Meet two great horses from the racetrack and the reining arena.
Streakin La Jolla. Photo courtesy of the American Quarter Horse Foundation.
This year, AQHA inducted six legends into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame: Gordon Hannagan, Bob Loomis and Walter Fletcher and horses Hollywood Dun It, Indigo Illusion and Streakin La Jolla.
“We are honored to welcome these six people and horses into an elite group of inductees,” says AQHA Executive Vice President Don Treadway Jr.
And America’s Horse Daily is honored to introduce them to you.
Streakin La Jolla
If there are a couple of things that all horses in the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame have in common, it is heart and class, those undefinable and unmeasurable intangibles that make a horse want to be great.
Streakin La Jolla had heart. And he had class.
“He was a gentleman,” said Alvin “Bubba” Brossette, who in 1988 rode Streakin La Jolla to score in the Sound of Summer Derby at Delta Downs. “He was a stakes horse, and he was all business. He needed very little schooling in the gate. Everything was pretty much automatic to him. He was never a horse to get antsy or panic. He was just a perfect horse to ride. He knew his job, and he did it. And it wasn’t that he got it from repetition or training – it was kind of natural. He just naturally knew what his job was.”
Bred by the Frisco, Texas-based partnership of AQHA Past President B.F. Phillips Jr. and Delbert Smith, Streakin La Jolla was by Streakin Six and was foaled in 1985 out of the winning Raise Your Glass (TB) mare Bottom’s Up. Trained by Mike Lyles, he was undefeated in eight career races, his last being a victory in the consolation for the All American Derby (G1). Streakin La Jolla retired with earnings of $56,227.
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Streakin La Jolla entered stud in Louisiana in 1989. The rest is, as they say, history. His stallion career began under the management of Drs. Rick and Brad Boutte at their Pleasure Time Farm. Streakin La Jolla then spent several more years under the care of Jude Robicheaux, first at Robicheaux’s Shoestring Stud Farm, and then the horse moved with Robicheaux to L-J Farms in Alexandria, Louisiana.
As Streakin La Jolla was gaining in national prominence, he was purchased from Lee Ray Hayes in the summer of 1999 by Robert and Karen Nunnally of Georgia. The Nunnallys made the decision to move Streakin La Jolla to Granada Farms at Wheelock, Texas, for the 2000 breeding season.
To say that Streakin La Jolla was a hit in Texas would be an understatement. Under the care of Jimmy Eller and the staff at Granada Farms, he bred several books of more than 200 mares each, including some of the very best broodmares in the business.
Streakin La Jolla was retired from stud duty shortly before his untimely death on June 18, 2009. The racing industry’s ninth-all-time-leading stallion has sired the earners of more than $23.9 million, including champion and leading sire Mr Jess Perry and world champion Streakin Sin Tacha, in addition to 81 other stakes winners. His lasting contributions to the American Quarter Horse racing industry will be remembered for many years, as his offspring are still winning and demand for his daughters as broodmares remains high. Streakin La Jolla’s daughters have produced the earners of more than $21.2 million, making him the ninth-all-time-leading sire of broodmares, and in 2011, they produced the earners of $3,742,909, making his fifth for the year.
“This kind and big-hearted horse will be remembered and missed by all whose lives he touched” said the Nunnallys.
Hollywood Dun It
Hollywood Dun It. Photo courtesy of the American Quarter Horse Foundation.
Dun It did it. Hollywood Dun It – popularly known as “Dun It” – has reached the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame.
It’s a well-deserved recognition for the stallion who became a reining icon and a sire of champions.
Bred by Gwen L. Steif of Kildeer, Illinois, the dun son of Hollywood Jac 86 was foaled in 1983 out of the Dun Berry reining mare Blossom Berry.
Hollywood Dun It first attracted widespread notice at the 1986 National Reining Horse Association Futurity, when trainer and future owner Tim McQuay rode the 3-year-old colt to a reserve championship behind Sophie Oak. Next came a win in the 1987 NRHA Derby and Superstakes. In his career, Hollywood Dun It earned $65,808 in NRHA competition and in 2000 was inducted into the NRHA Hall of Fame.
“Hollywood Dun It had that little special spark,” McQuay told the NRHA’s Reiner magazine. “He had such eye-appeal and he tried to please you constantly. I think he could play today. With the different training methods we have, I know he’d be even better.”
Hollywood Dun It retired to the breeding barn in 1989. In 1992, when his first foals were eligible to compete, Melodys Dun It finished third in the NRHA Futurity. That first crop of 3-year-olds included Hollywoods Heir, Jiffy Pop, HP Cody Dun It, Hollywoods New Star, Great Dun It Jack, A Real Glo Getter and Mr McDunit – all NRHA or All American Quarter Horse Congress Futurity champions. As a sire, Dun It was getting it done.
Hollywood Dun It’s first two foal crops earned more than $200,000, and future crops helped him reach the NRHA $1 million mark at age 16, the youngest sire in that club at the time. Dun It eventually became NRHA’s first $4 million sire, and he reached the $5 and $6 million marks after his death.
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Through 2011, Hollywood Dun It had sired 1,209 American Quarter Horses, including progeny that have won the NRHA Futurity, the NRHA Derby and Superstakes, the National Reining Breeders Classic, the All American Quarter Horse Congress Futurity and numerous other futurities and derbies. In AQHA competition, his foals have won eight world championships, eight reserve world championships and more than 11,000 points. His foals also have points with the Palomino Horse Breeders of America and the International Buckskin Horse Association.
Hollywood Dun It also became a great sire of broodmares, with his daughters producing 315 Quarter Horses that so far have garnered 3,447 performance points in AQHA open competition, with two world champions and one reserve world champion; 148 horses that have scored 1,818 points in amateur performance classes, with one reserve world champion and two high-point winners; and 43 that have taken 300 points in youth performance. The stallion also is the broodmare sire of one amateur and eight open halter point earners.
Hollywood Dun It’s daughters have also produced the earners of more than $4.79 million in NRHA and more than $139,000 in the National Reined Cow Horse Association. The stallion is the broodmare sire of point and money earners in numerous other associations, including the National Cutting Horse Association, National Snaffle Bit Association, Palomino Horse Breeders of America, International Buckskin Horse Association and American Buckskin Registry Association.
Tim and Colleen McQuay’s McQuay Stables acquired Hollywood Dun It in 1987. In 1998, the McQuays transferred ownership to friend and business associate Jennifer Easton, creating McQuay/Easton LLC. That same year, Hollywood Dun It was selected as the model for the first Breyer Animal Creations reining horse.
Always a horse who enjoyed attention and loved people, Hollywood Dun It lived the balance of his years at McQuay Stables, putting tiny Tioga, Texas, on the map, as busloads of people regularly stopped to see and get their photo taken with the lovable icon.
Hollywood Dun Its’ legacy continues through his talented offspring, with their distinct “Dun It” demeanor and astounding athletic ability.
The stallion was euthanized in March 2005.
