Like Father, Like Son
September 16, 2011
Versatile stallions sire offspring that succeed in different arenas.
The handsome Rugged Lark passed on more than his good looks to his offspring. AQHA file photo.
From The American Quarter horse Journal
Fathers and sons. Sires and offspring.
Not all sons follow their fathers’ leads. And not all foals follow their sires into particular arenas.
Take Coosa, for example. The well-known halter stallion never worn a saddle.
But his get have rounded up 1,681 points under saddle.
Being a versatile sire is just part of being a versatile American Quarter Horse. If you give your horse a chance, he might prove his own sire more versatile than you think.
Meet some versatile sires and some of their versatile offspring.
Coosa
In 1982, the sorrel stallion went to his first AQHA World Championship Show. The weanling placed ninth. The next year, 1983, Coosa was the reserve world champion yearling stallion. Throughout the 1980s, Coosa traveled through the southern United States, picking up halter championships including a reserve world champion title in aged stallions in 1986.
Then he retired to the breeding shed, siring halter winners. That all changed when Wayne and Rebecca Halvorson of Guthrie, Oklahoma, bought him.
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“We got him when he was about 12 years old and already established in the halter industry,” Wayne says. “We decided since his pedigree has so much Leo and performance bloodlines, we wanted to promote him as a horse that could perform.” Coosa is by Pretty Impressive and out of I’m A Rosita by Leo Moore.
To help promote the idea of Coosa as a performance sire, the Halvorsons offered $1,000 to owners of Coosa horses who turned them into champions. The gamble paid off. Though
the Halvorsons no longer have Coosa, he’s still known as a performance sire.
“We gave that (money) out five or six times,” Wayne says. “(Coosa’s) sons and daughters had that halter look and were so well-balanced, people would show them in halter and then go ahead and show them in performance and make AQHA champions out of them. People were showing them in pleasure and working hunter and barrels.”
And roping.
Coday rode the Coosa-sired, gelding Coosa Jule to gather cattle and rope steers. Roger was familiar with Coosa from showing in halter against him, so when Roger’s first-string roping horse, Regers Sheba, got injured, he took a chance on Coosa Jule.
Roger didn’t intend for Coosa Jule to be a roping horse. “I bought him to trail ride and do things like that,” he says. “I used to do a lot of halter. He was 3 years old, maybe 4.
Everybody ‘aahhs’ at him. He’s really a pretty horse. He’d never break-awayed before he got his first points in it,” Roger says of the horse who was reserve in the nation in amateur breakaway roping points in 2005. “He’s smart like his daddy, Coosa.”
Dash Thru Traffic
In 1991, Debbie Therwhanger and her husband, Charlie, bought a bay yearling, a son of leading racing sire First Down Dash out of Lady Meter Reader by the Thoroughbred stallion Beduino. The colt’s name was Dash Thru Traffic.
By the end of the 1992 racing season, everybody knew that name. Dash Thru Traffic was 1992’s racing champion 2-year-old and the winner of the $1 million All American Futurity.
Since then, Dash Thru Traffic has sired a lot of speedy horses, including the winners of almost $6 million on the racetrack. Plus one slow horse, Dash Thru Easily, the horse that was second the nation in senior hunter under saddle points in 2005.
But the speedy sire and slow son have a lot in common.
Here’s Debbie talking about Dash Thru Traffic: “He just floats over the ground. He gets up and has a lot of self-confidence. That’s why my husband bought him in the beginning. Because he is so large, he has a huge stride. They list him as 16.2, but I think he’s taller than that. I’ve always thought that.”
And here’s Susan Kaplow of Chappaqua, New York, owner of Dash Thru Easily: “He’s huge. He’s 16.3 hands high. He has a really beautiful trot, a long, flowing trot, and then a fabulous, controlled canter that looked big but didn’t go anywhere. And he was very comfortable (in himself).”
Rugged Lark
The 1981 bay stallion Rugged Lark was known for being versatile, competing in western pleasure, hunter under saddle, trail, western riding, reining, hunter hack, working hunter, pleasure driving and even barrel racing for owner Carol Harris.
But the two-time Superhorse was never a cow horse, unlike his son Look Whos Larkin, who has placed or won at the AQHA World Championship Show in working cow horse, tie-down roping, heading, heeling, reining, and performance halter stallions.
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“I think of Rugged Lark as an English horse,” says trainer Rick Rosaschi. “ ‘Larkin’ is a western horse. He’s very elegant.”
Larkin, the 1999 World Show Superhorse, came out of retirement in 2005 when Rick’s partner, Bonnie Jo Clay, wanted to show in freestyle reining. The team didn’t win, but as long as the horse was working again, Rick started showing the 1991 bay stallion in roping.
Look Whos Larkin has earned 306 heading points, 226.5 heeling, 115.5 reining, 119.5 tie down, 62.5 working cow horse and 7.5 halter points.
“He’s not the kind you can get on and spur. You have to communicate with him – just like Rugged Lark,” Larry Bryson (owner) says.
The offspring of Coosa, Dash Thru Traffic and Rugged Lark have been able to shine in arenas their fathers never trotted through. The limitless possibilities of the Quarter Horse mean that it’s possible for more horses to do the same.
Does your horse do what his sire did? Or something different?
Comments
14 Comments on “Like Father, Like Son”
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September 16th, 2011 at 6:23 am
I think you’re giving too much credit to stallions. They are only half of the picture. The fact that Coosa’s offspring did well under saddle may have had as much to do with the mare line as the stallion line. Just my opinion.
September 16th, 2011 at 7:12 am
Thank you, Gail! I was thinking the same EXACT thing!
September 16th, 2011 at 7:48 am
I agree. The mare has just as much to do with it as the sire.
September 16th, 2011 at 9:12 am
Yep.They all want to give the stallion all the credit.How many stallions can say that all their colts a AAA runners or all stakes horses.They mare is the one who should be getting most of the credit.Some mares will get a AAA runner out of just about any stud.What stud can boast that? None!!!!Oh I love a good stallion now.Look at how stallions ran good &made alot of money and just never produced anything.And He nay be a full rother to one of the top studs .I can think of a couple real quick.
September 16th, 2011 at 4:32 pm
I agree with the others….complete credit should not be given to “one” stallion!! I was choosey when I chose a stallion for my mare – both with great bloodlines. The offspring is a spitting image-size and all of her maternal great grandfather Skip a Star!!!
September 16th, 2011 at 4:42 pm
Yes, the stallions get the credit just as it is in the human world! Wives and children take the last name of their husband and father and the woman’s line is mostly ignored. I know that my cousins and I would say, “it’s just the Hughes in us”…never was my mom’s maiden name brought up. I agree that it is 1/2 sire and 1/2 dam and the dam doesn’t get as much credit (if at all), but it’s just a fact of life!
September 16th, 2011 at 5:03 pm
Dash for Cash…come on now. Where is Dash for Cash? And as far as the mare statements go…it takes two to tango! All offspring are a part of their mothers and fathers…I think there could be another poll on the best producing mares as well, but let’s do give some credit to the fathers…they aren’t all bad!
September 18th, 2011 at 5:12 pm
Needless to say, does the name Three Bars mean anything to the racehorse and cutting horse people?
September 19th, 2011 at 1:43 pm
I have a Mighty Awesome (AQHA/APHA) gelding (1465#) that I took to the ranch sorting, took him 3 cattle and He took over! Talked to a friend that cowboys for a living, said he would take an impressive bred horse over anything else to heard and round up cattle with.
(First horse Bob Avila won reining with was a halter horse)! They are great riding horses! Laid back and patient!
September 19th, 2011 at 2:05 pm
There are exceptions to every rule. Any stallion may be promoted in one discipline and be able to produce in another. As others have stated he is only half the equation. More importantly than the stallion or mare is an owner who is willing to try a horse of the “wrong” bloodline. The owners who are willing to put time, money and training in a horse that may or may not excell in that discipline. This article is fine in that quarter horses at one time where very versitile but it’s getting harder and harder to achieve that. To me if you have say a cutting bred horse showing in the pleasure, give the owners and trainers more credit then the stallion. They were the ones willing to showcase the animal in an event he wasn’t “made” for. Now if some of these modern stallions would start showing cross disciplines that would be something. Rugged lark might be the only somewhat modern stallion I can think of. But that might be fun. What stallions out there right now have shown cross disciplines or events and excelled at them? Start the list
September 20th, 2011 at 11:08 pm
Yes, we have “specialized” our quarter horses and paints but if you look at the bloodlines they all go back to the same great horses – Doc Bar, Poco Bueno, Leo, Three Bars etc. By the way look how close Doc Bar and Impressive are bred – very impressive:) I love Impressive bred horses too. I’ve seen some cutters loping around on QH’s that I would love to take into the pleasure pen – Oh ya, Zippo Pat Bars was a cutting horse – I know of barrel racers that love the Zippo Pine Bar bred horses!!
September 21st, 2011 at 2:16 am
For my opinion is main, in which hand the horse lives and what is your intention and what is your fun to do with this horse.- My mare is the only one offspring by SHINING SPARK (x (HOLLYWOOD JAC 86 x Great Pine)), who won points in Reining, Cowhorse, Trail, Horsemanship, Showmanship, Pleasure in Open, Amateur and Novice Amateur. – Many people said to me, that I should bring my energie and my money in a pleasure or in an allaround horse. But I have had so much fun and luck with my awesome horse. Thank God for this beautiful, but sometimes also hard, time!
September 21st, 2011 at 8:07 am
So true!!! I have a mare i bought as a reining/wch prospect direct from the sale in OKC and she won high point english horse this summer at a local show! She won 2 blankets as a reiner the next month. Goes to show that versatility means the ability to cross boundaries put out there by us, not the horse.
September 21st, 2011 at 11:18 am
I agree that the mare contributes greatly to the resulting foal. In the spirit of the article however, one of my AQHA’s is a very well bred cutting horse. Both mother and father are excellent cow horses and are generally good working stock. My gelding loves to team pen but where we have had the greatest success is in the Jumper arena. He shows working hunters, HUS and Equ on the flat. We also trail ride, he’s learning to drive and we have tackled a few trail classes and cowboy challenges. I like to think that horses like him embody the spirit that Americas Horse was bred for from the beginning.