The Girls

           Since becoming involved in owning Quarter Horses eight years ago, Sue Hukari has figured out a formula to buying bargain yearlings and turning them into successful racehorses.

            As part of The Girls partnership, she purchased Old Habits, only the second horse in history to complete the All American Derby and Los Alamitos Derby double, for less than $20,000.  Well I Never, a winner of seven of 19 starts and a third-place finisher in last year's PCQHRA Breeders' Derby, was bought for less than $10,000.  And Devons Signature, third in last year's All American Futurity at Ruidoso Downs, cost less than $50,000.

            "We weren't trying to pay a fortune," Hukari said.  "We were trying to find a sleeper.  I think we did."

            Hukari is part of a unique racing partnership, The Girls, that is composed of a group of female owners around the country.

            "We have a lot of fun," she said.  "I haven't added it up, but we've probably had 50 different people owning horses with us.  One time we had a man in one of our [partnerships], and that horse couldn't win anything.  It wasn't his fault, but we were superstitious."

            The Girls' white opaque silks featuring red lips have been worn by Old Habits, Well I Never and Devons Signature, and Hukari said that former champion 3-year-old Old Habits is the best horse she has raced.

            "No if's, and's or but's about it," she said.

            Hukari grew up in Rolling Hills in Palos Verdes Peninsula, and her family bred horses that raced at Los Alamitos Race Course forty years ago.

"We had five acres there, and my mother had a pretty good knack for the horses and bought a young mare," she said.  "It was Little Mickey Finn."

Little Mickey Finn would go on to foal a horse named April Finn, who once beat seven-time stakes winner Vandys Flash.

Hukari, who now lives in Bonsall in north San Diego County, was then out of horse racing until she started owning horses eight years ago.

"When Vessels had their first sale, I went down there and started looking at horses," she said.  "My kids were already grown up.  I had done 4-H work as a livestock judge.  So I tried to see if I could apply what I learned there to looking at yearlings."

The 4-H program shows and judges livestock, and from that Hukari said she learned about studying what qualities to look for in racehorses.

The first horse she purchased was MS Dash Fascination, who went on to be the dam of 2004 Los Alamitos Winter Championship winner Buccaneer Beach.

"It's fun," said Hukari, who continues to breed and buy yearlings.  "I just like the horses, and I like trying to figure out what breeding would work."