Speedy Paint, Royal Quick Flash, Becomes First APHA Stallion to Reach $5 Million Milestone

Less than a year after reaching the $4 million mark in offspring earnings, Royal Quick Flash distanced himself to become the first APHA stallion to reach the $5 million milestone, thanks to a bevy of top running get.

A second-place finish by DSP Annies Flash in the G1 Spots N Dots Handicap July 27 at Fair Meadows Racetrack in Tulsa, Oklahoma—combined with money-earning finishes by several other get in overnight races—helped push “Flash” over the $5 million mark, says owner Larry Steele of Steele Farms in Fort Gibson, Oklahoma. He’s elated at the success Flash’s get have had on the track.

“When you’re running a stallion operation, this is just what it’s all about. It’s what you live for, so we’re just elated,” Larry said. “His colts have been running at over $600,000 a year for the last few years, so I could see it was going to happen about mid-season if we had the luck. I knew we had a lot of good colts out there out of good mares, so we were hoping for the best from them.”

A 1996 sorrel overo stallion by Royal Quick Dash (QH) and out of Venice Song (QH), Flash is no stranger to success. Named the 1998 World Champion Running Paint Horse, he also earned multiple year-end titles as a racehorse: Champion 2-Year-Old and Champion 2-Year-Old Colt in 1998, and Champion 3-Year-Old and Champion 3-Year-Old Colt in 1999. The stakes winner’s lifetime earnings tallied $53,877.

But Flash didn’t rest on his laurels—instead, he left an even bigger impression as a sire of speed-bred Paint Horses. The sire of 387 registered Paints to date, more than two-thirds of his foals have hit the racetrack. Collectively, they’ve earned $5,001,924 in purse money, cementing their sire as the breed’s No. 1 Lifetime Leading Sire of Money-Earning Paint Racehorses.

Giving credence to Flash’s sire power, three of the top four leading money-earning racehorses of 2013 (as of July 29, 2013) are by Flash: Situation, a 2-year-old gelding owned by Wade Leggett who has earned $96,871 for No. 1; Imflashinthechicks, a 2-year-old gelding owned by Shirley Wheeler who has earned $86,134 for the No. 2 spot; and Flashthechicks, a 4-year-old gelding and two-time World Champion Running Solid Paint-Bred also owned by Shirley who has earned $38,144 this year for fourth place. Flashthechicks is also No. 2 on the Lifetime Leading Money-Earners chart with total earnings of $311,683.

To learn more about Flash, check out the May 2013 Paint Horse Racing article “Flash of Brilliance,” archived online at racing.apha.com/magazine.