These Favorites Form an Equine Family Fued

Miss Mighty Mary and Sixy Chick, a pair of fillies that were considered two of the finest 2-year-olds in the country last year, will race tonight in the $25,000 Town Policy Handicap at Los Alamitos Race Course.

For S. David Plummer, the 350-yard contest between the favorites--Miss Mighty Mary and Sixy Chick--will be an equine family feud.

In March, Plummer of the Viking Ranch in Apple Valley bought Sixy Chick from R.D. Hubbard for a little more than $1.1 million--the most money ever paid for a quarter horse still in training. Less than a month later, Plummer purchased Miss Mighty Mary from partners Charles Albrecq and Don Ryan for an estimated $310,000.

“We discuss all the horses he purchases,” said trainer Wayne Thompson. “He (Plummer) prefers fillies because of his breeding business. There’s not as much risk in fillies because you can always breed them. And you’ll have something left when they’re done racing.”

Plummer’s penchant for spending big bucks on fillies and mares is similar to Lousiana state senator J.E. Jumonville’s expensive habit of acquiring the country’s best mares. In 1982, Jumonville purchased three of the nation’s top mares, paying $870,000 for Justanold Love, $1.2 million for Queen For Cash and $1 million for Dashingly. In 1984, Jumonville paid a reported $1.2 million for the 1983 champion 2-year-old filly, Indigo Illusion.

Multiple-stakes winner Sixy Chick, coming off a win at the recent Sunland Park Spring Futurity at Texas, will be tough to defeat tonight. The 3-year-old daughter of Streakin Six and Chickarun has earnings of more than $579,000 in eight starts.

The filly placed an impressive second in last year’s $900,000 Dash For Cash behind Eastex, the 1984 champion 2-year-old and champion 2-year-old gelding. The Dash For Cash is part the Los Alamitos Triple Crown.

Sixy Chick compensated for that defeat with a win over Easy Austin, a 3-year-old gelding who has twice beaten Eastex, in last summer’s $954,000 Faberge Futurity, another leg of the Triple Crown.

Sixy Chick was named 1984 champion 2-year-old filly and will be looking to follow the path of Dashs Dream, who used her Town Policy Handicap victory as a springboard to four stakes wins at last year’s meet and the 1984 World Champion title.

Sixy Chick may have debuted as a stakes contender, but Miss Mighty Mary is a rags-to-riches tale.

Mary ran her first three races as a claimer, for as little as $8,000. But in her third race, she broke her maiden and won her next two races. Three days before the $954,000 Faberge Futurity, Albrecq and Ryan bought Miss Mighty Mary for $125,000, supplemented her to the Faberge for $30,000, and gave her to James Brookfield to train.

Miss Mighty Mary stumbled in the Faberge trials and didn’t make the final, but she made the Faberge Consolation, which she won. Last July, she won the $35,000 Las Ninas Handicap for 2-year-old fillies and followed by winning the $220,500 Ed Burke Memorial Futurity, defeating the highly-regarded gelding, Easy Austin, by a nose.

In November, Miss Mighty Mary again edged the competition at the wire to win the $27,700 Pacific Handicap in a stakes-record 17.83 seconds. In the Sunland Park Fall Futurity last December, Miss Mighty Mary scored another victory in her last race as a 2-year-old, bringing her career earnings to $277,000.

“I think she has all the potential in the world,” said Thompson, who took over as the filly’s trainer when Plummer purchased her. “She’s had a long layoff, so it’s hard to say how she will do tonight, but she’s been training very well.”

Rounding out the field for tonight’s 350-yard race, the first Saturday feature stakes race of the 1985 summer quarter horse meeting, are Copper Bugs, Prissy Fein, Alo Nublado, Liquorice And Lace, Anitas Feature, Litas Joy, Ettagos Express and Real Easy Chick.