The American Saddlebred: 2/15/15 The strange tale of Miss Frisco Gaines

Miss Frisco Gaines was a Saddlebred mare born sometime in the late 1920's. I came across her a few months ago and noticed the problems she had, but didn't really think much about it. Last week, when posting about the saddlebred stallion San Juan, I came across her again and gave it a little more consideration. So what's her problem? This poor girl has five different registration numbers with ASHA. While looking at San Juan's breeding information on ASHA, I noticed that he had been bred to a mare named Miss Frisco Gaines a number of times. I knew she had four colts by San Juan, but when I brought her up from San Juan's page, it only listed a colt or two. Click on a different link, get different results. Hmmmmm.

So I entered the name Miss Frisco Gaines into the search field on ASHA, and this is what I got. When you click on each one, there is different information, but it's definitely the same mare.

913522	MISS FRISCO GAINES	M	N/A	-
987125	MISS FRISCO GAINES	M	N/A	-
987126	MISS FRISCO GAINES BY A PEAVNE 4092	M	N/A	-
987127	MISS FRISCO GAINES BY AL PVNE 4092	M	N/A	-
987128	MISS FRISCO GAINES	M	N/A

Under the first entry, registration # 913522, her pedigree shows she is sired by All Peavine out of a daughter of San Francisco, with no further info about San Francisco. She was the dam of two mares, San Serene foaled in 1938 and San Angela foaled in 1939, both by San Juan.

San Angela
f. 1939 sired by San Juan out of Miss Frisco Gaines

Registration # 987125 lists absolutely no pedigree for her at all, but she is the dam of three geldings. Lee's Last, foaled in 1934 by Lee Rose McDonald, Grey Beau, foaled in 1943 and sired by Grey Mac and finally Ottawa's Highwayman foaled in 1944 and also by Grey Mac.

Registration #987126 lists her as "Miss Frisco Gaines by A Peavne 4092", but no info on her pedigree. That incarnation is the dam of Royal San by San Juan, foaled in 1936.

Royal San
f. 1936 sired by San Juan out of Miss Frisco Gaines

Registration #987127 lists her as "Miss Frisco Gaines by Al Pvne 4092", but again no info on her pedigree. This time, she is the dam of Frisco Girl by Grey Eagle that foaled in 1937.

Registration #987128 (interesting how these last four are in consecutive order) lists her sire as All Peavine and her dam as a daughter of San Francisco, but this time San Francisco also has his pedigree listed. This registration number actually has her most complete and correct pedigree. Her foal listed under this identity is San Frisco, foaled 1935 and once again by San Juan.

San Frisco
f. 1935 sired by San Juan out of Miss Frisco Gaines

None of the entries listed a birthdate for Miss Frisco Gaines. Sometimes it listed a partial pedigree, sometimes nothing at all. Under each different registration number, she produced at least one colt. Piecing it all together, this much is certain. She was sired by All Peavine, a stallion foaled in 1906 whose last registered colt was born in 1929. Her dam's sire, San Francisco, was foaled in 1921, so she would probably have been born sometime between 1927 and 1929.

Miss Frisco Gaines M	All Peavine 1906	Rex Peavine 5/3/1899	Rex McDonald	Rex Denmark
				Lucy Mack (BHF)
			Daisy 2D	Peavine 85
				Mollie 2D
		Lucy Wells 1883	Peavine 85	Rattler (501)
				Pekina (TH) (BHF)
			Daughter of Denmark (Warren Harris')	Denmark (Warren Harris')
				Daughter of John Nosley
	Daughter of San Francisco M	San Francisco 5/1921	San Vicente	Rex Peavine
				Undine
			Black Belle	Rex McDonald
				Belle Of Pike
		0000000	-	-
				-
			-	-
				-

She is a decidedly Denmark bred mare.

Now it gets even more interesting. Four of her colts were by San Juan who was sired by San Vicente and out of Black Belle. So that makes him a full brother to San Francisco, right? Wrong. Both were foaled in May of 1921, so San Francisco was the original name of San Juan. His name was changed in 1924. San Francisco is only listed as siring one colt, the dam of Miss Frisco Gaines. So Miss Frisco Gaines was bred to her grandsire on four occasions. The other four times she was bred to Lee Rose McDonald or two of his sons. She always produced Denmark bred colts as well.

So why care if her record gets corrected? This mare has current descendants. Lots of them. And good ones, too. Sometimes the ASHA records from that period are a little murky, but Miss Frisco Gaines deserves better. She deserves to have her record corrected.

While I have no picture of Miss Frisco Gaines, I do have pictures of three of her colts by San Juan. Of the eight foals she produced, four were geldings and four were fillies. Of the fillies, two reproduced in a big fashion. San Angela had ten colts and San Serene had thirteen. San Angela has descendants born as recently as 2003, however, Miss Frisco Gaines' most prolific line come through San Serene whose daughter Blessed Damozel was the dam of CH Ronald Reagan. He in turn sired breeding stallions Rocky Reagan and Whyworry Reagan. One of Ronald Reagan's daughters was the Hall of Fame Broodmare, Denmark's Radiant Society. She has produced eighteen foals including Champions Be Happy, Rejoice, the Great Gaspar, Simbara's Audacity, The Radiant Prince, Simbara's Samba Jamba, and WGC A Sweet Treat. I guess that makes Miss Frisco Gaines a pretty important mare.