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Belle of Rainier
(1979-1989, Inducted 2008)
Starts: 43; Record: 17-6-4; Earnings: $424,526;
Breeder and Owner: Al Benton
Trainer: William Findlay
Foaled in 1979, the striking
gray Belle of Rainier captured hearts with her impressive on-track
accomplishments and regal presence.
The
“Belle” was owned and bred by West Seattle businessman Al Benton and
trained throughout her four-year career by William Findlay.
Belle of Rainier was named to honor Dewaine
Moore’s Enumclaw-based Rainier Stables, which had Mt. Rainier as a
picturesque backdrop and was among the state’s top farms for many years.
The talented filly was conceived, foaled and raised at the South King County
farm.
Belle of Rainier was sired by Bay Meadows
stakes winner Windy Tide, who had run third to champion Silver Screen in the
1969 Arlington-Washington Futurity. The son of Windy Sands earned $108,593
before retiring to stud at Rainier Stables in 1974.
Lap Wing, Belle of Rainier’s dam, had been
claimed by Benton for $8,000. The daughter of Donut King won her first time out
for Benton, taking a six furlong allowance race at Longacres. Lap Wing, also a
gray filly, continued to perform well throughout her five-year-old season and
retired to the breeding shed with earnings of $57,764.
Belle of Rainier was the fourth foal and first
stakes winner out of Lap Wing, who would later produce stakes winner Lady of
Rainier, and was the fourth of 15 stakes winners sired by Windy Tide.
Belle of Rainier made her debut at Longacres and
swept the Gottstein Futurity (over Chinook Pass), Mercer Girls and Green River
Handicaps before finishing the year with a win in the Burlingame Stakes at Bay
Meadows. At three, she won seven stakes: the Belle Roberts Handicap (against
older fillies and mares) and the Mike Donohoe Memorial, Ingenue, Betsy Ross and
Sacajawea Handicaps at Longacres and the Ballerina and Senorita Stakes at
Exhibition Park. She was voted Washington’s champion three-year-old filly.
She won three more stakes and placed in seven others among her 43 starts and
retired with a record of 17-6-4. Her lifetime earnings of $424,526 were second
only to Chinook Pass.
Belle of Rainier produced
only three foals, the best among them being multiple stakes-placed Sky White,
by Relaunch, who went on to become a successful sire in British Columbia. Her
final foal, Pancho’s Girl, a 1988 daughter of Pancho Villa, has produced
two stakes winners and one stakes-placed foal among her five winners. Tops
among them is the now nine-year-old West Seattle Boy, who won his 16th race on
September 12 at Emerald Downs.
Belle of Rainier
died in 1989 at age 10. |
Delicate Vine
(1984- , Inducted 2014)
Starts: 5; Record: 4-0-1; Earnings: $390,370;
Breeder: Dan J. Agnew
Owner: Alsdorf & Frankel & Moss
Trainer: Robert J. Frankel
A standout from the time she was foaled, Delicate Vine was not only among the best fillies ever bred in Washington, she nearly was Washington's second Eclipse Award winner.
Born in 1984, Delicate Vine was a fourth generation Washington-bred mare produced for the Agnew family. War Skirt - Delicate Vine's fifth dam - foaled 1960 Spokane Futurity winner Bridge Act, juvenile stakes-placed My Hero and eight-race winner Miss Tenino, a 1959 filly by Valdina Orphan, for the southwest Washington family.
Miss Tenino's best runner was Washington champion and five-time stakes winner Tenino Ville, but among her four other foals was six-race winner Watch Lucille, by *Daumier.
Watch Lucille produced Aunt Iva, who won or placed in 15 stakes; stakes-placed Salty Enuf; and Fool's Miss. Though a non-winner, Fool's Miss, by Saltville, did run fourth in the Washington Stallion Stakes.
Fool's Miss's first foal was 1980 Yakima Meadows stakes winner Missa Bet, who would become the pride of Rick and Sharon Pasko for many years to come.
Delicate Vine was the seventh foal for Fool's Miss and a member of the third crop of 1978 Washington champion two-year-old Knights Choice, who would lead the state stallion ranks in 1991.
Delicate Vine was consigned to the 1986 three-day CTS March Two-year-olds in Training Sale where future Hall of Fame trainer Robert Frankel, who had already one Washington Horse of the Year under his trainer's belt - Pataha Prince - signed the ticket for $60,000.
The filly, ridden by Gary Stevens, made her debut on June 19 in a maiden special weight race at Hollywood Park where she "blew away maidens by four" for new owners Gregg Alsdorf, Jerry and Ann Moss and trainer Frankel.
The Washington-bred's next start came in the Landaluce Stakes (G3), a six-furlong, $75,000 event. As the nine-to-five favorite, she earned her first stakes win, again with Stevens aboard, by two lengths, in 1:10 flat. Finishing fifth in the field was Brave Raj.
Then came a trip to New Jersey's Monmouth Park for the $200,000 Sorority Stakes (G2), where under a hand ride by Stevens, Delicate Vine took the six-panel stakes by five lengths in a time of 1:09 3/5. It should be noted that only the great Ruffian had won the race in a faster time.
The Delicate Vine entourage next traveled to Arlington Park for the Grade 1 Arlington-Washington Lassie Stakes, a seven-furlong race which grossed $296,100.
The .70-to-one favorite, Delicate Vine defeated future three-year-old filly champion and 1987 Breeders' Cup Distaff (G1) winner Sacahuista with 1986 Canadian Horse of the Year Ruling Angel in third place. The final race time was 1:23 2/5.
The long, smooth-striding filly was a Frankel favorite and up to that time he felt she was the best young horse ever placed in his care. "She's just a real smart filly, very relaxed and mature," said the master conditioner who would later add his third Washington Horse of the Year in 1989 with the event of Grade 1 winner Saratoga Passage's second top-ranked season.
In what would be her final start, Delicate Vine went into the 1 1/16-mile Oak Leaf Stakes (G1) as the seven-to-ten favorite. She drew the outside post, which forced Stevens "to gun the filly early." She could only manage third, 2 1/4 lengths behind winner Sacahuista and another neck back behind Silk's Lady.
When she turned up lame after the race, Frankel had her x-rayed and found she had fractured a coffin bone and bowed a tendon.
After Brave Raj added a win the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1) to her four other stakes scores, Delicate Vine lost her chance of being voted national champion, though she was rated only one pound behind that rival on the Experimental Free Handicap, along with co-second highweights Tappiano and Very Subtle. The next weighted fillies, Personal Ensign and Sacahuista, would both soon become national champions.
Attempts were later made to get Delicate Vince racing sound, but the Oak Leaf would prove to be the final start in her brilliant race career. Delicate Vine retired with earnings of $390,370 to rank fourth to Eclipse Award winner Chinook Pass on the leading Washington-bred money winners list and second behind fellow Hall of Famer Belle of Rainier's distaff record of $424,526. Delicate Vine's 61.81 SSI eclipses any other Washington-bred.
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Firesweeper
(1983-2011, Inducted 2011)
Starts: 34; Record: 13-5-3; Earnings: $363,394;
Breeder and Owner: Northwest Farms
Trainer: Bob McMeans
In the 1970s, Yakima horseman and breeder Jerre Paxton, who would later be inducted into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot in 2003, was gathering well-bred fillies to race and breed to his upcoming young stallion, Drum Fire. Among them was an Ack Ack filly that he had L. L. McMurry purchase for him at the 1979 CTBA March Two-year-olds in Training Sale for $29,500. A $30,000 Saratoga yearling buy the year before, Skysweeper would not distinguish herself on the racetrack, but would prove of great value in the breeding shed, producing two Washington champions and being the granddam of two more through her daughter Nightatmisskittys, Washington’s 2007 broodmare of the year.
The second of 11 foals produced out of Skysweeper, Firesweeper topped the 1984 WTBA Summer Yearling Sale after Edwards Bloodstock signed the ticket at $67,000, but the outstanding filly would remain with her breeder. At the time, Dale Leach, who managed Paxton’s Northwest Farms, considered her the best filly he had ever been around.
The well-named Firesweeper made her debut at two in the Washington Stallion Stakes at Longacres, the first of 19 consecutive stakes starts.
After overcoming a poor start, Firesweeper defeated seven rivals to launch her career with a four-length win. The Bob McMeans-trained speedball next scored a five-length win in the Green River Valley Stakes.
The blazing filly continued her dominance over the juvenile filly division with a 10-length tally in the Broderick Memorial and then hung on to win the mile Mercer Girls Stakes by a neck, after coming back from a 104 degree fever which had prevented her starting in the Gottstein Futurity.
Paxton’s star filly made it five in a row as she cruised to a 12-length win in the $107,020 Longacres Lassie Stakes while under a “steadying restraint” from rider Gary Stevens.
After running eighth in the Oak Leaf Stakes (G1) at Santa Anita in her first defeat, Firesweeper went east to Aqueduct for the second Breeders’ Cup World Championships, and after leading for most of the first half in the Juvenile Fillies (G1), was eased in the drive to finish 11th of 12.
Named Washington’s champion two-year-old filly of 1985, she was given 106 pounds on the Experimental Free Handicap.
Firesweeper began her sophomore season at Santa Anita and finished unplaced behind Sari’s Heroine in two sprint stakes. Returning to Longacres, she narrowly won the Ms. Stakes in her first of ten 1986 starts at the Renton track. She would take the Sacajawea, Ingenue and Autumn handicaps and place in five other stakes en route to her second champion filly title and was given a 109 pound impost by the Daily Racing Form on the annual free handicap. Of her final 15 outings, less a trio of Santa Anita allowance tests, all were in stakes company.
Back again at Santa Anita to start her third year of racing, Firesweeper placed in two allowances before returning to stakes company with a 1 1/4-length win in the Mt. Wilson Stakes run over the Arcadia track’s downhill turf course. A month later she was back home at Longacres to score a record tenth stakes win at the track with a three-length tally in the Fashion Handicap. Firesweeper would add victories in the Luella G. (after a two-month layoff and two surgeries for an entrapped epiglottis) and Hazel K. handicaps, but would lose year-end championship honors to Belle Roberts Handicap winner Popcorn Patti.
Firesweeper returned to Longacres as a five-year-old, but the best she could offer in three tries was a fourth place effort in the Rhododendron Handicap. She retired in June as the third leading Washington-bred distaffer of all-time and would be the first of only two horses (the other being fellow Hall of Famer Captain Condo) to record a record dozen stakes wins at Longacres.
Though Firesweeper’s primary legacy would be on the racetrack, she did produce three stakes-placed fillies from her 13 foals. Her final offspring, the unraced Dehere filly De Sweeper, was foaled in 2007.
Firesweeper died at the age of 28 at Three Chimneys Farm in Versailles, Kentucky. Click here for expanded profile. |
Peterhof's Patea
(1988-??, Inducted 2007)
Starts: 52; Record: 16-14-6; Earnings: $623,367
Breeder: Oak Crest Farm
Owners: Roger Williams & Patti Strait
Trainer: Bud Klokstad
In 1990, a gray two-year-old comet named
Peterhof’s Patea made her debut at Longacres and dominated her division.
It would only prove to be the arbiter of more good things to come.
Bred by Jack and Theresa Hodge, the daughter of
two-time group winner Peterhof and first foal out of the winning Drone mare Tea
At Ten, was consigned to the 1989 WTBA Summer Yearling Sale where she was
purchased for $11,500 by Roger Williams. Turned over to future Washington Hall
of Fame trainer Bud Klokstad, Peterhof’s Patea would break her maiden in
the Green River Valley Stakes for Williams and his future wife Patti Strait and
then add wins in the Broderick Memorial and Longacres Lassie Stakes before
finishing second in the Joe Gottstein Futurity. With her 3-2-1 record in seven
starts, and earnings of $172,187, she was named not only Washington champion
two-year-old filly, but the best statebred juvenile of the year.
At three, Peterhof’s Patea would win three
more stakes at Longacres, have two stakes seconds, and add another $98,820 to
her totals.
In 1992, after winning three stakes in
a row at Longacres, she gave her connections quite a scare when she developed
pneumonia. Four months later, she returned to the races at Bay Meadows and
finished the year with a fourth, a second and a win in three stakes, earning
$100,730 and adding her second state championship designation, as Washing- ton
champion older filly or mare.
Peterhof’s Patea
spent her 1993 campaign in California where she won three stakes and placed in
nine others, three of which were Grade 3 events, among her 14 outings, and
earned $186,730. Her superlative campaign not only earned her a second title as
Washington champion older distaffer, but also horse of the year honors.
The sturdy performer came back to make a dozen
starts at age six, winning the James Wiggins Breeders’ Cup Handicap and
placing in four other California stakes to give her a final record of 16-14-6
from 52 starts and earnings of $623,367. Fourteen years later, that amount is
still the record earnings for any WTBA-sold runner and she is also the leading
Washington-bred distaffer of all time and ranks as the third leading
Washington-bred money earner to date.
Williams and
Strait then entered their three-time champion in the 1995 Keeneland January
Winter Mixed Sale where Fountainbleau Farm, agent, went to $100,000 to buy her
as a broodmare prospect. She was bred to A. P. Indy and exported to Japan where
she has produced two winners, including Group 2 winner Jolly Dance, a daughter
of Dance in the Dark who has earned over $1.5 million. |
Rings a Chime
(1997- , Inducted 2012)
Starts: 13; Record: 4-5-2; Earnings: $606,315
Breeders: Mr. & Mrs. William T. Griffin
Owners: Dave & Trish Currie and Turf Side Stables
Trainers: Lloyd Mason and Lonnie Arterburn
Always on the lookout to improve their small band of broodmares, Terry and Mary Lou Griffin ventured to the November Keeneland sale in 1993 where they paid $17,000 for the eight-year-old broodmare Outofthebluebell. A daughter of Mr. Prospector’s full brother Red Ryder, Outofthebluebell had won or placed in eight stakes on the Illinois circuit and earned nearly $200,000. She was carrying her third foal. Sent to back to Kentucky to be bred to Metfield, a Grade 3-winning son of Seattle Slew, Outofthebluebell foaled a dark bay or brown filly on March 15, 1997, at the Griffins’ Griffin Place in Buckley. The following year the Metfield filly brought $26,000 at the WTBOA summer sale.
Now named Rings a Chime, she began her race career for Dave and Trish Currie and trainer Lloyd Mason with a close second in the Malcom Anderson Stakes at Golden Gate Fields on June 20. Her second start also came in stakes company when she was runner-up in the Juan Gonzalez Memorial Stakes at Pleasanton. Her third start yielded yet another second place finish, this time in a maiden special weight race during the Bay Meadows Fair. On September 25 Rings a Chime scored an impressive 4 1/2-length win in a six-panel Bay Meadows maiden allowance race and next went gate-to-wire to take an allowance race at the Bay Area track by three lengths. The talented miss finished off her two-year-old season with a 4 1/2-length tally in the Bay Meadows Lassie Stakes and a close third in the Doonesbury Handicap. She earned $80,040 in seven starts with a 3-3-1 record.
Rings a Chime’s 2000 debut came with a new owner (Joseph D. Kowl’s Turf Side Stable) and a new trainer (Lonnie Arterburn). Stretched beyond a mile for the first time, she finished second behind Surfside in the Santa Ysabel Stakes (G3). In her next start, Rings a Chime ran third in the Grade 1 Las Virgenes Stakes behind Surfside and Spain. It should be noted that Surfside would be named champion three-year-old filly of 2000 and Spain would go on to take the 2000 Breeders’ Cup Distaff (G1). In her first time out of the top three, Rings a Chime next ran fourth in the Santa Anita Oaks (G1). Right behind her was fellow Washington-bred/WTBOA sale horse Classy Cara.
Sent east to Keeneland, Rings a Chime went off at nearly eight-to-one in the $500,000 1 1/16-mile Ashland Stakes (G1). With Shane Sellers in the saddle, Rings a Chime showed the way throughout and held on to defeat Zoftig by a head and earn a $341,155 payday, the largest ever earned by a Washington-bred. After leading for the first six furlongs of the slightly longer Kentucky Oaks (G1), Rings a Chime finished second behind Secret Status. It was a rare day for Washington-breds as Classy Cara followed home Rings a Chime in third. Rings a Chime suffered a minor tendon injury while finishing seventh and last in the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes (G2) and was retired with earnings of $606,315.
After being a $975,000 RNA at the select Fasig-Tipton November sale in 2000, Rings a Chime produced her first foal in 2003 for Stonerside Stable, for whom she also foaled two-time Grade 1 winner Country Star. When Robert and Janice McNair sold Stonerside to Darley in 2008, both Rings a Chime and Country Star went with the deal. Rings a Chime produced a filly by Distorted Humor in 2012 while Country Star – the second best two-year-old filly of 2007 – now resides in Europe.
Rings a Chime is the fifth of only seven Washington-breds who have earned a Grade 1 victory. |
Smogy Dew
(1961-1975, Inducted 2005)
Starts: 29; Record: 16-3-0; Earnings: $60,248
Breeders: Arthur & Gladys Fiess
Owners: Dr. Dan Ranninger, Dr. Philip Irwin & Dr. George Venema
Trainer: Glen Williams
Trainer Glen Williams, winner of a record
57 stakes races at Longacres, and a Hall of Fame nominee himself this year,
ranked Smogy Dew’s victory in the 1964 Washington Derby as the biggest
thrill of his career. With Lennie Knowles in the saddle, Smogy Dew defeated
future Canadian horse of the year and British Columbia hero George Royal by
three-quarters of a length. The chestnut daughter of Six Fifteen—No Smog,
by Cover Up, was the last filly to win the state’s biggest race restricted
to three-year-olds. Her record at age two and three proved Smogy Dew’s
complete dominance over her local rivals, of both sexes. At two, she had seven
wins and a second place finish in eight starts and was the first
Washington-bred distaffer of any age to be named state horse of the year. At
age three, she recorded five wins and a placing, also from eight starts. Final
numbers show three seasons of racing with 16 wins from 29 starts, her earnings,
though a modest $60,248 by today’s standards, gave her a standard starts
index (SSI) of 7.40. Half of those wins were versus stakes company, and six of
those eight stakes victories came at the expense of male rivals. Included in
that number was a win in the Washington Futurity, meaning she beat the best
males around for the biggest local prize in both her juvenile and sophomore
campaigns. She also won the Spokane Futurity, Drumheller Memorial and
Wash-ington Stallion Stakes at two, had wins in the Tacoma and Speed Handicaps,
Spokane Derby and Seafair Queen Stakes at three, and finished off her career
with victories in the Stepping Stone Handicap (at Exhibition Park) and Fashion
Handicap. A foal of 1961, Smogy Dew was bred by Arthur Fiess and sold to Drs.
Irwin, Venema and Ranniger at the 1962 WHBA sale for $2,100. Click here for expanded profile. |
Table Hands
(1977-??, Inducted 2013)
Starts: 11; Record: 6-0-3; Earnings: $290,595
Breeders: Wilbur & Mariane Stadelman
Owners: Wilbur & Marianne Stadelman; Joseph Allen & Peter Brant
Trainer: Jake Battles; Willard Proctor
Foaled in 1977, Table Hands was bred by 2009 Washington Racing Hall of Fame breeder inductees Wilbur and Marianne Stadelman. From the second crop of the classy Longacres Derby winner Table Run, she was to be one of three Washington champions, five stakes winners and eight stakes horses out of 1977 Washington broodmare of the year Hold Hands, a daughter of Anyoldtime.
Table Hands made her racing debut at Hollywood Park on May 17, 1979, winning a five-furlong maiden special weight race in gate-to-wire fashion by four lengths for the Stadelmans, trainer Jake Battles and rider Enrique Munoz. Her next start, and victory, came in the restricted 5 1/2-furlong Nursery Stakes, which she took by one length on June 13. Two weeks later in her third Hollywood Park outing, she went gate-to-wire to take the 5 1/2-furlong Cinderella Stakes by three-quarters of a length. After her victory, Table Hands was sold for a reported $500,000 to New Yorkers Joseph Allen and Peter Brandt and moved to Willard Proctor’s barn.
The Grade 2 $75,000 Hollywood Park Lassie Stakes on July 14 was her next objective, and after paying a $5,000 supplement to the six-furlong stakes, Table Hands rolled out another gate-to-wire performance (with :21 3/5, :44 2/5 and :57 1/5 first fractions and a 1:03 3/5 final) to win by 4 1/2 lengths while under Munoz. The Washington speedster was named top two-year-old filly for the 1979 spring Hollywood Park meeting.
Sent south for the Del Mar, Table Hands, who had to be supplemented by a $7,500 payment this time around, proved more than ready for the $100,000 Del Mar Debutante Stakes (G2), run at a mile. With new partner William Shoemaker in the saddle, the bay filly was six lengths on top at the quarter (:21 4/5), ten in front at the half (:43 4/5), led by a dozen lengths after going six furlongs (1:08 4/5) and was still leading in the stretch by seven before taking her fifth consecutive race by six lengths in 1:35. In this brilliant win, Table Hand’s took a full second off the stakes record set by the speedy Terlingua (who would produce Storm Cat).
In recognition of her exploits, on a national level, Table Hands was voted the Eclipse Award runner-up in her division to champion Smart Angle and assigned only one pound (120-121) below the East Coast-raced filly on the Experimental Free Handicap. Ranked below them were future Kentucky Oaks (G1) winner Bold ’n Determined at 117 and future Kentucky Derby (G1) winner and champion Genuine Risk at 116.
On a Washington level, Table Hands was an easy vote for Washington champion two-year-old and became the second Washington horse of year (after Grade 2 winner Any Time Girl) for her dam and one of three state champions in future three-time leading sire Table Run’s first two crops.
Returning to the races at three, Table Hands made it six in a row after taking the seven-furlong Santa Ynez Stakes (G3), again with Shoemaker up, on February 23, though only by a head while carrying the 124 pound high weight, with Bold ’n Determined fourth, in what would be the Washington-bred’s final win.
S tretched out to a mile and a sixteenth for the March 9, Grade 1 Santa Susana Stakes, Table Hands finished third in the $100,000 stakes, though only a half-length and neck behind Bold ’n Determined and Street Ballet. After running fourth in the Senorita Stakes on April 21, she was retired for the season with $277,345 in earnings to rank third among all Washington-breds.
At four, Table Hands finished her race career with two allowance thirds and finally a fifth in the Convenience Stakes on April 25 and was bred to Nijinsky II.
In 11 starts she had six wins, three seconds and earnings of $290,595. Click here for expanded profile.
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