Quicken Tree

Quicken Tree (USA) 1963 Chestnut Gelding   Royal Orbit (USA) x Mother Wit (USA), by Counterpoint (USA)

The story of Quicken Tree began many years before the horse’s birth, when future owner and breeder Louis R. Rowan was a schoolboy in England. While there, Rowan witnessed several runnings of the Derby Stakes at Epsom. The one that made the most impression was the 1924 edition, in which Sansovino won easily over heavy going. The splendid performance remained engraved in Rowan’s mind and would later play a major role in influencing his breeding program.

Rowan eventually returned to his native California, where in 1934 he became one of the original shareholders in the new Santa Anita racetrack. He soon became a racehorse owner as well. His first horse, a cheap claiming filly named Glory Gal, never amounted to much, but Rowan persevered. He eventually won his first stakes race in 1941, when his Blon Gla won the California Lassie Stakes.

Unfortunately, Blon Gla never won another stakes though she raced for five seasons all told, and Rowan’s luck as a breeder and owner remained as spotty as Blon Gla’s race record through the 1940s and 1950s. However, he did run into one stroke of good fortune before the 1950s were out. At the 1957 California Thoroughbred Breeders Association winter mixed sale, C. V. Whitney elected to offer five well-bred fillies of racing age. Rowan took an immediate liking to a pretty chestnut three-year-old named Mother Wit. Although the filly had one odd foot, she was otherwise an attractive, feminine individual with a lovely head and a nice pedigree (by 1951 Horse of the Year Counterpoint out of the stakes-winning mare Recce), and Rowan bought her for $14,000.

Mother Wit eventually won three of nineteen starts over two seasons, proving roughly of allowance class, but she might have done better except that her feet were tender and did not hold up well on fast tracks. A training injury as a four-year-old ended her career, and she was bred that same year, producing a Turk’s Delight filly in 1959.

The filly, named Sauce Tartar, never raced, and Mother Wit came up barren in 1960. The next year, however, she produced the hard-knocking gelding Ask Father to the cover of 1954 Kentucky Derby winner Determine. Ask Father eventually won nineteen of 109 starts over nine seasons, reaching his peak with a victory in the 1966 Golden Gate Handicap as a five-year-old.

Rowan’s erratic luck continued as Mother Wit went barren to her 1961 cover, but turned when she got in foal from a 1962 mating to 1959 Preakness winner Royal Orbit. Although Royal Orbit later proved a great disappointment as a stallion, at the time he was only in his third covering season and had yet to have a crop come to the races. He had been quite consistent on the racetrack, his closing fourth in the Kentucky Derby being his only out-of-the-money finish in twenty starts, and he was an elegantly conformed animal that reminded Rowan of the fine English runners he had seen in his youth. Rowan’s dream was to breed a racehorse like Sansovino – a true stayer – and Royal Orbit was one of the few horses of Classic caliber besides Determine available in California. He was also a larger, longer-striding horse than little Determine, better fitting Rowan’s idea of what a good racehorse should look like.

Mother Wit dropped her Royal Orbit colt at Rowan’s Summit Lake Farm on April 18, 1963. The youngster was a chestnut with a blaze face and four white stockings and was given the name Quicken Tree. The “quicken tree,” also known as mountain ash and rowan, has long had its leaves and berries used in folklore to ward off evil spells and bring good fortune, and Rowan hoped the name would bring good luck to the new arrival. He may also have enjoyed the play on his own name, perhaps indicating his hopes for the youngster.

Mother Wit’s colt certainly looked the part of a potential stayer, lean and wiry, and he eventually matured into a rangy animal whose leggy appearance was exaggerated by his flashy stockings. Unfortunately, the young Quicken Tree proved to be a real head case. He was not studdish or mean, but he was cursed with an extremely high-strung temperament that could go into blind panic at the sight or sound of anything unusual – far beyond any temperamental quirks that his sire or dam possessed. His early training had to be interrupted by several breaks at the farm just to get his nerves settled, and on one of those breaks the colt was gelded in the hopes that he might calm down. The hopes proved unfounded; only time and patience seemed to have much effect, and Quicken Tree needed plenty of both. He had to learn by experience what would hurt him and what would not, and whether because of his extreme nervousness or a lack of intelligence or both, he proved a very slow learner.

Trainer Clyde Turk finally managed to get his problem child to the races in a six-furlong maiden at Santa Anita on January 25, 1966, but the gelding’s debut was even less auspicious than his odds of 64-1 would suggest. True to form, he went into a panic in the saddling enclosure, skittering backwards and scattering spectators right and left. Turk managed to get him calmed down enough to go to the post with the rest of the field, but when the starting bell went off, Quicken Tree stood frozen in the gate. He finally managed to collect his wits sufficiently to gallop after his field but was hopelessly out of it and finished dead last. Hardly anyone watched the late trailer long enough to note the lovely, fluid stride that showed even through the greenness of Quicken Tree’s performance, but the way the horse moved gave Turk a little hope that Quicken Tree might have a future after all.

The following week, Quicken Tree entered another maiden event. He started at odds of 86-1 but had apparently learned something from his previous experience; while still the last horse out of the gate, he put in a strong closing run to finish a surprising second. This slow start and out-of-the-clouds finish would remain his trademark for the rest of his career. According to assistant trainer William Canney (who later took over the gelding from Turk), the problem was not a lack of early foot but Quicken Tree’s old nemesis, his own high-strung disposition; to the end of his career, he could not break the nervous habit of freezing up when the starting bell rang, invariably spotting his field many lengths before he could bring himself to stumble out of the gate and settle into stride.

Quicken Tree broke his maiden in his fourth race, a one and one-sixteenth mile event in February, then entered a seven-month dry spell. During that time, he ran for claiming tags of $12,500 to $15,000 without takers. He was also offered for sale in a package deal with the four-year-old Poacher’s Pocket for $25,000, but the potential buyer backed out, later picking up Poacher’s Pocket in a $15,000 claimer and leaving Rowan stuck with Quicken Tree.

Whether Rowan knew it or not, his luck had taken a marked turn for the better. Poacher’s Park raced for five more seasons but never earned black type and finished his career having earned $31,186. Quicken Tree, on the other hand, began to show marked improvement at the same Del Mar meeting at which Poacher’s Park was claimed away. Entered in the Del Mar Derby at Rowan’s insistence, Quicken Tree finished a strongly closing fourth, then won a division of the restricted Escondido Handicap in his next start. He finished out his sophomore year with another stakes triumph, this in the Tropicana Hotel of Las Vegas Handicap at Bay Meadows.

The former claimer was beginning to attract some attention, and one of the people noticing his improved form was Wheelock Whitney, who purchased a part interest in the gelding in early 1967. It proved a profitable venture for the Minneapolis sportsman, who would race Quicken Tree in partnership with Rowan for the remainder of the gelding’s career. All Quicken Tree did in 1967 was start twenty times from January 2 to December 9, with fifteen of those starts coming in stakes. He was still a very poor gate horse, and his come-from-behind style made him vulnerable to traffic jams created by tiring horses in front of him, but he was proving increasingly dangerous when given a distance of ground to negotiate.

Quicken Tree won the 1967 Inglewood and Rancho Bernardo handicaps in California but found his true calling when sent to New York in the first of four annual trips he would make to the Empire State. Sent to the post for the thirteen-furlong Gallant Fox Handicap, he ran a flying second to the excellent Argentine-bred stayer *Niarkos (whom he had previously defeated in the Inglewood). His final start of the year was the two-mile Display Handicap at Aqueduct, which he won handily over Canadian champion He’s a Smoothie.

For all his nerves, Quicken Tree had handled the flight to New York with surprising ease. He handled the return trip to California just as well, winning a division of the 1968 San Luis Rey Handicap on the turf at the Santa Anita winter meeting. He placed in several more stakes at Santa Anita and Hollywood, but did not win again until the Del Mar meeting, when he turned in one of the sharpest performances of his career to win the Del Mar Handicap in 1:46-1/5 for the mile and an eighth – a mere sprint by his standards, but his time tied the world record held jointly by the speedy filly Bug Brush and the high-class South African import *Colorado King.

Following the Del Mar meeting, Quicken Tree made his third transcontinental flight, arriving in New York for the Belmont fall meeting. He duly won the Manhattan Handicap over a mile and a half, then stepped up to the sternest challenge of his career in the two-mile Jockey Club Gold Cup, where he would face 1967 Horse of the Year Damascus – no light test, for Damascus was a proven stayer who had won the Gold Cup the preceding year. Unfortunately, the race proved something of an anticlimax as Damascus bowed a tendon and finished dead last, but for Rowan it provided one of the greatest thrills of his career as a breeder and owner as Quicken Tree came home in front. So good was Quicken Tree in New York that, despite the ups and downs of his record in California (the gelding won only four races all told in 1968), he ranked third among older males on the Daily Racing Form Free Handicap behind only Horse of the Year Dr. Fager and Damascus.

Quicken Tree was not quite as productive in 1969, but he did win two stakes: the San Luis Obispo Handicap on the turf at Santa Anita, and a second edition of the Display Handicap at Aqueduct. On returning to California, he turned in two incredible performances back to back at the 1970 Santa Anita winter meeting. His first was in the Santa Anita Handicap, in which he reverted to his worst starting habits and literally walked out of the gate. Trailing by better than thirty lengths going into the first turn, Quicken Tree appeared hopelessly beaten but uncorked a tremendous drive that not only put him under the wire a length in front but equaled the track record for a mile and a quarter.

Quicken Tree’s second great race of 1970 was the San Juan Capistrano Handicap, run at about one and three-quarters miles on Santa Anita’s El Camino Rey turf course. Once again he dropped far out of contact with the pack in the early going, but in a heart-stopping finish just got up in the final stride to dead heat with the top grass runner Fiddle Isle, with eventual co-Horse of the Year Fort Marcy just another nose away in third.

Although neither Quicken Tree’s connections or his fans knew it, the San Juan Capistrano would turn out to be the last great triumph of Quicken Tree’s career. The gelding, now seven years old, was obviously as good as ever, but his one-dimensional style remained vulnerable to traffic problems and a slow early pace. Further, new competition was coming into California. Not only did Fiddle Isle stay around (he won six turf stakes in 1970, all in California), but the formidable Australian import *Daryl’s Joy and the top-class Chilean horse *Cougar II were both beginning to show excellent form – all fine staying horses that even the hard-trying Quicken Tree could not hope to concede twenty or thirty lengths and still catch.

Quicken Tree headed for New York as usual in the fall, but he was never to make another start. Despite his nerves, he was a playful horse in the familiar confines of his stall, and in early October he kicked the side of his stall while playing. X-rays of his right hind leg showed a cracked sesamoid bone, so Quicken Tree was flown home to California, where he underwent a repair surgery on October 14. He came out of the operation well and was sent to Santa Anita, where he could have round-the-clock observation as he continued his recovery. All seemed well, but several days later, Quicken Tree developed enteritis (inflammation of the intestinal tract) for reasons apparently unconnected with his injury. Every effort was made to save him, but on October 22, 1970, Quicken Tree died in his stall.

Quicken Tree ended his career with fifteen wins, nine seconds, and thirteen placings from seventy-four starts for earnings of $718,303 – not a great record on the surface, but remarkable given the self-imposed handicap of his racing style against some excellent competition. At Rowan’s request, Quicken Tree was buried at Santa Anita, scene of his last and most memorable victories. His grave lies just off the far turn, next to the grave of the ill-starred champion filly Lamb Chop. It is a fitting honor for perhaps the greatest stayer ever produced in the state of California.

© 2005 by Avalyn Hunter