Sure Czech was a son of the highly influential stallion, Be Sure Now. He won just one race against Quarter Horse company in Arizona before he retired to stud in Washington. Although he sired a relatively small number of foals, Sure Czech still made an impact on the barrel racing industry. At least two of his great-grandget won rounds at the National Finals Rodeo.
Sure Czech was foaled on May 1st, 1960. He was bred by Franklin B. Cox in Chandler, Arizona. His sire, Be Sure Now, was by Triple Crown winner War Admiral. Be Sure Now won ten races and placed in five black-type stakes. He sired Thoroughbred stakes winners Mystic Eye, Zip Now, Now Dear and Now Now. Be Sure Now also sired 36 AQHA registered foals. Sure Now was his highest-earning Quarter Horse racehorse. Sure Now famously outran Go Man Go in the 1955 Ruidoso Futurity. Cute Trick, a full-sister to Sure Now, was named the 1956 AQHA Racing Champion Two-Year-Old Filly after her wins in the Debut Stakes, Phoenix Quarter Horse Futurity and PCQHRA Futurity. Other Quarter Horse stakes winners by Be Sure Now included Segura Miguel, Easter Bee and Sure Girl.
Thoroughbred sons of Be Sure Now, most notably Father John, Past Due and Wandering Boy, sired nearly 800 AQHA recognized foals. Real Gone, Real Sure and That’s For Sure, his most successful Quarter Horse sons, sired roughly 300 AQHA registered foals. Notably, That’s For Sure was the damsire of AQHA Racing World Champion Truckle Feature. Daughters of Be Sure Now were also excellent producers. Steamed Up, a Thoroughbred mare by Be Sure Now, was honored as an AQHA Dam of Distinction after she produced Steam To Go, the 1964 AQHA Racing Champion Two-Year-Old Filly, Whataway To Go, the 1969 AQHA Racing Champion Two-Year-Old Filly, and stakes winners Music Note and Off Limits. Other Quarter Horse stakes winners out of Be Sure Now mares included Junior’s Doll, Suki Tadre, Sure ‘N Begorra, Rue Free, Be Sure Ole Lady, The Moonshiner and Johnnie Reb.
Say Czech, the dam of Sure Czech, was an unraced daughter of They Say, winner of the 1945 Juvenile Stakes. They Say sired 34 AQHA recognized foals, including Supreme Champion My Stormy Boy. Say Czech produced five Thoroughbred foals in Arizona, including race winners Czech Mott and Czech Fixin. She also produced two Quarter Horses in the Cox breeding program – Say Cas and Say Yen. Say Czech later sold to the Keith-Bell Ranch in California where she produced Quarter Horse race winners Say There, Kaweah Topless, Hadda Be You and Czech a Quin. Sure Czech was her most successful son at stud.
Sure Czech made just eight official starts. On March 30th, 1963, he won an Allowance race against Quarter Horse company at Rillito in Tucson, Arizona. That was his only recorded win. He earned just $430 on the track.
Sure Czech stood at the Morley Quarter Horse Ranch in Yakima, Washington. Their motto was “we like speed in our cow horses… and ‘cow’ in our speed horses!” Sure Czech fit their program well. He stood alongside AQHA Champion Backstretch, as well as Mister Terrific, Alation, Leo Tolo and Lee’s Music. His first foal crop, which arrived in 1966, included Quarter Horse stakes winners Sure Hug and Tight Squeeze. Sure Hug won the 1968 Yakima Meadows Futurity and the 1969 Northern QHRA Derby. Tight Squeeze won the Endurance Handicap at Los Alamitos in 1970 and 1971. He won fifteen races and earned $44,702. Tight Squeeze was especially impressive because he was Sure Czech’s chief earner on the racetrack and one of his highest point earners in the arena. He earned a Performance Register of Merit in the Open Division.
A Morley homebred named Sassy Czech was Sure Czech’s second-highest earner on the track. Sassy Czech was out of a race-winning daughter of Pelican Gill. She won eighteen races, including the 1974 Sportswriters Handicap, 1976 Northwest Endurance Stakes and 1978 Mayors Cup Handicap. Sassy Czech went on to produce race winners Mr Sassy Devil, Plans Czech Mate, Sassy Charger Bar and Easy Czech Too. Notably, Sassy Czech produced Czech That Jet, the dam of Danyelle Campbell’s great barrel horse Howlinathemoon. Danyelle must have had a real affinity for the Sure Czech bloodline. A few years after she went to the National Finals Rodeo for the first time on Howlinathemoon, she placed at the nation’s richest futurities with Dat Czech, a bay gelding whose second dam, Susie Czech, was by Sure Czech.
Other notable horses by Sure Czech included Two Fo Go, a brown filly out of a daughter of Diamond 2 Bar. She set a new track record at Emmett for 330 yards in 17.050 seconds. Two Fo Go went on to produce Tru Fortune, winner of the 1981 Copper Penny Futurity. Czech On, a bay mare by Sure Czech and out of Kaweah Pelon, by My Texas Dandy, earned a Performance ROM. Czech On later produced Halter point earners Misty Reflection and Impressive Czech. Dial Czech, a bay gelding by Sure Czech and out of a daughter of Johnny Dial, won 21 races before he began his show career and earned a Performance ROM.
Dinner Czech, a dun mare by Sure Czech and out of Monte’s Bird, by Gold Mount, was the matriarch of another great family of barrel horses. After Dinner Czech earned a Performance ROM, she produced Dinner Flight, winner of the 1979 Gem County Futurity and 1980 Billy Rydalch Derby. Dinner Flight was owned by Lee and Annie Woods. He stood in Grangeville, Idaho where he sired 276 AQHA registered foals, most of which were barrel and rope horses. His best performers were Sheza Smooth Flight, a National Finals Rodeo go-round winner, and professional rodeo money earners Irish Wind Flight, Dinner Bid and Watch Flit Flight.
Altogether, Sure Czech sired 137 Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse foals in 21 foal crops. They included 48 race winners, 33 ROM earners, twelve stakes finalists, three stakes winners and two Superior Race Award earners. His offspring earned $319,297 on the track and 125.5 points in the arena. Shooting Czech was his only son to sire any AQHA registered foals. War Czech, an Paint stallion by Sure Czech, sired a handful of APHA registered foals. Daughters of Sure Czech produced 166 Quarter Horse foals that earned $167,809 on the track and just 19.5 points in the arena. Sir Wise Bug, the highest earning starter out of a Sure Czech mare, won four stakes races.
Sure Czech’s last Quarter Horse foal, Hip Czech, was foaled in 1985 when he would have been 25 years old. He died under the ownership of A. B. Dunn in Fort Worth, Texas. He still has descendants competing in barrel racing today!
Sources: Equineline, Equibase, American Quarter Horse Association, The Quarter Horse Journal, All Breed Database
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