TOTAL RANCHES

SPEEDY GLOW

 AQHA LEGENDARY LEADING SIRE

1962 - AQHA - 0241439 - Roan - Stallion

                                                               Percentage 1923

                         Three Bars 1940             T0153140 chestnut
                         T0065983 chestnut          Myrtle Dee 1923
Poco Red Bar 1958                              T0153139 black
0116000 sorrel                                         Poco Bueno 1944
                         Poco Maria 1950             0003044 brown
                              0030809 dun                    Little Red Ant 1939
                                                              0002020 sorrel

                                                               Joe Moore 1927
                     Smuggler 1939                0001856 bay
                     0002357 roan                   Yokohama 1932
O's Linda Lee 1947                               0002389 bay
0026622 roan                                         Unknown Sire
                     Shilling's Nellie             U0444444 n/a
                     U0077024 n/a                  Unknown Dam
                                                               U0555555 n/a

 

Speedy Glow, one of the top ten performance sires in the history of the breed.  Maybe.  If it were possible to make such a list he would definitely have to be considered.

Speedy Glow was born in 1962.  He was a red roan stallion sired by Poco Red Bar, a son of Three Bars and out of O's Linda Lee.  He had a modest show career earning 18 halter, 4 reining and 2 pleasure points.  He died at the age of 20 after siring 433 foals.

Of Speedy Glow's 433 foals, 194 found their way to approved Quarter Horse shows, earning:

16860 points as of February 1, 2000.
192 ROMs
7 World Championships (1 open, 3 amateur, 3 youth)
7 Reserve World Championships (2 open, 1 amateur, 4 youth)
The number of points earned by his get put him 10th on the all time list for points earned.  The nine horses ahead of Speedy averaged 1277 foals sired.

Besides being good show horses in their prime, they also had staying power.  In 1998, 16 years after he died, 4 of his colts qualified for the World, 2 of them placing in the top ten.  How many World show qualifiers did the stud you bred your mares to have last year?  Speedy Glow was consistently near the top of the leading sires list for over a decade and appeared as recently as 1992.  In 1980 for example he was the fifth leading sire of performance point earners behind Two Eyed Jack, Boston Mac, Sonny Dee Bar and Doc Bar.  In addition to the winners he sired on the Quarter Horse circuit, he also sired many winners in the open shows that were very popular in California prior to 1982.  He was not noted for siring halter horses.  However his foals did earn close to 300 open halter points enough to make 20 AQHA Champions plus horses that placed in the top ten at the World in halter.  He did not, however, sire an AQHA Champion.

Part of the reason not many of his foals pursued their AQHA Championship is because his owners were trying to promote Western Pleasure as a specialized event like racing and cutting had become.  Along with sires like The Investor and Sonny Dee Bar, Speedy Glow was able to bridge the gap between the all-round horse and the Western Pleasure horse by having the movement and disposition, while still keeping the Quarter Horse looks.

Speedy Glow was able to sire several quality sons including Speedy Red Roan and Seven S Speedy Glow.  Both horses have appeared on AQHA and Equistat leading sires lists, along with Speedy Glow Jr. a World Champion sire.  It is as a broodmare sire that his record is hard to match.  155 daughters have produced 926 foals that have earned 16,829.5 points as of the turn of the century.  That's 108.57 points per mare.  Zippo Pine Bar in comparison has 572 mares with 2443 foals that have earned 20148.5 points, or 35.22 points per mare.  Not to take anything away from Zippo Pine Bar.  It wouldn't hurt to have a few daughters of his around either.

To sum up, only 9 studs in history have sired foals that have earned more points, fewer yet surpass him on the maternal grandsire list.  His foals can still compete at a world class level decades after his death.  He was a foundation sire of the specialized Western Pleasure horse and yet, many have never heard of him or have heard the name but are unaware of the caliber of stallions he compares to.

I hope this helps people to learn more about Speedy Glow and, more importantly, that there are lots of quality bloodlines to use in a breeding program and that well-bred does not always mean well-known. 

CONTRIBUTOR:  Jim Keith, Box 57, Byemore, Alberta, Canada T0J 0L0.  Telephone:  (403)579-3976.  Email: gwenk@telusplanet.net  Jim & Gwen maintain a small band of top quality broodmares and stand a  promising young son of Peppy Badger Chex

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