Go Man Go
Encyclopedia
Go Man Go was an American Quarter Horse
stallion
and race horse
. He was named World Champion Quarter Running Horse three times in a row, one of only two horses to achieve that distinction. Go Man Go was considered to be of difficult temperament. While waiting in the starting gate
for his very first race, he threw his jockey, broke down the gate, and ran alone around the track; he was eventually caught and went on to win the race. During his five years of competition until his retirement from racing in 1960 he had 27 wins, earning more than $86,000 (approximately $ as of ).
Neither of his parents raced. His sire (father), the Thoroughbred
stallion Top Deck
, was bred by the King Ranch
. His dam
(mother) hailed from Louisiana; Go Man Go is thought to have gained his swiftness on the track from her. For the first years of Go Man Go's racing career, his owner faced difficulty in registering him with the American Quarter Horse Association
(AQHA), a matter that remained unresolved until 1958.
Go Man Go went on to sire two All American Futurity
winners and seven Champion Quarter Running Horses. He was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame
, as were two of his offspring. His daughters also produced, or were the mothers of, a number of race winners, including the Hall of Fame members Kaweah Bar
and Rocket Wrangler
. The director of racing for the AQHA once compared his impact on Quarter Horse racing and breeding to that of Man o' War
in Thoroughbred racing
, or that of human athletes such as Ben Hogan
and Babe Ruth
.
ed in Wharton, Texas
in 1953, as a result of the second breeding between the Thoroughbred stallion Top Deck and the Appendix Quarter Horse mare
Lightfoot Sis. Top Deck was bred by the King Ranch, and was unraced. J. B. Ferguson had purchased Lightfoot Sis when her then-owner, Octave Fontenot of Prairie Ronde, Louisiana, decided to get out of the horse breeding
business. Ferguson paid $350 for her (approximately $ as of ) and bred her in 1952 to Top Deck (TB), resulting in Go Man Go's birth the next year. Ferguson also purchased Top Deck, after the stallion injured himself as a yearling.
Lightfoot Sis showed classic short speed in her pedigree, although she was unraced due to an injury as a filly
that left her blind in one eye. Her sire was the Thoroughbred stallion Very Wise, and her dam was a Quarter Horse mare named Clear Track.
Scott Wells, a racing correspondent, wrote in The Speedhorse Magazine that Go Man Go "grew up lean and hard-boned, long-bodied and long-hipped, but not the best looking horse in the world. Not the best looking, just the best." Go Man Go had a reputation for being difficult to handle. His trainer once told Walt Wiggins, Sr. that Go Man Go was "jes plain mean as a bear most of the time". Throughout his racing career, Go Man Go stayed mean. One of his jockeys, Robert Strauss, recalled later that Go Man Go "was ornery from the day I met him, but he was the greatest horse I ever rode".
In the moments before his very first race began, Go Man Go flipped over in the starting gate, unseated his rider, crashed through the front, and ran around the whole track. He finally allowed himself to be caught and reloaded into the starting gate and went on to win that race. He won his next five races with a total lead of nine horse-lengths
. He faced Vandy's Flash, himself a World Champion Quarter Racing Horse, twelve times. Their last meeting, on September 6, 1959 at Ruidoso Downs
, was also Go Man Go's final race, and was the only one of their races won by Vandy's Flash.
Go Man Go won 27 times, placed second 9 times and was third 3 times. Because he placed so regularly, by the end of his racing career tracks had difficulty filling races if other racing stables knew he was entered. His race earnings were $86,151 (approximately $ as of ) with 88 AQHA racing points, which earned him a Superior Race Horse award as well as a Race Register of Merit from the AQHA. The best speed rating
, or racing grade, he achieved was AAAT, the highest grade awarded at the time. Go Man Go was named World Champion Quarter Running Horse for three years running, from 1955 to 1957. He was the first two-year-old to win the title. He was a multiple stakes
winner, and his wins included the Pacific Coast Quarter Racing Association Futurity, LA Autumn Championship, and the Clabbertown G Stakes, which he won three times in a row. At his retirement, he held the world records at 440 yards (402.3 m) and 350 yards (320 m), as well as age and sex records at 400 yards (365.8 m). Go Man Go is still the only stallion who has been World Champion Quarter Running Horse three times, and, along with the mare Woven Web (TB), is one of only two horses to be three-time winners of the award.
for $40,000 (approximately $ as of ), Ferguson set the price at $42,000 cash (approximately $ as of ) and twenty-one breedings to the stallion. To Ferguson's surprise, Green had that much cash available; Ferguson felt compelled to sell Go Man Go. Two years later, at a Los Alamitos
race meet, Green claimed that his newest horse, Double Bid, could outrace Go Man Go. This incensed Ferguson, who had just entered Go Man Go's full brother Mr Mackay in a race with Double Bid. Ferguson bet Green $42,000 (approximately $ as of ) against Go Man Go that Mr Mackay would beat Double Bid in the upcoming race. Mr Mackay won the race, and Ferguson regained ownership of Go Man Go. Later in 1960, because he also owned Go Man Go's full brother, father, and mother, he sold Go Man Go to Frank Vessels Sr. and Bill and Harriet Peckham for $125,000 (approximately $ as of ). Later, however, all three horses retained by Ferguson died prematurely.
Green ran into problems with Go Man Go's registration. At that time, the AQHA had two types of registration, the Appendix and the Tentative. Appendix-registered horses were the offspring of Thoroughbreds and either Tentative-registered Quarter Horses or Appendix-registered Quarter Horses. Go Man Go was originally registered in the Appendix, as his dam was an Appendix-registered mare. The way to advance out of the Appendix into the Tentative registry was to qualify on performance grounds and pass a conformation
examination conducted by the AQHA. Go Man Go certainly qualified under the performance criteria, but his conformation was such that he resembled a Thoroughbred more than he resembled a Quarter Horse. Green knew that in order to increase his stud fees—the price paid for the right to breed a mare to a stallion—Go Man Go needed to acquire a regular registration number instead of his Appendix number. So Green appealed to the Executive Committee of the AQHA, which had the authority to award Tentative numbers to horses regardless of conformation exam results. In both 1956 and 1957, the committee declined to take action, waiting to evaluate the quality of Go Man Go's first foals before making a decision. Finally, in 1958, they awarded Go Man Go number 82,000 in the Tentative registry.
. Of his first foal crop, born in 1958, three reached the finals of the All American Futurity: Mr Meyers, Dynago Miss and Angie Miss. His stud fee in 1960 was $500 (approximately $ as of ), but by 1963 it had risen to $2,500 (approximately $ as of ). He sired 942 foals, of which 552 earned their Race Register of Merit. Seventy-two of his offspring were awarded a Superior Race Horse award. Among his get
, or offspring, were Go Josie Go, Dynago Miss, Duplicate Copy, Story Man, and Hustling Man. His daughter Goetta
won the All American Futurity and was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame. Another daughter, Ought To Go
was also inducted into the AQHA Hall of Fame. Two grandget were also inducted into the AQHA Hall of Fame: Kaweah Bar and Rocket Wrangler. Eight of his offspring won Champion Quarter Running Horse awards. His entry listing his offspring who won Race Register of Merits in the Quarter Racing Digest covers five full pages plus part of another. As a broodmare sire, or maternal grandsire, his daughters have produced Rocket Wrangler, Mr Kid Charge, Kaweah Bar, and Go Together. As of April 2008, his offspring had earned over $7,000,000 on the racetrack.
As a breeding stallion, Go Man Go continued to have a reputation as a scoundrel, although Kathlyn Green, wife of A. B. Green, disputed that image. She said that he liked to have his lip tugged, and would lean over the stall door waiting for people to come along and tug on it for him. However, she said of him "he absolutely hated getting his feet dirty". Go Man Go passed through a number of hands after Green owned him, including Les Gosselin, Frank Vessels, and Harriett Peckham, who was his owner by 1972. He died in 1983 and was buried near the headquarters of the Buena Suerte Ranch in Roswell, New Mexico
. His crown-shaped granite headstone is engraved: "Go Man Go, The King."
Go Man Go was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 1990. A further honor was the naming of a stakes race after him, the Grade I
Go Man Go Handicap run in September at Los Alamitos. Walt Wiggins, a racing commentator and author, said of Go Man Go: "He was a brilliant speedhorse, some say the fastest ever. He was wild and reckless, a rogue at first, and often a clown who seldom saw the uniqueness of his talents or the seriousness of his commission. He had intrinsic greatness and couldn't care less." Dan Essary, who was Director of Racing for the AQHA for many years, described Go Man Go's impact on the Quarter Horse breed as "He was to Quarter Horse racing what Babe Ruth was to baseball, what Ben Hogan was to Golf and what Man o'War was to Thoroughbred racing. Horses may have run faster and horses have earned more money, but the fame of Go Man Go lingers."
American Quarter Horse
The American Quarter Horse is an American breed of horse that excels at sprinting short distances. Its name came from its ability to outdistance other breeds of horses in races of a quarter mile or less; some individuals have been clocked at speeds up to 55 mph...
stallion
Stallion
A Stallion is a male horse.Stallion may also refer to:* Stallion , an American pop rock group* Stallion , a figure in the Gobot toyline* Stallion , a character in the console role-playing game series...
and race horse
Horse racing
Horse racing is an equestrian sport that has a long history. Archaeological records indicate that horse racing occurred in ancient Babylon, Syria, and Egypt. Both chariot and mounted horse racing were events in the ancient Greek Olympics by 648 BC...
. He was named World Champion Quarter Running Horse three times in a row, one of only two horses to achieve that distinction. Go Man Go was considered to be of difficult temperament. While waiting in the starting gate
Starting gate
A starting gate is a machine used in horse racing and dog racing to ensure a fair start in a race.-Thoroughbred/quarter horse racing:...
for his very first race, he threw his jockey, broke down the gate, and ran alone around the track; he was eventually caught and went on to win the race. During his five years of competition until his retirement from racing in 1960 he had 27 wins, earning more than $86,000 (approximately $ as of ).
Neither of his parents raced. His sire (father), the Thoroughbred
Thoroughbred
The Thoroughbred is a horse breed best known for its use in horse racing. Although the word thoroughbred is sometimes used to refer to any breed of purebred horse, it technically refers only to the Thoroughbred breed...
stallion Top Deck
Top Deck (horse)
Unraced as a Thoroughbred, the stallion Top Deck went on to become a famous sire of Quarter Horses.-Life:Top Deck was foaled in 1945 and was injured as a young foal, preventing a racing career. His sire was a grandson of Man o' War named Equestrian...
, was bred by the King Ranch
King Ranch
King Ranch, located in south Texas between Corpus Christi and Brownsville, is one of the world's largest ranches. The ranch, founded in 1853 by Captain Richard King and Gideon K. Lewis, includes portions of six Texas counties, including most of Kleberg County and much of Kenedy County, with...
. His dam
Mare
Female horses are called mares.Mare is the Latin word for "sea".The word may also refer to:-People:* Ahmed Marzooq, also known as Mare, a footballer and Secretary General of Maldives Olympic Committee* Mare Winningham, American actress and singer...
(mother) hailed from Louisiana; Go Man Go is thought to have gained his swiftness on the track from her. For the first years of Go Man Go's racing career, his owner faced difficulty in registering him with the American Quarter Horse Association
American Quarter Horse Association
The American Quarter Horse Association , based in Amarillo, Texas, is an international organization dedicated to the preservation, improvement and record-keeping of the American Quarter Horse. The association sanctions many competitive events and maintains the official registry...
(AQHA), a matter that remained unresolved until 1958.
Go Man Go went on to sire two All American Futurity
All American Futurity
The All American Futurity is a race for two-year-old American Quarter Horse racehorses run at Ruidoso Downs Race Track in Ruidoso Downs, New Mexico on Labor Day. It is the last leg of the AQHA Triple Crown that has only been won once, by Special Effort in 1981. A 4 million dollar bonus was once...
winners and seven Champion Quarter Running Horses. He was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame
American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame
The American Quarter Horse Association has created a Hall of Fame in Amarillo, Texas to honor both people and horses who contributed to the growth of the American Quarter Horse. Any one may nominate either people or horses to be considered. Nominations from the membership are due by October 1. They...
, as were two of his offspring. His daughters also produced, or were the mothers of, a number of race winners, including the Hall of Fame members Kaweah Bar
Kaweah Bar
Known as the Palomino Express, Kaweah Bar racked up impressive stats on the Quarter Horse racetracks.-Life:Kaweah Bar was the son of Alamitos Bar and out of Angie Miss. Alamitos Bar was a son of Three Bars...
and Rocket Wrangler
Rocket Wrangler
Winner of the All American Futurity, Rocket Wrangler went on to sire Dash For Cash.-Life:Rocket Wrangler was a 1968 son of American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame member Rocket Bar a Thoroughbred stallion...
. The director of racing for the AQHA once compared his impact on Quarter Horse racing and breeding to that of Man o' War
Man O' War
Man O' War, man o' war or manowar may refer to:* Man-of-war, a warship* Man of war for uses with this spelling - Places :...
in Thoroughbred racing
Thoroughbred horse race
Thoroughbred horse racing is a worldwide sport and industry involving the racing of Thoroughbred horses. It is governed by different national bodies. There are two forms of the sport: Flat racing and National Hunt racing...
, or that of human athletes such as Ben Hogan
Ben Hogan
William Ben Hogan was an American golfer, generally considered one of the greatest players in the history of the game...
and Babe Ruth
Babe Ruth
George Herman Ruth, Jr. , best known as "Babe" Ruth and nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Sultan of Swat", was an American Major League baseball player from 1914–1935...
.
Background and early life
Go Man Go was foalFoal
A foal is an equine, particularly a horse, that is one year old or younger. More specific terms are colt for a male foal and filly for a female foal, but these terms are used until the horse is age three or four. When the foal is nursing from its dam , it may also be called a suckling...
ed in Wharton, Texas
Wharton, Texas
Wharton is a city in Wharton County, Texas, United States. The population was 9,237 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Wharton County and is located on the Colorado River of Texas just south of U.S...
in 1953, as a result of the second breeding between the Thoroughbred stallion Top Deck and the Appendix Quarter Horse mare
Mare (horse)
A mare is an adult female horse or other equine.In most cases, a mare is a female horse over the age of three, and a filly is a female horse age three and younger. However, in Thoroughbred horse racing, a mare is defined as a female horse more than four years old; in harness racing a mare is a...
Lightfoot Sis. Top Deck was bred by the King Ranch, and was unraced. J. B. Ferguson had purchased Lightfoot Sis when her then-owner, Octave Fontenot of Prairie Ronde, Louisiana, decided to get out of the horse breeding
Horse breeding
Horse breeding is reproduction in horses, and particularly the human-directed process of selective breeding of animals, particularly purebred horses of a given breed. Planned matings can be used to produce specifically desired characteristics in domesticated horses...
business. Ferguson paid $350 for her (approximately $ as of ) and bred her in 1952 to Top Deck (TB), resulting in Go Man Go's birth the next year. Ferguson also purchased Top Deck, after the stallion injured himself as a yearling.
Lightfoot Sis showed classic short speed in her pedigree, although she was unraced due to an injury as a filly
Filly
A filly is a young female horse too young to be called a mare. There are several specific definitions in use.*In most cases filly is a female horse under the age of four years old....
that left her blind in one eye. Her sire was the Thoroughbred stallion Very Wise, and her dam was a Quarter Horse mare named Clear Track.
Scott Wells, a racing correspondent, wrote in The Speedhorse Magazine that Go Man Go "grew up lean and hard-boned, long-bodied and long-hipped, but not the best looking horse in the world. Not the best looking, just the best." Go Man Go had a reputation for being difficult to handle. His trainer once told Walt Wiggins, Sr. that Go Man Go was "jes plain mean as a bear most of the time". Throughout his racing career, Go Man Go stayed mean. One of his jockeys, Robert Strauss, recalled later that Go Man Go "was ornery from the day I met him, but he was the greatest horse I ever rode".
Racing career
In his five-year racing career, Go Man Go competed in 47 races. He appeared to take naturally to racing; during his training he ran off with his rider—his eventual jockey Robert Strauss—before he was supposed to run. As Strauss said, "When we were breaking him, he ran off with me before we ever wanted him to run. I mean, just flat ran off with me." Robert's brother Eldridge, who was the trainer, once worked the colt minus half a shoe and Go Man Go still managed a time of 18.9 seconds for a 350 yards (320 m) distance.In the moments before his very first race began, Go Man Go flipped over in the starting gate, unseated his rider, crashed through the front, and ran around the whole track. He finally allowed himself to be caught and reloaded into the starting gate and went on to win that race. He won his next five races with a total lead of nine horse-lengths
Length (horse racing)
A horse length, or simply length, is a unit of measurement that refers to the length of a horse from nose to tail, approximately 8 feet, It is commonly used in Thoroughbred horse racing, where it describes the distance between horses in a race...
. He faced Vandy's Flash, himself a World Champion Quarter Racing Horse, twelve times. Their last meeting, on September 6, 1959 at Ruidoso Downs
Ruidoso Downs (track)
Ruidoso Downs is a horse racing track in Ruidoso Downs, New Mexico. The track hosts both thoroughbred and quarter horse racing, notably the All American Futurity, the richest race in quarter horse racing.-External links:*...
, was also Go Man Go's final race, and was the only one of their races won by Vandy's Flash.
Go Man Go won 27 times, placed second 9 times and was third 3 times. Because he placed so regularly, by the end of his racing career tracks had difficulty filling races if other racing stables knew he was entered. His race earnings were $86,151 (approximately $ as of ) with 88 AQHA racing points, which earned him a Superior Race Horse award as well as a Race Register of Merit from the AQHA. The best speed rating
Speed index
Speed index is a system of rating the performance of Quarter Horse racehorses. The American Quarter Horse Association has used two systems over the history of Quarter Horse racing to evaluate racing performances. The original system used a letter grade, starting at D, then C, B, A and the...
, or racing grade, he achieved was AAAT, the highest grade awarded at the time. Go Man Go was named World Champion Quarter Running Horse for three years running, from 1955 to 1957. He was the first two-year-old to win the title. He was a multiple stakes
Graded stakes race
A graded stakes race is a term applied since 1973 by the American Graded Stakes Committee of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association to thoroughbred horse races in the United States and Canada to describe races that derive their name from the stake, or entry fee, owners must pay...
winner, and his wins included the Pacific Coast Quarter Racing Association Futurity, LA Autumn Championship, and the Clabbertown G Stakes, which he won three times in a row. At his retirement, he held the world records at 440 yards (402.3 m) and 350 yards (320 m), as well as age and sex records at 400 yards (365.8 m). Go Man Go is still the only stallion who has been World Champion Quarter Running Horse three times, and, along with the mare Woven Web (TB), is one of only two horses to be three-time winners of the award.
Ownership and registration problems
In 1955, when Go Man Go was a two-year-old, A.B. Green bragged that he intended to buy the horse from Ferguson. Although Ferguson did not want to sell, he felt he had to at least set a price. After hearing rumors that Green was prepared with a cashier's checkCashier's check
A cashier's check is a check guaranteed by a bank. They are treated as guaranteed funds and are usually cleared the next day. It is the customer's right to request "next-day availability" when depositing a cashier's check in person...
for $40,000 (approximately $ as of ), Ferguson set the price at $42,000 cash (approximately $ as of ) and twenty-one breedings to the stallion. To Ferguson's surprise, Green had that much cash available; Ferguson felt compelled to sell Go Man Go. Two years later, at a Los Alamitos
Los Alamitos Race Course
Los Alamitos Race Course is a horse racing track in Cypress, California. The track hosts both thoroughbred and quarter horse racing. The track has the distinction of holding four quarter horse stakes races with purses over $1 million, more than any other track in the United States.-Early...
race meet, Green claimed that his newest horse, Double Bid, could outrace Go Man Go. This incensed Ferguson, who had just entered Go Man Go's full brother Mr Mackay in a race with Double Bid. Ferguson bet Green $42,000 (approximately $ as of ) against Go Man Go that Mr Mackay would beat Double Bid in the upcoming race. Mr Mackay won the race, and Ferguson regained ownership of Go Man Go. Later in 1960, because he also owned Go Man Go's full brother, father, and mother, he sold Go Man Go to Frank Vessels Sr. and Bill and Harriet Peckham for $125,000 (approximately $ as of ). Later, however, all three horses retained by Ferguson died prematurely.
Green ran into problems with Go Man Go's registration. At that time, the AQHA had two types of registration, the Appendix and the Tentative. Appendix-registered horses were the offspring of Thoroughbreds and either Tentative-registered Quarter Horses or Appendix-registered Quarter Horses. Go Man Go was originally registered in the Appendix, as his dam was an Appendix-registered mare. The way to advance out of the Appendix into the Tentative registry was to qualify on performance grounds and pass a conformation
Equine conformation
Equine conformation evaluates the degree of correctness of a horse's bone structure, musculature, and its body proportions in relation to each other. Undesirable conformation can limit the ability to perform a specific task. Although there are several universal "faults," a horse's conformation is...
examination conducted by the AQHA. Go Man Go certainly qualified under the performance criteria, but his conformation was such that he resembled a Thoroughbred more than he resembled a Quarter Horse. Green knew that in order to increase his stud fees—the price paid for the right to breed a mare to a stallion—Go Man Go needed to acquire a regular registration number instead of his Appendix number. So Green appealed to the Executive Committee of the AQHA, which had the authority to award Tentative numbers to horses regardless of conformation exam results. In both 1956 and 1957, the committee declined to take action, waiting to evaluate the quality of Go Man Go's first foals before making a decision. Finally, in 1958, they awarded Go Man Go number 82,000 in the Tentative registry.
Breeding career and legacy
Retired to the breeding shed, Go Man Go early on proved his worth as a stallionStallion (horse)
A stallion is a male horse that has not been gelded .Stallions will follow the conformation and phenotype of their breed, but within that standard, the presence of hormones such as testosterone may give stallions a thicker, "cresty" neck, as well as a somewhat more muscular physique as compared to...
. Of his first foal crop, born in 1958, three reached the finals of the All American Futurity: Mr Meyers, Dynago Miss and Angie Miss. His stud fee in 1960 was $500 (approximately $ as of ), but by 1963 it had risen to $2,500 (approximately $ as of ). He sired 942 foals, of which 552 earned their Race Register of Merit. Seventy-two of his offspring were awarded a Superior Race Horse award. Among his get
Get (animal)
The get of an animal are the offspring of a particular individual male animal. It is derived from the term "begat", meaning to father offspring. The term is frequently used in horse breeding and informal animal husbandry to describe the offspring of a stallion.-See also: *Animal breeding*Horse...
, or offspring, were Go Josie Go, Dynago Miss, Duplicate Copy, Story Man, and Hustling Man. His daughter Goetta
Goetta
Goetta is a breakfast sausage of likely German-American origin that is popular in the greater Cincinnati area. It is primarily composed of ground meat and steel-cut oats...
won the All American Futurity and was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame. Another daughter, Ought To Go
Ought To Go
While successful at the Quarter Horse racetrack, Ought To Go was far more successful in the breeding shed, producing twelve foals. Ten of those foals started and won races.-Life:...
was also inducted into the AQHA Hall of Fame. Two grandget were also inducted into the AQHA Hall of Fame: Kaweah Bar and Rocket Wrangler. Eight of his offspring won Champion Quarter Running Horse awards. His entry listing his offspring who won Race Register of Merits in the Quarter Racing Digest covers five full pages plus part of another. As a broodmare sire, or maternal grandsire, his daughters have produced Rocket Wrangler, Mr Kid Charge, Kaweah Bar, and Go Together. As of April 2008, his offspring had earned over $7,000,000 on the racetrack.
As a breeding stallion, Go Man Go continued to have a reputation as a scoundrel, although Kathlyn Green, wife of A. B. Green, disputed that image. She said that he liked to have his lip tugged, and would lean over the stall door waiting for people to come along and tug on it for him. However, she said of him "he absolutely hated getting his feet dirty". Go Man Go passed through a number of hands after Green owned him, including Les Gosselin, Frank Vessels, and Harriett Peckham, who was his owner by 1972. He died in 1983 and was buried near the headquarters of the Buena Suerte Ranch in Roswell, New Mexico
Roswell, New Mexico
Roswell is a city in and the county seat of Chaves County in the southeastern quarter of the state of New Mexico, United States. The population was 48,366 at the 2010 census. It is a center for irrigation farming, dairying, ranching, manufacturing, distribution, and petroleum production. It is also...
. His crown-shaped granite headstone is engraved: "Go Man Go, The King."
Go Man Go was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 1990. A further honor was the naming of a stakes race after him, the Grade I
Graded stakes race
A graded stakes race is a term applied since 1973 by the American Graded Stakes Committee of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association to thoroughbred horse races in the United States and Canada to describe races that derive their name from the stake, or entry fee, owners must pay...
Go Man Go Handicap run in September at Los Alamitos. Walt Wiggins, a racing commentator and author, said of Go Man Go: "He was a brilliant speedhorse, some say the fastest ever. He was wild and reckless, a rogue at first, and often a clown who seldom saw the uniqueness of his talents or the seriousness of his commission. He had intrinsic greatness and couldn't care less." Dan Essary, who was Director of Racing for the AQHA for many years, described Go Man Go's impact on the Quarter Horse breed as "He was to Quarter Horse racing what Babe Ruth was to baseball, what Ben Hogan was to Golf and what Man o'War was to Thoroughbred racing. Horses may have run faster and horses have earned more money, but the fame of Go Man Go lingers."