1964-Voice Of The Tennessee Walking Horse 1964 September Voice | Page 8

By Fred E. Friend
In the highly unlikely event
that there somewhere yet lives
one, uninitiated and uncouth, who
cannot account for the sudden eas­
ing of international tensions, the
dust clouds swirling through the
atmosphere, the startling lull in
campaign oratory, sun spots and
radioactivity in new abundance,
the unseasonal behavior of the
weather and an alarmingly gen­
eral neglect of duty, between Au­
gust 29 and September 5, we are
proud to announce the solution to
this mvstery: WHAT IT WAS
WAS THE CELEBRATION. Yes,
the 26th Annual Celebration is re­
sponsible for all these pheonomena.
as well as for the largest consump­
tion of hamburgers ever recorded
in Shelbyville, Tennessee, and for
many other such momentous events
and happenings. To the 87,027 paid
admissions and the more than
3,000 others who were present as
exhibitors, trainers, grooms, offi­
cials, groundkeepers, and service
personnel, however, the most im­
portant part of the National Cele­
bration was the 1,295 horses that
competed in sixty big classes for
the gold and the glory. General
agreement has it that the horses
were more beautiful, better trained,
doing more and causing more ex­
citement than ever before in the
long and illustrious history of this
big event.
Expanded to eight night sessions
for 1964, the Celebration broke all
records for attendance. Look at
this table of growth.
8
1962
1963
1964
Saturday
6,370
Sunday
—
5,570
6,290
Monday
6,343
7,505
7,957
Tuesday
7,566
7,669
8,552
Wednesday
8,196
9,380 10,186
Thursday
10,559 11,951 13,512
Friday
11,671 14,071 14,131
Saturday
15,959 18,244 20,029
TOTALS 60,324 74,390 87,027
With the passing of the mile-
stone of more than twenty thou-
stand paid admissions for Stake
Night, the Celebration has arrived
in the select circle of the biggest
among the big time in horse shows.
Not only in number of paid ad­
missions and total number of
horses participating, however, did
the 1964 Celebration enter the rec­
ord books; but also in the quality
of the classes, the excitement of
the workouts, the number and size
of the daytime activities beckon­
ing visitors to Walking Horse
Country, and the general sense of
satisfaction felt by those who knew
their horses, the 26th annual high
court of the Tennessee Walking
Horse ranks among the best in the
series.
To begin at the climax, PER­
FECTION’S CARBON COPY
proved on Thursday night in the
large and testing class for stallions,
four years old and over, that he
would definitely be the horse to
beat in the Grand Championship
Stake. In a grueling fifteen-horse
workout, CARBON COPY showed
style and speed in abundance to
win the blue over such unques­
tionably great horses as TRIPLE
THREAT, JOHNNY MIDNIGHT,
GO BOY’S SUNDUST, GO BOY’S
BLACK JACK and MACK K’S
BIG STORY. In Saturday night’s
feature, however, Joe Webb really
turned on the big, black stallion,
and he dazzled the capacity crowd
with his tremendous speed in the
running walk. This crowd - cap­
turing son of the 1959 World’s
Grand Champion RODGER’S PER­
FECTION may be back next year
to defend his title. Now only four
years of age, he could go on to
retire the Musgrave Challenge
Trophy for his five owners, Mr.
Pete Raney, Mr. Howard Binns and
Dr. T. J. Raney, of Little Rock,
Arkansas, and Dr. Porter R. Rod­
gers and Mr. Joe Webb of Searcy,
Arkansas. The judges’ choice of
CARBON COPY for Grand Cham­
pion was unanimous and was ob­
viously a decision very popular
with the capacity crowd. Gover­
nor Frank G. Clement was most
complimentary as he placed the
traditional horseshoe of roses
around the victor’s neck. Special
credit is due Joe Webb for his ex­
cellent training of this splendid
stallion and for teh gentlemanly
grace which which he shows him
at all times.
Also the unanimous choice of
the judges for Reserve Champion
was the great bay stallion TRIPLE
THREAT, ridden by Harold Ken­
nedy for Mr. C. E. Clement, Mr.
C. W. Abernathy and Mr. J. B.
Sherrill, of Hickory, North Caro­
lina. TRIPLE THREAT was Re­
serve Champion also in 1963. Con­
VOICE of The Tennessee Walking Horse