2012 Hall of Fame Inductees
Allen & Jeanette Moehrig
Allen & Jeanette Moehrig
At the top of the list is World Champion and $1.2 million earner Special Effort, a member of the Texas Horse Racing Hall of Fame.
Early in his two-year-old year, Special Effort was sold for a record $1 million, and later—in 1981—nearly 200 lifetime breeding rights were sold for $100,000 each. But Allen and Jeanette are so much more than breeders of Special Effort.
They bred Eyesa Special, winner of the 2000 All American Futurity and $1.4 million. One-half interest in Eyesa Special reportedly sold for $4 million before he entered stud.
Operating with a small budget and a handful of broodmares, the Moehrigs bred and raised many stakes winners including five-time Futurity winner Jody O’Toole, who went on to become one of the greatest broodmare sires of all time.
Bill Casner
Bill Casner
Bill Casner grew up in El Paso and galloped horses at Sunland Park. After college he embarked on a career training racehorses in the Midwest. In 1988, Bill left the Thoroughbred industry, and with partner Kenny Troutt founded Excel Communications.
In early 2000, Bill and Kenny re-entered the racing game and founded WinStar Farm in Versailles, Kentucky, and by the end of the decade Bill reached the top of the mountain. In 2010 WinStar’s Super Saver won the Kentucky Derby and the farm’s Drosslemeyer captured the Belmont Stakes. The farm’s Well Armed won the $6-million Dubai World Cup in 2009 and WinStar’s Colonel John won the 2008 Travers.
Bill is vice chairman and co-founder of the Kentucky Equine Education Project (KEEP) and he serves on the board of the Thoroughbred Owner Breeders association and Breeders’ Cup. In addition, he is a founding member of The Race For Education Inc., a national scholarship foundation that provides educational opportunities to children of racing’s backside workers and farm workers.
Kool Kue Baby
Kool Kue Baby
Even for a yearling she was tiny, almost a runt. Despite her size, Ramiro liked what he saw in the bay filly and decided to make an offer. He put up two calves, two pigs and a cow dog, and came home with what would prove to be lightening in a bottle.
Kool Kue Baby won her share of races at ages two and three, but by the time she became a veteran campaigner, Kool Kue Baby was winning stakes races by the bushel. She proved to be a mare made of iron; over seven years she won more than two dozen stakes races including her last career start on October 28, 2000 at Lone Star Park. At her retirement, Kool Kue Baby achieved the distinction of being the all-time leader among American Quarter Horses with 25 stakes victories.
Kool Kue Baby beat the best in winning MBNA America Challenge Championship (G1) twice in 1996 and ‘98. She captured the Sam Houston Classic (G1) three times in 1995, ‘96 and ’98. Kool Kue Baby earned the distinction of being named the AQHA Champion Aged Mare in 1996 and 1998.
T. I. “Pops” Harkins
T. I. “Pops” Harkins
T.I. “Pops” Harkins lived a life most of us only dream of. When Pops passed in 1995 at age 92, he was acknowledged as an early leader in the oil and gas exploration business and the top Thoroughbred breeder in Texas for over 16 years.
Pops began slogging around the marshes in Louisiana in 1927 and his crew discovered 20% of all wells found by refraction over a four-year period.
He purchased his first Thoroughbred in 1952 and six years later ran his horse Benedicto in the Kentucky Derby. In Texas, Pops became a legend among his peers. He earned TTBA Breeder of the Year on three separate occasions. From 1974-1979 Pops won nearly half of all Texas-bred races conducted in Louisiana and he was named TTBA Man of the Year twice for his tireless efforts to resurrect pari-mutuel racing in Texas.
But it was the respect of his peers that impresses most. As one of the first to understand and utilize the reflection method of oil and gas exploration in the 1920s and 30s, Pops was a legend among early geophysicists. Roy Bennett, president of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists, said about Pops: “He was exceptional in his ability to encourage people in their careers. He was always very fair to his employees and he was a strong advocate of the utmost honesty and integrity in his business.”
Valid Expectations
Valid Expectations
A son of Valid Appeal, Valid Expectations was a top-notch sprinter. Displaying tremendous precociousness at age two, he won the Old Hickory and the Sugar Bowl Handicap at Fairgrounds in 1995. As a sophomore he captured the Derby Trial, Sports Page Handicap in New York and Bachelor and Mountain Valley at Oaklawn.
As he enters his 15th breeding season, Valid Expectations dominates the Texas Stallion list year after year and has been one of the Southwest’s most prolific stallions since coming to Lane’s End farm in 2001. He was Texas’s leading general sire for the ninth time in 2011, with 56 winners from 102 runners last year equaling earnings of $1,443,000.
Valid Expectations progeny have amassed $29 million in earnings. His leading offspring is Saratoga County, who earned $1.6 million, and The Daddy who won the Super Derby in 2005.