Ruidoso Downs has announced the names of inductees into the 2007 Racehorse Hall of Fame. The roster includes owner and breeder Clarence Scharbauer Jr (pictured); trainer Charles “Bubba” Cascio; jockey and trainer Danny Cardoza; and world champion Vandy’s Flash.Clarence Scharbauer has been a prominent force in both Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse racing for more than 60 years. He and his late wife Dorothy and daughter Pam owned the 1987 Kentucky Derby winner and 1988 Horse of the Year Alysheba.
Scharbauer, a third generation Midland, Texas rancher and oilman, bred 1954 and 1956 National Cutting Horse Association world champion Marion’s Girl and owned her sire, Silver Wimpy. He also raced five Quarter Horse champions, including Double Queen and Vim And Vigor, and served as president of the American Quarter Horse Association in 1975.
Scharbauer’s Valor Farm in Pilot Point, TX, is currently home to some of the Southwest’s top Thoroughbred stallions.
Texas native Bubba Cascio has trained six champions, including two-times world champion Dash For Cash, whose winning time of :21.17 seconds in the 1976 Champion Of Champions still stands as the 440-yard track record at Los Alamitos Race Course in southern California. Cascio also conditioned the 1983 world champion and Dash For Cash daughter Dashingly, who is still the all-time leading female Quarter race horse with $1.7 million in earnings.
Danny Cardoza, Pacines, CA, is the only individual to have both ridden and trained winners of $1 million races. He won the $1 million All American Futurity in 1979 aboard Pie In The Sky, and trained Dashing Knud and Your First Moon, back-to-back winners of the Los Alamitos Million.
Between 1970, when AQHA began compiling Quarter Horse racing statistics, and 1993, when he retired as a jockey, Cardoza rode 3,212 race winners and his mounts earned nearly $25 million. His wins included the All American Derby aboard Dashs Dream; the Kindergarten Futurity on First Down Dash; the Champion Of Champions with Gold Coast Express; and the Golden State Futurity on Dashingly.
Vandy’s Flash, the 1958 champion gelding and 1960 world champion running Quarter Horse, set the Los Alamitos 440-yard track record of :21.70 while winning the 1960 Los Alamitos Championship. But he is perhaps best known for setting the 350-yard Los Alamitos track record of :17.50, which stood for 18 years.
Vandy’s Flash, a gelded son of Vandy foaled in 1954, started 106 times over eight seasons, with 28 wins (eight stakes), 15 seconds (seven stakes) and 11 thirds (nine stakes).
Clarence Scharbauer Jr, Bubba Cascio, Danny Cardoza and Vandy’s Flash will be formally inducted into the Hall of Fame during ceremonies at the historical New Mexico racetrack in June.