Fury, AQHA Champion; Poco Pamelita, AQHA Champion, and Poco Pecho, AQHA Champion.
certainly represents the epitome of how Poco Pine and the Bill Cody mares crossed well.
A couple of the Poco Pine AQHA Champions have made interesting contributions of their own to the quarter horse breed. Poco Coed was the dam of several top horses. Her daughter Vickie Lee Pine, was the first AQHA World Show Super Horse, while another daughter, Poco Coed’s Te N Te, was a great halter mare and producer. Poco Coed’s Te N Te earned a Youth World Championship in halter as well as 257 halter points. She is the dam of Temon, a sire of 12 AQHA World Champion Halter Horses that have earned 15 World Championships.
Codalena was the dam of 11 Poco Pine foals, all point earners. They produced six AQHA Champions; eight ROM performance horses and 10 halter points earners, including three foals that earned four Superior Awards. The AQHA Champions were Texas Pine, Pine Pancho, Pine Chock, Pine’s Codalena, Pine’s Leana and Barry Pine. The Superior Award winners were Pine Chock (both halter and western pleasure), Pine’s Leana (western pleasure) and Barry Pine (western pleasure).
Poco Pecho was not only an AQHA Champion, but the sire of one of the industries all time great show horses in Pecho Dexter. Pecho Dexter set the standard as a show horse with 1,058 halter points, 1,135.5 western pleasure points, 115 trail points and 123 hunter under saddle points. This 1966 gelding earned 26 AQHA Top Ten High Point Awards with nine #1 High Point Performance Awards. He earned four High Point Western Pleasure Awards, three High Point Hunter Under Saddle Awards and two High Point Trail Awards. He earned Superior Awards in Halter, Western Pleasure, Hunter Under Saddle and Trail. He was the AQHA High Point Halter Gelding for five years. He won all of these awards from 1966 to 1970. Pecho Dexter is a member of the AQHA Hall of Fame and the NSBA Hall of Fame. Paul Curtner was like many great breeders in that he used good mares as a big part of his program. One of those mares was Codalena. She also has the King Ranch influence through her sire Bill Cody. Curtner had a great deal of respect for Bill Cody. As he said, “Bill Cody was a horse that was just wasted. He could have been one of the best all around sires there was, if they would have just pushed him.
Another set of mares that Curtner was fond of was the Blackburn mares. As noted above, he went to the Waggoner sale in 1954 Zippo Pine Bar had great specifically to buy a Blackburn conformation, and with his mare. He went home with a Pretty paternal half brother The Boy mare named Pretty Rosalie and Invester (inset) defined modern her colt that he named Poco Pine. western pleasure. Photo While Poco Pine was a grand success, Curtner still wanted some courtesy The American Quarter Blackburn mares and he bought Horse Association. some of them from the Cowan Ranch. “Watt Hardin bought him from the King Ranch when he was a yearling “My interest in the Blackburn horses colt. Watt just bred him to anything came because Poco Bueno had he could to live,” Curtner said. “He crossed pretty well with them. He was a good horse. The type of horse sired Poco Lena, Poco Mona, Poco you could do a lot of things on. He Bay and Poco Tivio. So I wanted a was a pretty fair roping horse. Roy Savage roped off him when Watt had Blackburn mare and one of the reasons is I thought they were good him. broodmares.” “Those Bill Cody mares were good mares. I had, oh, 15 or 20 of them in “As I recall,” Curtner continued, “they (The Waggoner Ranch) gave my lifetime. At one time I had four him (Blackburn) to a guy named or five of them.” Codalena was one Claude Cowan. So I went and of those mares and her record bought eight or nine Blackburn While Poco mares that were raised on the Cowan Ranch. Pine was a
grand success, Curtner still wanted some Blackburn mares and he bought some of them from the Cowan Ranch.
“I raised a few mares out of them by Poco Pine. But they were more or less every other year breeders. The first year I got them, I had five or six colts. Then I bred the ones that didn't have a colt back the next year and I got colts. I'd still like to have a pasture full of them.” Poco Pine put Paul Curtner into the
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