Sure Shot Biscuit passed away last summer at the age of 19. The Luebbes retained Nut N Better, who earned $572,828 herself in the barn of Fred Falldorf and was a three-time Iowa champion, as a broodmare. She is the dam of 2015 Iowa Champion Older Mare Sumting Wong and is currently owned by Iowans Brandi and Joe Fett, who are anticipating a 2016 foal by Self Control. The year after the siblings won stakes in Minnesota and Nebraska, another Iowa-bred connected to the Von Hemel family made headlines as Cowboy Stuff carried the Hawkeye banner to Illinois, winning Arlington Park’s $100,000 Round Table Stakes. The son of Evansville Slew ran for breeder, trainer and co-owner Don Von Hemel (with Alan Lee and Shelly Bates). That victory was one of four stakes wins for Cowboy Stuff in 2002, the other three coming against restricted company at Prairie Meadows, leading to his being named 2002 Iowa champion sophomore.
A Horse for Course River Ridge Ranch’s Sound of Gold became the first winner for her sire Mutakddim, when she broke her maiden at Prairie Meadows in 2000, but the filly found it hard to sustain that early success in the ensuing years. “She was struggling in $15,000 claiming races,” recalled River Ridge’s farm manager at the time, Doug Vail. “We sent her south to Sam Sure Shot Biscuit Houston for the winter of 2002–03, and [trainer] Paul Pearson entered her in a turf race, not thinking she’d win but just to get a race in her. She went out and won wire to wire.” Sound of Gold was so impressive in victory that she was next entered in the $35,000 Willowbrook Stakes, a five-furlong sprint over the John B. Connally turf course. Again she came home a winner. Returning to Houston the following season, Sound of Gold successful- Sound of Gold ly defended her title in the Willowbrook and followed that victory by stretching out around two turns to take the Jersey Lilly Stakes over the same course. A victory there gave her a total of seven wins, including three stakes wins, in nine starts over the turf at Sam Houston and led to her being named champion turf horse of the 2004 meet, the only filly or mare up to that time to receive that honor. A few months later she was sent north to Canterbury, where she recorded another out-of-state stakes win in the Minnesota HBPA Mile over that track’s turf. After the race, however, she seemed to limp com36 AMERICAN RACEHORSE • MARCH/APRIL 2016
ing into the winner’s circle, and a few minutes later she tragically collapsed and died in the test barn, having suffered an aneurism in a hind leg. “I tell people that story,” Vail said, “to make the point that this sport gives you the highest highs and the lowest lows, and sometimes they can come within 30 seconds of each other.”
A Pair from a Gray Mare A couple of years after Prairie Meadows opened in 1989, Ray Shattuck went to a sale in Arkansas to buy broodmares. His wife, Peggy, had only one request: “Don’t bring home a gray mare.” But Shattuck did, and that mare eventually produced an Iowa champion, so when he next went broodmare shopping at Keeneland in 1998, Shattuck bought another gray mare named Reissaurus. In 1999, as Shattuck tells the story, she had a gray filly they called Reishelle. “As a youngster out on pasture, Reishelle was kicked and developed some ankle chips,” he said. “We put her in training anyway and she showed a lot of potential. [Jockey] Terry Thompson worked her once and came back and said, ‘Ray, I know you’ve had a lot of good horses but this one’s in a class by herself.’ After her next work she came up lame, and I probably Coady Photography would have sold her except I thought if Terry says she’s that good maybe I should keep her as a broodmare.” It turned out to be a wise decision, as Reishelle produced three stakes winners and was twice named Iowa Broodmare of the Year. Her success began in 2006 with a gray filly by Mutakddim named Seekingthereinbow. After breaking her maiden at Oaklawn Park in her first start, “Reinbow” won her next three races, including a gate-to-wire cruise Coady Photography in the restricted Bob Bryant Stakes at Prairie Meadows. She took her unbeaten streak on the road in late June, shipping to Canterbury for the $40,000 Northbound Pride Stakes. It would be her first try around two turns and her first try on turf, and though rain forced the race off the grass, the sloppy going proved no obstacle as she again went gate-to-wire for a 2 ½-length victory. She ended the year with third-place finishes in two stakes at Prairie Meadows, won the restricted Mamie Eisenhower Stakes the next year and finished her career with eight wins from twelve starts and earnings of $224,755.