goer, winner of the 1965 Texas Futurity and the 1966 La Pitahaya Winter Derby. Citation Bars out of Leota W was an AAA rated runner and the sire of the stakes winner Parr Pas winner of the 1981 Trinity Meadows Texas Classic Futurity. Leota W was killed in a trailer accident going from her home in Colorado to Oklahoma to be bred to Jet Deck.
Swamp Angel proved to be a great purchase for Warren and his breeding program. After Leota W was born, he
bred her to Jess Hankins the son of King P-234. She produced Jezebell W who would produce Leolib by Leo. Leolib
was the dam of the stakes winner White River, winner of the 1966 Apache County Futurity, and Milk River, a multiple stakes place runner including seconds in the 1963 White Sands Handicap and 1964 Colorado Derby. Milk River was an AQHA Supreme Champion. The 1949 foal out of Swamp Angel, was Leolita by Leo, winner of the 1951 Kansas Futurity and the 1952 Kansas Derby. She earned 13 AQHA halter points and became an AQHA Champion. Leo Chico, the 1950 foal out of Swamp Angel was a stakes placed runner in the 1952 Rocky Mountain QHA Futurity.
The mating of Leo with Swamp Angel
is an interesting one from a pedigree standpoint. Swamp Angel was sired by Grano De Oro by Little Joe and Grano De Oro was out of Della Moore, making him a half-brother to Joe Reed P-3. This gives the foals of this cross a 4 x 4 x 3 linebreeding pattern to Della Moore through these two sons of this great mare. A great example of Inbreeding to a Superior Female.
Flit was second to Leota W in the Oklahoma Futurity, but she was disqualified for interference. Warren talked about Flit
this way, “I had this Leo mare, Flit. She
was second in the first futurity written in the United States for Quarter Horses... I took Flit, she was an AA race mare and
I raced her all over the country from El Paso out to Arizona. She was a little bitty bulldog powerhouse, and I took her down to Jess Hankins’ King by Zantanon, if you remember him. I did that because I owned a nice little King horse, a halter horse that I ran a bit. So, I took her down to Ole King. She had a stud colt that we hadn’t even named yet and Jim Calhoun bought him.” Calhoun made him the 1957 NCHA Open World Champion Cutting Horse. Warren sold Leota W and kept Flit for
a broodmare. We will have more on her produce record later.
Warren told me this about Julie W. “She (Flit) was out of an old Joe Hancock mare that came from the 6666 Ranch. Her name was Julie. She started it. She wasn’t much of a mare, a little ole parrot mouthed mare that couldn’t do anything, but she was a Joe Hancock mare.
“She was rugged, stout and not very pretty,” he continued. “Damn she produced any number of good horses. There was a lot of other Hancock mares bred because of Flit and several others that we raised from Julie W at that time.”
Julie W’s sire was Joe Hancock who was bred by John Jackson Hancock and then owned by his son Joe Hancock. Bird Ogle would race Joe Hancock the horse for Joe Hancock. When they first raced the horse Joe Hancock, he didn’t have a name and
so Bird listed him as Joe Hancock. Joe Hancock became a very successful runner that was open to the world. When it became hard to match Joe Hancock, Bird Ogle talked Joe Hancock into selling the horse. He bought him and it turned out he was buying the horse for Tom L. Burnett. The horse went to his Triangle Ranch in Iowa Park, Texas, where he sired the Triangle Mare that became Julie W. Joe Hancock
was sired by John Wilkins by Peter McCue. His dam is listed as the Brown Hancock Mare by the Wilson Horse and out of the Mundell Mare.
Lena Horn was the first foal out of Julie W. She was sired by Dock by Zantanon. Dock was a 3/4-brother to King P-234 as his dam was Pluma by Valentino and Pluma was out of Jabalina, the dam of King P-234. Lena Horn was a member of the Warren broodmare band, and she is the dam of 14 foals, with 10 sired by Leo. The Leo foals include four of her seven ROM from nine
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