(PHOTO - From GAYLE SOMMERS private collection, a head on image of the massive Down Home Dash)
The horse that changed my life
The late Hermann Sommer often said all he ever wanted was to have the best Quarter Horses. In 1989, at one of the early yearling sales ever held at Heritage Place in Oklahoma City, Sommer found one of those horses.
His wife, Dr. Gayle Sommer, broodmare veterinarian and director at the Quarter Racing Owners of Ontario Inc. remembers that sale and the circumstances that led to the impeccable racehorse and stallion Down Home Dash entering their life.
“I was more interested in some fillies, including one from the first crop of Victory Dash,” said Sommer, a keen student of pedigrees. “Hermann fell in love with a couple of stud colts, also by Victory Dash. I wasn’t really interested in getting colts but I decided to go back and look at them.”
One of the colts, a chocolate brown fellow with almost no white hairs, had rich breeding as a grandson of the influential stallion Pass’em Up, a Thoroughbred, and great grandson of the remarkable Easy Jet, a favourite stud of Gayle’s.
“This colt was so stout, so correct, you couldn’t take your eyes off him. We bought him and I think we paid $7,500:
Down Home Dash was a natural, winning six of 12 starts as a 2-year-old including the Grade 3 Miller Lite Futurity at Mt. Pleasant Meadows in Michigan, an $85,000 stake and the richest in the State. He earned over $48,000 in that first season of racing, a hefty sum for the Sommers and Gayle was eager to pass along his bloodlines.
The Sommers bred four of their mares to Down Home Dash in the spring of his 3-year-old season and then watched him return to the races and win five more events. In 1992, when his first foals hit the ground, Down Home Dash won seven straight races and was named Horse of the Year before he was retired from racing for good.
Every one of those foals from that first crop would go on to qualify for a futurity at Picov Downs in 1994..
Sadly, Hermann did not get a chance to see the wonderful offspring of his special horse; he died suddenly of a heart attack late in 1991.
"I remember that morning," said Gayle. "We had an extra long time at breakfast talking about the horses. That is when he told me he just wanted to have the best horses and that he thought he did. That was 25 years ago. I carry that with me."
Gayle, a longtime breeder of hunters and jumpers, juggled her husband’s business, her own vet work and some 20 horses on the farm before scaling down. Down Home Dash powered on through his career; a brief stint as a barrel racer was successful and he stood at stud in the US before returning to stand at Carol Lampron’s Maple Lane Farm near Ottawa.
There have been dozens of top runners bred by Hermann and Gayle, who raced under the Pipe Dream Stable name when they embarked on their operation in 1979. There have been many favourites but none as significant and special as Down Home Dash.
“He was a massive horse, built like a tank,” said Gayle. “He was a tough horse too, though. If you wanted to pick a fight with him, you better have the rest of the day free.”
Down Home Dash, who “never had a pimple on him” throughout his various careers, was put down at the age of 26 in March, 2014 after suffering a broken foot in a paddock accident at Maplehaven.
“He really was a very important horse for Hermann and myself,” said Gayle. “He excelled at everything he did. There was nothing you would have changed about him.”
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