Mares With More | Nuggett Hug
P
By Larry Thornton ....................................................................................................................................................................................................... eter McCue an American Quarter Horse foundation sire was a widely traveled stallion that stood in Illinois, Oklahoma and Colorado. Some reports show that he was in Texas at one time. This traveling around the country siring foals was a key in his success as a foundation sire. He bred the best mares at each stop and he sired great foals everywhere he went spreading his genes as a foundation sire. Today when we see a horse is well traveled that can mean a number of things including he may not be getting the best foals. This is true for mares as well. When a mare is well traveled she might not be producing what the owner wanted. So they move her on down the line to a new breeding program. But what about the mare that is well traveled and wherever she goes she puts a good foal on the ground. A mare named Nuggett Hug is one of those mares and for that reason she is our feature mare for the Mares with More in this issue. Nuggett Hug was a 1944 daughter of Bear Hug and out of Goldienug. She was bred by Sid Vail. Vail was a man that had done a variety of jobs over the years that included some ranch
work, some rodeo and some government service. But by the mid 1940’s he had settled down as a rancher in Douglas, Arizona. Vail had a deep interest in horses and he would make a decision in his ranching career that would make him, and a stallion named Three Bars legends in the quarter horse industry. When Vail saw Three Bars for the first time, he thought he was the stallion he had always wanted. He was his perfect horse. He bought Three Bars for $10,000 and at the height of his breeding career this great stallion had a breeding fee of $10,000. Three Bars was the stallion that many believe solidified the quarter horse as the versatile breed by contributing to development of what became the “middle of the road” quarter horse that could run, show and halter. Bear Hug was another stallion that Vail stood. This horse was double-bred to a mare named Five Dollars. Five Dollars was the foundation mare for the famed outlaw hunter J. Frank Norfleet. Norfleet earned this title when some men scammed him in a land deal. He hunted them down and brought them to justice. A task he relished, and he started earning a living by hunting other conmen. Norfleet became a well-known breeder developing the Five Dollar family of horses.
NORFLE ch 1924 QUARTE U007715 BEAR HUG sor 1933 QUARTER HORSE #0002868
HOUSEP sor QUARTE U007237 NUGGETT HUG sor 1944 QUARTER HORSE #0008456
SMOKY buck 193 QUARTE #0001147
Peter McCue [1895] and Five Dollar brought together two branches of the Barney Owens [1871] bloodline forming the genetic base of Nugget Hug. Photo Courtesy The AQHA Hall of Fame and Museum. 38 Working Horse Magazine 2018 December
GOLDIENUG pal 1940 QUARTER HORSE #0008451
MARE B
QUARTE U007463
