Courtesy of LosAlamitos.com Country
Chicks Man Qualified by winning the Refrigerator Handicap Lifetime Record: 31-12-6-4, $667,793 What a year it has been for Country Chicks Man, the winner of the Grade 1 Refrigerator Handicap and Lone Star Park at Grand Prairie's Horse of the Meeting and Champion Older Male for the recently concluded 2006 Fall Meeting of Champions for Quarter Horses. It took Country Chicks Man just one race to make a lasting impression at Lone Star Park, as his Refrigerator victory was his only outing of the year there. But he won that race in grand style, leading every step of the way en route to 1 1/2 length victory. The son of Chicks Beduino defeated a field that included MBNA America Challenge Championship winner This Snow Is Cold and Vessels Maturity runner-up Get Down Perry. Previously, Country Chicks Man won the Eastex Handicap and Leo Handicap and was second to SLM Snowman in the Remington Park Invitational Championship. It used to be that Country Chicks Man would explode out of the gate before losing his wings in the final 100 yards. That's no longer the case Mullins explained. "I changed his training a little bit just to improve his last 50 or 60 yards. That's made a big difference. He used to open up early but then they would catch him at the end. That doesn't happen anymore." In preparation for the Champion of Champions, Mullins gave Country Chicks Man a drill under the lights on Saturday, November 25. The Oklahoma-bred red horse responded with a solid :18.10 drill. Country Chicks Man is out of the late broodmare Country Zevi. "She never got a lot of respect as a broodmare, " Mullins said. "Everything she had ran well and stayed sound. She was only 17 when she died. The baby that she was carrying kicked her and ruptured a uterus artery. She bled internally and we could not revive her or the baby." This year alone Country Zevi has been represented on the track by the talented 3-year-old gelding Sm Country Cowboy, the Oklahoma high point leader in his division, the 4-year-old mare Eyesa Country Miss, the Texas high point leader in her division, and of course Country Chicks Man. She also had the stakes winner Little Country Miss and the Paint Horse stallion Country Quick Dash. "She was so good to me," Mullins added. "I bought her as a weanling for $7,500 and everyone thought I was crazy. She made $8,800 in her first race and then made the finals to six stakes races. She had five daughters and I still have every one of them." Country Chicks Man's sire is Chicks Beduino, who is one of the all-time great Quarter Horse stallions of all time. Chicks Beduino is the sire of was a champion race horse and is champion sire. He was euthanized in September 2003, at the age of 19, due to kidney failure. Chicks Beduino sired 2002 Champion of Champions winner Whosleavingwho. |
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Courtesy of LosAlamitos.com MULLINS IS ALL ABOUT COUNTRY Sparky Mullins holds the distinction of being the breeder, owner and trainer of two half siblings who will race during the 15th Bank of America Challenge Championships on November 3 at Los Alamitos. Mullins will send out the four-year-old Dashing Val gelding SM Country Cowboy in the Bank of America Challenge Championship (G1) and will saddle the runner's year-older half sister, Eyesa Country Miss, by Mr Eye Opener, in the John Deere Distaff Challenge Championship (G1). Both horses qualified to the Challenge Championships by winning Oklahoma region races in their respective divisions at Remington Park. As big as an accomplishment as this is for Mullins, those two runners are not even the best horses he has in training. Their big brother is Country Chicks Man, the reigning AQHA Champion Aged Stallion who has won 12 races in 33 starts and earned $617,793. A six-year-old son of Chicks Beduino, Country Chicks Man was bred to some 130 mares during his first season at stud this year at Joneson Ranch in Shawnee, Oklahoma. He returned to the races in May and won the Remington Park Invitational Championship (G1) in June to earn his second trip to the Champion of Champions (G1) at Los Alamitos in December. The stallion, who was third in last year's Champion of Champions, ran seventh in the Go Man Go Handicap (G1) at Los Alamitos in September. He is currently in training at Mullins' Rafter SM Ranch in Wagoner, Oklahoma, and will return to Los Alamitos about a week before the Champion of Champions. Asking Mullins to compare his two runners in the Challenge Championships to Country Chicks Man is inevitable. He said SM Country Cowboy is "faster than 'Chick Man,' but he won't leave the (starting) gates like 'Chick Man,'" and he believes the gelding will surprise his rivals in the Challenge Championship. He said Eyesa Country Miss "leaves good like her brother. She doesn't run as far down the racetrack as her brother. She handles the 400 yards (of the Distaff Challenge Championship) real well. If she breaks on top like she can, she's going to be tough." The Challenge Championship will mark the Los Alamitos debut for SM Country Cowboy. Eyesa Country Miss made her first start at the track on September 21 in the Mildred N. Vessels Memorial Handicap (G1) and ran 10th, a performance Mullins attributed to her needing a race over the racetrack. While thrilled to discuss his current success, Mullins is quick to recognize the dam of his three runners, the Zevi (TB) mare Country Zevi. He acquired Country Zevi before she had been weaned in 1998 and trained her to become a multiple Grade 2 qualifier in Oklahoma. She went on to produce 10 foals by 10 different stallions, including nine starters and eight winners who have earned more than $1 million. Her lone unraced offspring is the Royal Quick Dash stallion Country Quick Dash, who has sired the phenomenal Paint runner Got Country Grip. Country Zevi died in 2005 from a ruptured uterine artery just five days shy of the scheduled due date for her 11th foal. Three of her daughters are now members of Mullins' broodmare band while Eyesa Country Miss and her three-year-old graded stakes qualifier, SM Country Miss, remain in training. Meanwhile, Mullins believes Country Zevi's ability to produce three horses who went on to win graded stakes in the same year merits her special recognition. "Even more than winning all these races out here, I'd like to see her be named the (AQHA) Broodmare of the Year," he said. |
