Page 65 - January 6 2012

“Buster told us to go over to H.V.’s place
and look. So we went over and I picked out a gelding by Levan named Bolaz. They were all yearlings in that pasture and my dad said he liked the looks of this filly, and that filly was Casco Rose. So it ended up we bought both of them and gave $1,200 for the pair. Then we ran Bolaz and later on we ran Casco Rose a little bit on the brush tracks. Then we went to breeding her. Everything she produced would run.
“Later on we took Casco Rose and bred her to Lady Bug’s Moon and raised Rose Bug. Then it seemed like everything Rose Bug raised was a runner also. We raised Tonimora, Tiny Gay Bug and more out of her. We also raised Casco Charge, which was out of Casco Rose. Casco Charge was the mother of Heza Charger.”
He continued about what they did with Heza Charger, “My dad was getting older and I was off rodeoing and dad said I’m going to have to sell this stud colt I can’t handle him. Jack Reamy offered us $1,500, which was quite a bit of money back in those days. So we sold him Heza Charger. Jack took him and went to Goliad and set a world record running a 109 with him. Later they sold half interest in him
to Sonny Stanley.” Heza Charger was the 1976 AQHA Racing Champion Aged Stallion.
When I asked about her race record David confirmed that they match raced her and he added, “She was probably a AA mare back in those days. Back then this was kind of like a plaything on the weekends. You would just go match them.”
He continued about Bolaz’s race record, “We matched Bolaz. There wasn’t a horse that could beat him out. I sometimes matched him at 50 or 100 yards. Nothing could beat him out. Bolaz was a solid AA horse.”
David confirmed that he used Bolaz as a rope horse but as he put it, “I lost interest in roping after losing my mare to sleeping sick- ness. We started match racing so I never got back to roping after that.” He did continue in rodeo as a bulldogger and bareback bronc rider.
When I asked how to spell Bolaz, David recalled how the Robert’s horses got their names. He stated, “H.V. was also in the Greyhound business and he would go through those dog books and pick out names. That’s how he named them Bolaz and Casco Rose.”
Next we talked about Casco Rose’s pedigree and David’s response told that he was pretty
sure of her pedigree. He did know that Levan was her sire and that they had a free breeding to him and that Prissy Hankins was her dam. He said of Casco Rose’s maternal grand dam— “Betty McCue was a race mare” but didn’t know much beyond that.
The most interesting comment came about how they picked their horses during this time, “Back in those days we just looked at conforma- tion and picked them out. We didn’t look at the pedigree.” He went on the explain that this was pretty common and that he recently picked his latest stakes winner (Dark Ivory Storm) out as he went by him at the Heritage Sale and liked what he saw. He bought him and then found what a strong pedigree this colt has as a son of Ivory James and out of a daughter of Sacred. Sacred comes from the female family estab- lished by Mable Tet, the famous blue hen mare.
My talk with David Wilson brought to my mind how great things can have a modest begin- ning and how lucky we are that David Brown went looking for a new roping horse. He never found
a horse to replace Star’s Image but they found a mare that became the foundation of a great family of quarter running horses through the full brother First Down Dash and First Prize Dash.
1976 Champion Aged Stallion Heza Charger is out of Casco Charge, out of Casco Rose.
63 SPEEDHORSE, January 6, 2012