Page 42 - NMHBA_Winter2022

A MOMENT IN TIME
train for his trip from Kentucky to New Mexico. “He was a bad horse,” stated Bill. “He’d eat you alive. He’d picked up two handlers and run off with them at the sale. He was also the first good Thoroughbred horse to arrive in New Mexico. We met the train, put a halter on him and strung Nassack out with long ropes between two horses for the trip to the ranch. After 16 miles through mesquite bushes, Nassack didn’t feel so mean.”
He threw some outstanding horses, though. One was Bill’s roping horse Rowdy. “He was a heck of a horses,” Bill testified. “Forty-seven different men
won money on Rowdy,
which says something for the
horse’s character. Rowdy was
solid, and everyone knew
it. In fact, I turned down
$10,000 for that horse 40
years ago, which at that time
was a good sum of money.”
While Bill was making
a name for himself in the
rodeo world, Dee was
coming through the ranks in
the medical world. She came
from a family of talented,
determined women, so it
was only natural that she
make her mark in her chosen
profession. Dee’s maternal
grandparents were married
in Spain, then immigrated to
Mexico. When the revolution
broke out in 1910, they
traveled north, stopping
when her grandfather found
work in the coal mines near
Gallup. Dee’s grandmother
opened up a boarding house to help with the family finances and keep her 10 daughters busy.
In 1917, Dee’s Italian born father jumped ship in the United States and migrated to New Mexico. He was a bootlegger during Prohibition, then bought a motel and bar
in Truth or Consequences for his wife to manage while he farmed.
The ex-rodeo cowboy and hospital administrator got into the race horse business quite by accident. Bill was training rodeo horses when he and Dee were married, and took a Quarter Horse mare to Carlsbad to be bred. In Carlsbad, he found the Thoroughbred mare Fast Princess and bought her. Since the couple didn’t have much of a place for horses, Fast Princess stayed in the front yard for a number of months.
As their horse numbers grew, Bill and Dee brought the 10 acres down on the Rio
Grande River which is now called Rush Rancho. A four acre private lake fed by the Cuchillo Creek is immediately out of their back door. Bass, cat, crappie and bluegill abound in the lake, and when Dee asks for fish for supper, Bill asks, “How big?”
It is a good place for horses. Bill broke
all his horses, training them in the Sandhills near Truth and Consequences and swimming them in the river. They were ready to run by the time they reached the track.
Winning at the track was no accident for the couple who were used to winning in their own endeavors. Typical of their mares
The acquisition and training of race horses came to an abrupt halt last year when Bill broke his neck. He sold all mares with the exception of Asian Lady and Patty’s Sara – in fact, it looked like racing was slowing down for the Rushes.
Then Joy Giver came on the scene. The magnificent stallion now attracting so much attention at Rush Rancho is six years old and kin to the horses that won the Derby, Belmont and Preakness this year. He broke his maiden in Santa Fe by 15 lengths as
a two-year-old but wasn’t raced then for three years because of a divorce case. His
dam, Mink And Wine, was raised in New
Mexico and ran second
in the Riley Allison.
His sire, L’Enjoleur,
by Buckpasser, was the Champion two and three- year-old in Canada. Joy Giver’s maternal grandam was Fanfreluche, the mare that was kidnapped in foal to Secretariat. Other notables in his ancestry include Northern Dancer, Nasrullah, Native Dancer, Buckpasser and Man O War.
Joy Giver changed the Rushes’ plans. They are constructing facilities for 30 mares on the Rancho and will have the new
facility open for breeding season this year. “We plan to prove Joy Giver here in New Mexico,” noted Bill. “We had four
stakes winning mares bred to him last year and hope to fill his book in 1987. He should produce winners. He has the best blood in America. He will be a valuable asset for
New Mexico.”
The 25 to 30 mares that Bill and Dee hope to attract by next spring should keep
the couple busy. But this is one couple that doesn’t mind being busy. They juggle Dee’s work and their horse business with remarkable adeptness. When the hospital sends Dee to corporate offices in Orlando, Florida, Bill goes along to look at horse farms. When their horses are running in Santa Fe, Bill is there, and Dee almost invariably makes time in her busy schedule for the races. And after a long day at the office, it is a relief to Dee to be able to come home, slip into jeans and help Bill with the horses.
Truly, this cowboy and his lady have a lot in common.
Bill and Dee Rush
was Pelouse’s Sara, who won $100,000 in her campaigns. She won the prestigious Denver Mile by 17 lengths and set a track record 35 years ago in Santa Anita. The Rushes gave $10,000 for Pelouse’s Sara when she was 20 years old. Their only foal out of her was Patty’s Sara by Northern Match,
and Pelouse’s Sara died in foaling. It took eight days for Bill to convince another mare to adopt the orphaned filly, and he figures he used 10 pounds of mentholatum, but this summer Patty’s Sara rewarded him by winning a race at Santa Fe Downs. She has run four times, and taken seventh, fourth, second and first.
“Asian Lady was the best race horse I
ever owned,” claims Bill. “I bought her from Casey Darnell. She ran nine times and had seven firsts, and never had a horse in front of her for half a mile. If she hadn’t shin bucked, she’d have won the Riley Allison.”
40 New Mexico Horse Breeder