Breeding


Champion Sweet N Special Dies at Age 28
Champion Sweet N Special died April 2.

Courtesy AQHA Racing
Champion Sweet N Special Dies at Age 28

By Richard Chamberlain

Q-RACING JOURNAL—APRIL 7, 2015—Sweet N Special, the champion sophomore filly in 1990, was euthanized April 2.

“She had an old stifle injury, which had gotten progressively worse and was making it difficult to stand,” said owner Walter Fletcher, the former AQHA president who farms and ranches at Lakin, Kansas. “She was 28 years old and it was really causing her problems. She could hardly walk. It was time.”

Bred by Walter and his wife, Pat, Sweet N Special was a sorrel daughter of Special Effort and was foaled in 1987 out of the stakes-winning Does It Easy mare Sweet Katrina ($22,720). Earning $209,103 while compiling a lifetime record of 23-12 (1)-4 (3)-1 (1), Sweet N Special broke her maiden on first asking. Trained by Jack Brooks and ridden by Jacky Martin, the filly at 2 finished second to Serve N Notice in the $290,000 All American Futurity Consolation.

Winning six of 12 races as a 3-year-old, Sweet N Special scored in the Sunland Park Fall Derby (G3); finished second in the Rainbow Derby (G1), Kansas Derby (G1) and Buttons And Bows Stakes; and also contested the Grade 2 West Texas Derby and New Mexico State Fair Handicap. At 4, in her final season on the track, she ran in the Grade 1 Rainbow Silver Cup and World’s Championship Classic.

Sweet N Special is the dam of 10 winners and the earners of $316,729 from 12 starters. Her most successful is the Grade 1-winning First Down Dash gelding Not For Long ($154,048), who in 2004 won the Golden State Derby (G1) and Governor’s Cup Derby (RG1). In 2005, Not For Long ran in world champion Whosleavingwho’s Los Alamitos Winter Championship (G1).

Sweet N Special is the second dam of seven-time stakes winner None As Easy ($265,132), as well as Business Tycoon ($106,798), Zoomin Express ($105,601) and AQHA open supreme champion Cartel Caliente, among others.

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