Page 84 - September 2022

racehorse, setting track and world records and dominating California racing during his prime. Now he is almost forgotten, as he
turned out to be totally
sterile. Pokey Bar was
owned by Galobar’s owner,
Hugh Huntley and trained
by her trainer, the legendary
Newt Keck. Before the decade was over, those two gentlemen would achieve All American glory a
third time.
Savannah Cates came
from behind in the race
and finished sixth, earning
$12,100. (That was half as much
as Lena’s Bar won in her combined 74 races with 24 wins and 28 seconds). The horse who finished a nose behind Savannah Cates and the five others who finished behind him earned not a dime. I recall standing outside our stable that night as Dad and Ray Cates discussed the filly’s future. A huge full moon peaked over the mountain as they spoke.
Savannah Cates won a futurity at Sunland before the year ended and in 1962 she became one of the best three-year-old fillies in the nation, especially at 440 yards, winning the Sunland Park
Quarter Horse Championship
and beaten only a nose by
eventual Champion Three-Year- Old Filly Straw Flight in the Sunland Park Derby. Her pedigree is long forgotten now,
but before the ‘60s
ended it gained a level
of All American glory
of its own. That’s
another story worth
telling sometime.
82 SPEEDHORSE September 2022
Pokey Bar,
1961 All American Futurity winner, is pictured after the race with jockey Kenneth Chapman, trainer Newton Keck
and owner
Hugh Huntley.
Speedhorse Archives
Speedhorse Archives
Savannah Jr, full brother
to Savannah Cates, with owner Ray
Cates, trainer Ted Wells Jr and jockey Jack Wallace after winning the 1965 All American
Futurity.
Speedhorse Archives