I felt my age yesterday, when AQHA announced the three horses to be inducted into their Hall of Fame for 2011, two of which I photographed for their owners – Mr San Peppy and Streakin Six. The other inductee, Skipper W, was foaled the year that I was born and died the year that I graduated from high school.

Mr San Peppy, was foaled in 1968, one year after his full brother, Peppy San, won the 1967 NCHA World Championship under Matlock Rose. Sired by Leo San and out of Peppy Belle, by Pep Up, both stallions were bred by G.B. Howell of Dallas, Texas. Peppy San was purchased by Douglas Lake Cattle Company of Canada, at Howell’s 1963 show horse dispersal. Mr San Peppy ended up with King Ranch, who purchased him in 1976 from S.J. Agnew and Buster Welch.

“When we bought Mr San Peppy, we thought our mares were of good enough quality…but we felt we needed a better stallion than the mares, in order to improve their offspring,” Tio Kleberg, vice president of King Ranch at the time of Mr San Peppy’s purchase, told me in a 1987 interview.

Welch had shown Mr San Peppy to win the 1972 NCHA Derby (Agnew was second on Little Boy Rey) and in 1974 as the NCHA World Champion. Mr San Peppy would claim the NCHA World title again in 1976 for new owner King Ranch – the year before his son, Peppy San Badger, won the NCHA Futurity.

Mr San Peppy was the first horse to earn over $100,000 in open cutting competition and at six, the youngest horse ever inducted into the NCHA Hall of Fame. He ranks #8 on cutting’s list of the all-time leading paternal grandsires, where Peppy San Badger ranks #3 and Peppy San is #11. All three stallions are also included among cutting’s top 20 all-time maternal grandsires.

Mr San Peppy was 25 years old when I photographed him at Lazy E Ranch in Guthrie, OK; he died in 1998.

Foaled in 1977, from the first crop of Easy Six (Easy Six died in 1978 at six), Streakin Six was bred by the Tom L. Burnett Cattle Co. of Fort Worth, Texas and owned by B.F. Phillips, Jr. and his wife, Anne, heiress of Burnett Cattle Company and the Four Sixes Ranch.

At the time Streakin Six was foaled, world champion runner Dash For Cash, bred by B.F. Phillips and standing at Phillips Ranch, was just beginning to establish himself as a leading race sire. From 19 starts, Streakin Six counted the 1979 Rainbow Futurity among his 10 wins, and the All American Futurity among his five runner-up finishes.

As a sire, standing at Phillips Ranch and, following the death of B.F. Phillips, at the Four Sixes Ranch, Streakin Six quickly rose to the leading ranks. Although he died in 2005, he is still #6 among AQHA sires of stakes winners, as well as money-earners (his offspring earned $17,348,666), and #3 among broodmare sires.