First order of business, our intrepid orange hero has gotten a barn name – Argo. We’ll talk about how I arrived at that here in a minute. First, we gotta start at the beginning. I gave y’all a very short TLDR one-paragraph version of Argo’s life story in his intro post the other day, but like… I’m a wordy bitch, and he has a cool story, so buckle up.

Argo was bred in California by Ray McCanna, who also owned his mother, Devilinabaydress. Ray actually just died a few weeks ago, unfortunately, and that was who owned him through last year. Ray’s brother, Tim, was also Argo’s trainer up until last summer. I looked for Tim on social media but couldn’t find him so (being a creeper researcher) I decided to try looking for a phone number next. Initial searches gave me a contact pretty quickly, but it was a landline. After considerably more digging, a Washington State racing directory pdf from a few years ago had a different number listed, and that one was a cell. Bingo.

I sent a text, hoping it was a good number, and about 10mins later my phone rang – it was Tim! He was a super nice guy and said he was really happy to hear that Shadrack had landed in a good home. Tim said he’d been a great horse for his family and everyone had loved him, he was sweet and easy, a great mover with a big gallop, “a great loper for the guys in the morning”, he always tried hard, and was very sound.

Tim also told me the origin story of the name Shadrack. A good friend of Ray’s was a WW2 veteran and worked for the CIA during that time. Tim didn’t remember the man’s full name, only that his first name was Guy, but his code name in the CIA was Shadrack. Ironically, Guy just died about a month ago at the age of 99, two days after Ray.

I tried Guy as a barn name for him but it just didn’t fit, so instead I fell down a major CIA-themed rabbit hole. After combing through a bunch of documents on the CIA website, I finally hit on a list of the most well-known CIA missions, and Argo was one of them. The original Argo was from Greek Mythology, it was a ship built by the gods. That name definitely clicked with him, and I like the meaning behind it, so there we go! Still gets a bit of a nod to the source of his registered name via the CIA connection.

Ray also owned Argo’s dam, Devilinabaydress, during her racing career. He bought her as a yearling for a measly 6k… not bad for a Tiznow filly, but she wasn’t a good racehorse. Argo also has a full sister, although she wasn’t much of a runner either. His dam produced one other really good racehorse besides him, a mare named Hal’s Buddy that raced a whopping 78 times before she retired at the age of 9. Tim said she’s now a broodmare in Northern California.

Last summer Argo was claimed for a 40k tag in a race at Del Mar by George Sharp, who is the man that I bought him from. While racing for George, Argo finished 3rd in a Stakes race and second in an allowance. His final race was a 50k claimer in July, where unfortunately he bled a bit and finished last. Since then he just hasn’t been running quite the same, and after his last work on October 9th, they felt that the only options were to either retire him or drop him down to cheaper claimers. I appreciate that the owner didn’t want to do go with the latter. Although I haven’t spoken to him myself (the sale was handled by the trainer’s wife) yet, I was told that George is excited to potentially have one of his racehorses at RRP next year!

Overall Argo ran 32 times in a 5 year period and earned over 200k. He raced on all surfaces – dirt, turf, and synthetic – and in four different states: California, Oklahoma, Texas, and Kentucky. He accrued 6 wins, 7 seconds, and 1 third, meaning he hit the board in almost half of his starts. His racing style was very much that of a closer… he was usually one of the last horses going into the first turn, and then made a big rally through the final turn. I’ve watched almost all of his races by now, he has some serious speed when he turns on the afterburners.

What’s been really cool about reaching out to these people and hearing his story is that you can really tell this horse was cared for and loved and appreciated. That’s always really nice to see. He tried hard for his people and he lasted a long time, which I think says good things about both him and them. Plus I know so much of his history now. Tim said next time he was at his brother’s house he would find some old pictures and stuff for me.

Shadrack’s mare family is 1-n, which sporthorse-wise has been pretty successful… it’s the same mare family as 5* event horses Liberty and Glory, Bogue Sound, and Superstition. For racehorses, 1-n is home to Genuine Risk, Smoke Glacken, Forty Niner, Americain, and Alphabet Soup.. His direct mare line (going back 5 generations) has produced a 3* horse and a 1.35m jumper.

I also reached out to the farm that stands his sire, Gig Harbor. Apparently he’s quite studdish, and the vast majority of his colts end up gelded (which apparently “solves the problem”). Gig Harbor definitely has not been a super popular sire and doesn’t have a ton of offspring, so I haven’t come across any others yet. But considering his stud fee was $2k the year Argo was created, you gotta admit he gave them a pretty good return on investment.

To me Argo has a very “old school” type of TB look to him, he’s the type of TB I remember from when I was a kid in the 80’s and 90’s. The only line breeding in the first 6 generations of his pedigree is two occurrences of Relaunch and two occurrences of Lyphard. He’s 16.3 and of medium build – not heavy, not light – with longer proportions and an ever so slightly convex face profile.

I might be biased, but I think he’s a pretty cool horse! Very grateful to his connections for trusting me with him as he enters his next career.