COURTESY OF AQHA RACING.COM
CAPTAIN COURAGE, VALIANT HERO CARRY ON CORONA CHICK'S INFLUENCE
September 1, 2007 -- Corona Chick, a multiple champion on the racetrack, was named the AQHA Broodmare of the Year for 1997, the year her daughter Corona Cash won the All American Futurity (G1) and her Grade 1-winning son Corona Cartel was in his final season of racing.
But Corona Chick was just getting started. This year, the 18-year-old daughter of Chicks Beduino is in the pedigrees of two horses in Sunday’s All American Derby (G1) and another six horses in Monday’s All American Futurity (G1) at Ruidoso Downs, showing just how much her influence has grown in 10 years.
The runners include two of her sons, Derby hopeful Valiant Hero, by First Down Dash, and Futurity runner Captain Courage, by Mr Jess Perry. Each colt topped the Ruidoso Select Quarter Horse Yearling Sale, Valiant Hero selling for $500,000 in 2005 and Captain Courage bringing $415,000 last year.
Valiant Hero is owned by the partnership of Henry and Mimi Brown, Homer Hill and Terry Bell, and Captain Courage races for Burnett Ranches and Chad Hart. Both colts were bred by Julianna Hawn Holt, who owns the Cross Triangle Ranch near San Antonio,Texas.
“She’d get rid of me before she’d get rid of Corona Chick,” joked Holt’s husband, Peter, about his wife’s devotion to the mare.
Burnett Ranches, which stands Mr Jess Perry at its Four Sixes Ranch in Guthrie, Texas, became partners with Hart in the ownership of Captain Courage after the colt broke his maiden by 3 ¼ lengths in late June at Delta Downs. The Four Sixes’ interest in the colt was natural.
“I know the family extremely well, and we breed a lot of Julianna’s mares every year,” said Dr. Glenn Blodgett of the Four Sixes. In 2004, Corona Chick and Valiant Hero, then a foal at her side, were at the Four Sixes, where the mare was bred to Mr Jess Perry—the mating that produced Captain Courage. Blodgett says Valiant Hero ranks among the most impressive foals he has ever seen at the ranch.
“From a conformation standpoint, if he wasn’t the best, he scares the best to death,” Blodgett said. “There are maybe one or two others who’d be in that category.”
Blodgett said Corona Chick, who was bred and raced by Robert D. “Strawberry Bob” Etchandy, is a well-conformed mare who is a great mother to her foals.
“But the proof in the pudding always is in the performance of the offspring,” he said. “She’s produced some runners and also, in Corona Cartel’s case, she’s produced a major sire.”
Corona Cartel, the year’s current leading sire of earners, has made his own mark on this year’s All American Futurity and Derby. The son of Holland Ease is the sire of Futurity qualifier Coronas Fast Dash and Derby runner Ivory James, and is the broodmare sire of Futurity qualifier Libbys Feature. Henry Brown, co-owner of Valiant Hero, owns Corona Cash, and he bred Libbys Feature.
Corona Cartel’s younger half brother Corona Caliente, a Grade 1 futurity qualifier by First Down Dash, is the sire of Futurity qualifier Greatful Heart, a member of his first crop of foals. Owned by Molly B. Morris and Mike Abraham, Corona Caliente stands at Double L Farm in Bosque, New Mexico. Morris purchased Corona Caliente for $700,000 as a yearling.
Corona Cartel stands at the Lazy E Ranch alongside Holland Ease and Corona Cartel’s 2005 All American Futurity-winning son, Teller Cartel. Butch Wise of the Lazy E compared Corona Chick’s influence on American Quarter Horse racing and sales to a development that occurred about 100 years ago and forever changed how we live.
“It’s about the same as the automobile,” Wise said.
The matriarch of the family is Corona Chick’s dam, Sizzlin Lil, who was honored as the 2001 AQHA Broodmare of the Year for the year her runners at the track included champion Corona Kool. Now 23, Sizzling Lil remains a member of the broodmare band at Vessels Stallion Farm. Corona Chick is Sizzling Lil’s first foal; the older mare’s ninth foal is the stakes-winning First Down Dash colt Corona Cocktail, who stands at Hart’s Hart Farms in Louisiana.
Following their racing careers, Captain Courage at the Four Sixes and Valiant Hero, whose stud plans have not been announced, are expected to receive prime opportunities to become as prolific as other members of their family.
“We’re really excited about the future of Captain Courage as a sire,” Blodgett said. “He’s really got potential as a sire because of his great pedigree and his potential cross on the First Down Dash-Dash For Cash bloodlines. And there’s a lot of that out there.” By Amy Owens
Home 
Subject: CORONA CHICK - BLUE HEN BROODMARE 
September 1st 2007, 11:31 pm
