Silkay

THE SILKAY SEARCH

In 1972 I was in Springfield, IL at the state fair grounds where several horse people leased stall and arena use for training and showing horses. Tommy Manion hired me to photograph his show string every year or so, so I was there doing my job.

When the photography was done, or else it was raining, we talked. Horse people talk a lot and some colorful stories can go for days. We talked about a noticeable change in the Quarter Horse business where the very popular horses, especially stallions, were being discovered on the race track and then go into the show or performance arena. The trending thing was a higher percentage of Thoroughbred genetics. It made a better frame and moved the crayon away from the historic “bulldog” thick muscled horses. This we thought would be the look of the future---and it proved so.

Hank Wiescamp said years before that he wanted a “Quarter Horse muscle and a Thoroughbred frame.” And, he was right.

My dad, Frank, and I were serious about the Quarter Horse business. We normally had about 40 brood mares and stood one or two stallions. The search started to locate some mares that would give the historic Thoroughbred frame with enough correctness to band with our stallions Silky Fox and Skip’s Count.

I started walking race track shed rows looking for the right mares. I walked the Centennial Race Track, the New Mexico and Colorado State Fairs. I went to a large TB farm at Rye, Colorado, the Lawrence and Stegal Farm and found nothing. Centennial—nothing. Then I bought a AAA racing Sugar Bars mare at Colorado State Fair who was still racing. I found a beautiful bright chestnut mare at the

New Mexico State fair that was a $2000 claiming racer. She was a Battle Ground TB owned by the CS Ranch of Raton, NM. Her name was Carbice. She was beautiful in every way. Four white stockings, about 15-3, and much more gaskin than hardly any TB mares. She was exactly what I wanted.

Walking race track shed rows I was looking for a pretty head, a small ear, I liked white trim colors, flat hip—not goose rumped, correct legs, chestnut colors, and a totally correct conformation. This was hard. I looked at over 20,000 mares. I did not care about race records. Most were an ugly brown which I did not like. Most had no white markings. Most had large heads and or ears.

At Fort Collins, CO., Corky Keen had Keenland Acres. He raised, trained and bred top TBs. I found one chestnut mare, age 15 who had produced one stakes winner—I bought Rhonda K from Corky. She was $4500 and Corky retained her weaned foal.

Dad and I bred these 3 mares to Silky Fox and Skip’s Count. Carbice was a major disappointment and we sold the Sugar Bars mare to Monte Horn’s dad Bruce. But, in the spring of 1974 Rhonda K gave us a chestnut fillie with 4 white stockings and a nice blaze. From the day of birth “Silkay” was exactly what I wanted and had dreamed of creating many years before. At first she was very tall and slender. Dad took her to a show as a yearling and she was tall, but not filled out. The timing was not right. That one show she did not win. We waited.

Silkay was loved by my dad, who knew and enjoyed great livestock of all kinds. Dad enjoyed taking her to shows, which as an age two she was very competitive. To get her at the big shows several handlers took her all over as she won—Denver National Western

Grand Champion, she won the All American Quarter Horse Congress, Sun Country Circuit, Gold Coast Circuit, and the AQHA World Championship. She accumulated 162 AQHA points youth and open plus a lot of performance points in Hunter and Western Pleasure. She moved as smooth as a thief in the night. She had a long trim Thoroughbred neck and the hip of a New Orleans cab driver’s wife.

Breeding and raising superior livestock is a very rewarding challenge that takes time, serious evaluations and sometimes a deep wallet. We did not have the wallet, but we did have time and persistence. The joy of raising and owning this beautiful mare was the happiness of my dad’s senior years.