2013 Hall of Fame Inductees
Arthur A. Seeligson
Arthur A. Seeligson
He was a prominent breeder and owner of quality race horses and had stakes winners in both the United States and Europe. He most notably bred and raced Avatar, winner of the 1975 Santa Anita Derby and the Belmont Stakes. Avatar’s half-brother, Unconscious, also was a major winner for Seeligson and ran fifth in the 1971 Kentucky Derby. His big win came in the Charles H. Strub Stakes as a 4-year-old. Seeligson bought the half-brother’s dam, Brown Berry, when she was carrying Unconscious. Brown Berry also produced French group winner Monseigneur for Seeligson.
Seeligson was a leader in the movement to bring Thoroughbred racing to Texas in the 1960s and 1970s, serving as Chairman of the Texas Horse Racing Association in the 1960s and continuing to serve on the Executive Committee throughout the 1970s. For a time, Mr. Seeligson was a co-owner of Hialeah Park Racetrack in Hialeah, Florida. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, New York.
Dr. Glenn Blodgett
Dr. Glenn Blodgett
During his tenure at the 6666 Ranch, the ranch has become an industry leader in equine embryo transfer and artificial insemination, consistently producing and developing some of the most highly recognized racing and western performance American Quarter Horses worldwide. The ranch has earned numerous awards and distinctions including becoming an AQHA All Time Leading Breeder of Performance Horses and Race Money-Earners and Winners. In 1993, the ranch won the prestigious AQHA Best of Remuda Award. Blodgett’s Professional contributions are immense and encompass both veterinary medicine and the horse industry. He has been committed to the betterment of the American Quarter Horse breed and steadfast in his involvement dating back to 1991 when he began serving Texas as an AQHA Director. He has served the AQHA in many capacities and in 2012 was elected to AQHA’s Executive Committee.
As a member of the American Association of Equine Practicioners for 37 years, Dr. Blodgett has served on the organization’s Board of Directors as well as the Racing Ethics and Ethics Ad Hoc committees. Over the years, he has been recognized on numerous occasions for his contributions to the equine industry. Appointed to the Texas Racing Commission in 1988, Blodgett provided considerable input in the monitoring , Construction and operation of the first parimutuel racing facilities in Texas. He served as the commission’s vice chairman from 1993 to 1995. In 1990, he was named the Equine Practitioner of the Year by the Texas Veterinary Medical Association, Cited as being a driving force behind the Texas Racing Commission’s adoption of medical rules, policies and procedures. Dr. Blodgett has been recognized by numerous organizations for his many contributions to the equine industry.
Tami Purcell Burklund
Tami Purcell Burklund
Tami tells a story about one horse everyone told her not to ride and not even to get on him. She won that race by four lengths and found out later he was one of the last sons of Go Man Go.
She has won every major Quarter Horse race and is the only woman to have ever won the All American Futurity, riding a filly name Corona Cash in 1997, and the Champion of Champions in 1996 aboard Dashing Folly. When she retired from racing in 2000, Tami was Quarter Horse racing’s all-time leading female rider of money earners. She rode in 9,475 horse races – winning 2,142 including 87 stakes wins.
In 1996, Tami won the AQHA’s Mildred N. Vessels Award for Special Achievement in American Quarter Horse Racing. In 2000 she left racing to join the professional barrel-racing circuit and is a two-time Wrangler Nationals Finals Rodeo Qualifier.
Hadif
Hadif
At age four and five, he won the Nearctic Stakes Handicap (Can-I) and the Phoenix Breeder’s Cup Handicap at Keenland. He retired with a record of eight wins from 34 lifetime starts, earning $400,670. In 1991 Hadif was purchased by Dorothy Scharbauer and was sent to Dorothy and her husband Clarence’s Oklahoma Stud Ranch, near Purcell, to begin his stud career. After one season he was moved to the Scharbauers’ newly established Valor Farm in Pilot Point, TX.
From his first crop of only 18 foals, he sired three stakes winners, including Texas champion two-year-old Hadif One. Hadif was Texas’ leading first crop sire for 1995; during his career he sired 22 stakes winners and 30 other black-type horses and had earners of more than $12,500,000. In addition to Hadif One, Hadif sire three other Texas champions: Louetta and Final Trick (champion two-year-old fillies) and champion older mare Fleeta Dif. His leading money earner was Sataniste ($404,494; 22 wins from 77 outs). Hadif was known for siring extremely fast and precocious runners. He was perennially among the leading sires in Texas. He is No. 10 on the list of the top 50 Texas sires by lifetime progeny earnings and the only one of the top 10 that did not start his career in Kentucky or Florida.
Kontiki
Kontiki
Named U.S. National Champion Racehorse and a member of the Arabian Horse Trust Hall of Fame, Kontiki was a racing legend and the most significant sire in the foundation racing pedigrees in America. He established an unmatched dynasty in foundation American racing bloodlines before tragically dying at age 10 of colic.
Beaten only once, Kontiki was such an exceptional racehorse that he was honored by the Thoroughbred Jockey Club as the 59th entry in the prestigious list of “100 All Time Greatest Racehorses of the World Regardless of Breed,” along with Man O-War, Native Dancer, Kelso, Secretariat and John Henry. Kontiki sired just 23 registered purebred, yet all but two of them foaled in 1972 and 1973. Sixteen of these were daughters, 14 of which produced race winners, meaning a remarkable percentage of 87%% of his daughters produced race winners. In spite of his early death, Kontiki’s influence on Arabian Racing was profound and has stood the test of time.
Dashingly
Dashingly
By Dash For Cash (inducted into the Texas Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 1999) and out of Dee Mount, the sorrel mare was owned first by then-15-year-old Windi Philips and later by J.E. Jumonville Jr. The mare was trained by American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame member and Texas Horse Racing Hall of Famer, Bubba Cascio. At the time of her death, she was owned by J. Baxter Brinkmann of Dallas.
She was the 1981 AQHA racing champion two-year-old filly. In 1982, she became a Superior racehorse, and in 1983 – her best year of racing – she was an AQHA Supreme racehorse (an award recognizing American Quarter horses that earn $500,000 or more, win two or more open Grade 1 stakes and at least 10 races); the AQHA Racing Champion and world champion racing American Quarter Horse. In 2014 she will enter the 2014 American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame.