12/29/2013
Dark clouds are supposed to have silver linings. Consider, for example, Chicado V. Blessed with tremendous talent, Chicado V ran on her own dark cloud: legs fast enough to propel her to records, but calf-kneed and crooked enough that she could not keep it up.
Bred and owned by Frank Vessels Sr., founder of Los Alamitos Race Course, Chicado V was foaled in 1950, a daughter of Chicaro Bill and out Do Good. Chicado V was also a full sister to successful sire Senor Bill.
The brown filly did not impress Vessels’ trainer, Farrell Jones, so she was sent to Eddie Moreno. Moreno took Chicado V to the Los Angeles Fairgrounds at Pomona for her first race –and her first track record. The filly ran 350 yards in :18.1 seconds, then the fastest time ever clocked by a 2-year-old at the distance.
Jones decided maybe he liked Chicado V and took her to Bay Meadows. The filly equaled the track record in her second race and outran Bardella, with whom Chicado V shared honors of champion freshman filly. In her sophomore year, the brown filly lost by a nose, but pushed highly regarded Robin Reed to a new track record. She won the next meeting between herself, Robin Reed and Clabbertown G, and she equaled Robin Reed’s time of :17.9 at 350 yards. After running third and sixth in her next two races, Chicado V was retired.
Her racing career over, Chicado V produced Triple Chick, War Chick, Table Tennis, Three Chicks, Chicado Chick and The Ole Man. These horses were AQHA Champions, racing champions and producers of champions.
The blood still flows today, for example, in 2005 world champion DM Shicago, whose sire, Separatist, traces to the mare, and in Corona Cartel, 2005’s leading sire by earnings, whose sire, Chicks Beduino, also traces to Chicado V.
The brown mare died in 1972, and was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 2006.
