Page 45 - Canada Spring 2021

Honker bested world record holder Truckle Feature in the Ruidoso 550 Championship Handicap. The 1973 AQHA Annual Review listed Azure Te as the third leading living sire of
all time money earners with average earnings of $9,246. Many of those horses were still running and adding to their earnings.
Azure Te still showed himself prominently in the sale ring in 1973 and Quick Six was the high selling horse at the Twin Classics Yearling Sale at $23,000 and Figure Eight Bars, bred to Azure Te, topped
the Jack Dyer’s Sale at $150,000. Routine, the dam of Azure Teen, brought high money of $100,000
at the Haymaker Sale as she sold booked to Azure Te the following year. But the All American Futurity was still the big promotion grounds for Azure Te. In the first three years that Azure Te’s foals raced, he had the fastest or second fastest qualifiers for the All American out of a total of 1,989 nominees.
Azure Te’s fee went to $5,000 in 1974 where it has since remained, and he still stands only to outside AAA runners or mares with a speed index of 90 or better or producers of AAA or SI 90.
And the winners kept coming. Azure Teen won the $314,778 Rainbow Derby (the richest derby). Angels Wing (SI 99) had the fastest qualifying time for and won the 1975 $104,000 Blue Ribbon Futurity. A Zure Request (SI 96) defeated Bugs Alive In 75 and Hyjonijet in his
trial heat for the 1975 Sunland Fall Futurity. Azure Fair (SI 91) beat all challengers in the $102,550 Delta Downs Quarter Horse Futurity. Cutie Kiss, Double Te, Azure Gate,
Five O Five and Fun City were all stakes winners or qualifiers along with Azure Jet and Miss Razzure. Also, in 1976 Louton’s Angel and Divine Liz ran first and second in the Rainbow Futurity First Consolation.
Venture Capital, by Azure Te, was second high seller at $70,000 in the 1975 All American Yearling Sale. Twelve Five went for top money in the 1976 Haymaker Sale at $91,000 and in the 1976 All American Sale, Azure Te sired the high selling yearling ($87,000) and 42 of his yearlings averaged $18,109 or 146% more than the average of the offspring of all the other sires combined.
Azure Te is now old enough to begin looking at his record as a broodmare sire and at first glance
it appears that he may excel in that area also. Three daughters of Azure Te had starters in 1976 and all were ROM. In 1977 up to August he has had fourteen daughters with starters and eleven are ROM. What makes these statistics so pertinent is that those seventeen mares were bred to
sixteen different stallions. Are Azure Te’s daughters capable of producing stakes winners? Coquette, a full sister to Hot Kiss, by Azure Te and out of Be Sure Peggy by Be Sure Now, is the mother of Hot Idea, who won the 1977 All American Futurity. Azure Te seems to be a double-barreled producer, passing on speed from his sire’s side (Nashville) and transmitting the broodmare siring abilities of his dam’s side (Blue One by Count Fleet by Reigh Count).
Jay’s determination to find the right horse and his persistence in overcoming the obstacles in buying him has paid off, but the rewards are far from over. Azure Te is fifteen years old and if he lives a normal life span, he’ll be writing a lot more history in the Quarter Horse world.
Once, when Jay and Buster Millerick were discussing Azure
Te’s great speed, Jay said he wanted Buster to find another just like him. Even if Jay had a horseshoe, a halo and a sack of gold, I don’t think I’d hold my breath.
LOOKING BACK
Jay Humphrey (left) with Ted Wells and Le Fleur at the 1977 Fall Haymaker when the Azure Te daughter sold for $95,000, going to Brown Badgett and Julia Rhea.
SPEEDHORSE CANADA Spring 2021 45