Gary, pictured, and Susan Mangus retired from the Quarter Horse world and have begun to slowly cross-breed OTTBs. He is pictured with Zip of Fools, left, and Rosehanna.
In 2010, Susan and Gary Mangus wound down their lifelong show and breeding business in the Quarter Horse world, and soon decided to purchase OTTB mares Rosehanna, followed shortly by Zip of Fools.
The pair, pictured with Gary, boasted impressive track records and bloodlines, and so the husband/wife team decided to make them mothers.
“I know there are people out there who will criticize us for breeding these mares, but they are both good enough to have their genetics continued. The mares have forever homes with us, neither will be sold,” Susan Magnus says. “And so they live like pampered queens – top care with vet and farrier, all the feed they want (you can see in the pictures how chubby they are – our vet says they are the fattest TBs he has ever seen). In the summer daytime they stay in stalls with cool water, feed / hay, and fans blowing on them— it’s quite the life.”
Rosehanna was purchased first, in July 2010, from a trainer at the Finger Lakes Racetrack, after she concluded her race career with total earnings of $114,948. Always well cared for, the mare was loaded onto a trailer and shipped to the Magnus family in excellent condition. “He had wrapped her legs and put fleece on her halter so it wouldn’t rub her face,” she notes.
A year later, the same trainer helped them identify Zip of Fools, who had lifetime earnings of $228,040, as their next broodmare prospect.
Today, both mares have made excellent broodmares, Susan says, noting that Rosehanna’s first baby is in training with them, and her subsequent two foals sold for top dollar. Zip of Fools has also had a foal, who resides with them and are in race training. “We thought if we raced the first babies ourselves then the other foals would command a higher sale price,” she says, noting, however, that others must have spotted the good bloodlines and potential in Rosehanna’s second and third foals, who both sold for top dollar as weanlings.
