Page 65 - May 2022

The winter of 1975 was a tough one in Artesia, New Mexico, where I had leased a training center to break colts for the coming year’s futurities. But occasionally February would deal us a day without that blasted wind. On one such pleasant day, when the work was done for the morning, I decided to drive over to Roswell to visit the sensational Buena Suerte breeding and training complex. I knew C.W. “Bubba” Cascio
was breaking his colts there and I knew that Bubba would be “loaded for bear” with some of the best-bred two year olds in the country. And why wouldn’t that be the case? Year after year he dominated the big money races and the best breeders and owners stood in line to get their horses into Bubba’s stable. Of course, some owners had to wait longer than others. B.F. Phillips, however, had seen Bubba Cascio come up through the ranks as a young man who could do anything with a horse and do it exceedingly well. And Phillips bred the kind of horses any trainer would want to train.
I had been studying Bubba Cascio for several years. His father, Jake, was an outstanding trainer and one of my father’s chief rivals on the New Mexico circuit when I was a youngster. Jake Cascio was not just
a fine horse trainer; he was a master storyteller, too, and he told those stories with a honey-thick Cajun accent I found fascinating. When his son Bubba showed up on the circuit, though, it was immediately clear that a new top dog had arrived. I didn’t know then that Bubba had been a skilled calf roper, a match race jockey, a world class rider of cutting horses and could do anything that could be done horseback. I learned later that he had even ridden a reining horse on the White House lawn for President Dwight D. Eisenhower! We didn’t know all that at the time, but we quickly learned he was a masterful trainer of young Quarter Horses. It may have happened, but I don’t recall a set of futurity trials in those days when the Bubba Cascio stable didn’t win multiple heats. So of course, I studied him. We all studied him.
The first thing that stood out was how flawlessly his horses performed. His first-time starters were high-strung and on their toes, just like everyone else’s two year olds. But they behaved like veterans when those starting gates opened—breaking straight and true with none of the wavering and drifting so many green colts exhibit. I learned over the years that there is
no substitute for investing all the hours of schooling necessary to get your horses to that point. Bubba Cascio was a master at it. And on this very day I would learn one of his methods.
By the time I pulled into the Buena Suerte training center, the grooms were just putting the finishing touches on the immaculate grounds and when I got out of my truck I was greeted by a familiar
voice, “Scott the Shot! You just missed Bubba. He done left for El Paso.” It was Andrew “Fish” Emerson, one of Cascio’s longtime employees.
Jake Cascio, a top trainer and the father of
Bubba.
Speedhorse Archives
Photo by Laura Howard
Dashingly after winning the
1983 All American Gold Cup with Andrew “Fish” Emerson, one of Bubba Cascio’s longtime grooms.
SPEEDHORSE May 2022 63
Trainer C. W. “Bubba” Cascio, who still ranks
as the #16 top leading trainer by money earned.
Photo by Bill McNabb Jr