Page 82 - September 2022

done ranch work
when she was
gentle as a lamb, and
old feel like a man whenever I led her horseback from our barn to the saddling paddock for a race. And then more times than not I would lead her
to the test barn after the race. She scored her last six victories for the Wells stable, along with a second in the Sunland Park Championship. She and Easter Rose (the dam of Bunny Bid and Double Rose) pushed each other to a dead heat in a World Record 19.6 seconds (no tailwind) for 400 yards but the record was later disallowed
by the AQHA on the reasoning that “those two mares could not have run that fast.”
By the way, Lena’s Bar was not a Quarter Horse at all, but a registered Thoroughbred.
A daughter of Three Bars (TB), her dam
was Lena Valenti (TB) by Gray Dream. But
a more Quarter Horse-looking specimen you could not find. And decades later when I would see that same square hip and deep britches on
a horse, I could usually trace it to Lena’s Bar through her son Easy Jet. Lena’s Bar’s
under a stock saddle needed. She was as
she made this ten-year-
younger sister, Little Lena’s Bar, was a brilliant speedster as well, setting four World Records
at four different distances of a quarter mile or less. Sadly, she died before entering the Merrick broodmare band. But she was yet further proof of the greatness of Three Bars, the fast but injury-plagued speedster who had once raced at Tucson for a $300 claiming price.
The first All American Futurity had been won by a daughter of Three Bars, Galobar, and the second All American had been won by Tonto Bars Hank, a grandson of Three Bars. By late spring of 1961, word reached us that
there was a freakishly fast Three Bars filly in California named Bunny’s Bar Maid and
that she would be heading to Ruidoso in time for the All American Futurity trials. Meanwhile, with the retirement of Lena’s Bar, the Wells
80 SPEEDHORSE September 2022
Easy Jet, out of Lena’s Bar, with Walter Merrick.
Galobar,
a daughter
of Three Bars, was the first winner of
the All American Futurity in 1959 for owner Hugh Huntley, trainer Newton Keck
and jockey
Clifford Lambert.
Speedhorse Archives
Speedhorse Archives
Tonto
Bars
Hank, a grandson of Three Bars, was the second winner of the
All American Futurity in 1960.
Speedhorse Archives