Page 52 - July_2023

SPEEDLINES
Luke McLuke, the sire of Myrtle Dee who is the dam of Three Bars.
Frontera Sugar, the dam of Sugar Bars.
50 SPEEDHORSE July 2023
Miss Bank, with her connections after winning
the 1947 Quarter Horse Championship at the New Mexico State Fair, is sired by Captains Courageous.
2-time Champion Rebel Cause, whose second dam is Miss Bank.
Three Bars was out of Myrtle Dee, a sprint bred mare that set a record for 5.5 furlongs at the Coney Island Racetrack. Myrtle Dee was sired by Luke McLuke and out of Civil Maid. Luke McLuke was a son of Ultimus, a double bred Domino stallion. Civil Maid was by Patriot, a son of Ben Brush. This gives Three Bars 5x5x5 breeding pattern to Domino.
Frontera Sugar was the dam of Sugar Bars. She was the Grand Champion mare
at the Southwestern International Show
in El Paso in 1945. Her breeder was Pete Reynolds, and she seems to have been highly regarded in the Quarter Horse world.
Elmer Hepler, a noted Quarter Horse breeder and owner of World Champion Shue Fly, was quoted by Warren in the Quarter Horse Journal story “Sugar Bars” by Sam Ed Spence (April 1969) that Frontera Sugar “was the kind of mare you’d want to be the mother of a stud.” Warren is quoted again in the story describing Frontera Sugar as having “... the most classic head I have ever seen on a horse.”
Frontera Sugar’s pedigree is a very interesting aspect of this mare’s history. She is a daughter of Rey, who was owned for most of his life by Pete Reynolds. Rey was by a Thoroughbred named Captains Courageous, who was the sire of the famous Quarter Horse running mares in Miss Bank. Miss Bank is found in the female family of the Champion runner Rebel Cause.
Captains Courageous was sired by Stimulus by Ultimus, who is found twice in Sugar Bars pedigree. Ultimus was the sire of Luke McLuke, the sire of Myrtle Dee, the dam of Three Bars. This gives Sugar Bars a 4x5 breeding pattern to Ultimus.
Rey’s dam was Goldie, a Quarter Horse mare by Red Lantados by the Thoroughbred Lantados. Goldie’s dam was a mare called Goldust. Goldust was spelled two ways, the other spelling was Gold Dust. Goldust was sired by Eleven Hundred by Barney Lucas. Eleven Hundred was out of a daughter of the
foundation sire Traveler. Goldust’s dam
was a mare named Silver by Hub by the Thoroughbred Abe Frank, the sire of the legendary runner Pan Zareta, one of the great speed mares to ever hit the track. She is the mare that beat Joe Blair in their famous match race. Silver’s dam was Sis by Serpent.
In the stud book, Frontera Sugar’s dam is listed as the Dun Mare. Ralph Eagle,
a longtime friend of Pete Reynolds and owner of several sisters to Frontera Sugar, has researched and found that the Dun Mare was later registered as Palomino D.O. Ralph Eagle reported how all
this came about in a 1973 Speedhorse (formerly Quarter Racing World) magazine article “Dam of Frontera Sugar” (November 1973).
According to Eagle’s story, the horse color “dun” was used to describe a variety of colors by early Texas horsemen - this includes the color palomino. Eagle explains that Frontera Sugar was registered before her dam. Thus, no official name was given to the “Dun Mare” that was listed in the stud book as Frontera Sugar’s dam. This is the first situation that led
to the omission of Palomino D.O. as the dam of Frontera Sugar.
Palomino D.O. was registered in 1947 with the number 8353. When a list of registered foals out of Palomino D.O. was reconciled by the AQHA to show that she was the dam of these foals, Frontera Sugar was omitted. This problem was compounded when a gelding brother
to Frontera Sugar was listed as foaled in 1943. Frontera Sugar was foaled in 1943,
and I can’t get there as the banks are closed.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I might have enough money in my sock.’ He was just a good old boy and a good trainer, but hard up like everybody else. But he bid up to $2,500 and gives the man the cash. Got the horse in his barn and the next morning I loaded up and went to get the horse and brought him home. Strictly because he was a show horse type horse, he had Three Bars breeding and some other breeding that I knew about and that was good. His dam was a Palomino type mare, a Quarter Horse type mare and I knew about her.”
The pedigree of Sugar Bars was typical of the Three Bars on Quarter mares that proved so successful for the American Quarter Horse. Three Bars was sired by Percentage, a multiple stakes winner in such races as the Cincinnati Handicap. Percentage was sired by Midway and out of Gossip Avenue. Midway was a tail male descendant of Hermit. The Hermit
sire line has all but died out in the Thoroughbred, but his influence is still seen in many female families of the Thoroughbred. Gossip Avenue was sired by Bulse by Disguise, a son of Domino.
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