Page 64 - January 6 2012

62 SPEEDHORSE, January 6, 2012
by Larry Thornton
One of the great things about being in pedigree research is that your job is never done. It seems that when you
report your information you often open doors that give you more information. I know that when I report on a given stallion, mare or geld- ing that somewhere along the line I will more than likely gather more information and this
is the case with Casco Rose. Casco Rose was a primary ingredient in the article “Keeping It All In the Family” in the Nov. 25, 2011 issue of Speedhorse. This article featured a look at the female family of First Down Dash and his full sister First Prize Dash and a major part of the story shows how Casco Rose fit into that family.
We learned that Casco Rose became a match racer and broodmare for Gordon H. Wilson of Grove, Oklahoma. But a call from Gordon’s son David has opened the door to more information about how it all came about. Now if the name David Wilson is familiar
to you it could be because he is also featured in the Nov. 25 issue as a co-owner of the Bill Hedge Memorial Stakes winner Dark Ivory Storm. His co-owner is Rodney Reed, also the horse’s trainer.
When I talked to David he explained how he and his dad had always been involved with horses, “We’ve always had horses all our life. When I was growing up we still had teams of horses that we plowed with. Later on we got rid of them and got a tractor. I was about 10 when we had our last team. We always had riding horses. We had cattle and gathered the cattle on them.”
He added, “We also showed horses back in those days. We always fooled with horses. We were running them, showing them and using them.”
The new information on Casco Rose begins with David as a rodeo calf roper who had lost his roping horse to sleeping sickness. When
he went on the road to find a new one, he and his dad found Casco Rose. He tells the story this way, “I was looking for a roping horse. We went over to Porter, Oklahoma, where they stood Levan. We used to drive the country on weekends looking at different studs. Vache Buster had Levan, which was the best stud in the country at that time. H.V. Roberts was like the local veterinarian around there. He wasn’t a real veterinarian but he did all the work for the cattle and horses.”