Racing Career
In his five-year racing career, Go Man Go competed in 47 races. He appeared to take naturally to racing; during his training he ran off with his rider—his eventual jockey Robert Strauss—before he was supposed to run. As Strauss said, "When we were breaking him, he ran off with me before we ever wanted him to run. I mean, just flat ran off with me." Robert's brother Eldridge, who was the trainer, once worked the colt minus half a shoe and Go Man Go still managed a time of 18.9 seconds for a 350-yard (320 m) distance.
In the moments before his very first race began, Go Man Go flipped over in the starting gate, unseated his rider, crashed through the front, and ran around the whole track. He finally allowed himself to be caught and reloaded into the starting gate and went on to win that race. He won his next five races with a total lead of nine horse-lengths. He faced Vandy's Flash, himself a World Champion Quarter Racing Horse, twelve times. Their last meeting, on September 6, 1959 at Ruidoso Downs, was also Go Man Go's final race, and was the only one of their races won by Vandy's Flash.
Go Man Go won 27 times, placed second 9 times and was third 3 times. Because he placed so regularly, by the end of his racing career tracks had difficulty filling races if other racing stables knew he was entered. His race earnings were $86,151 (approximately $712,900 as of 2013) with 88 AQHA racing points, which earned him a Superior Race Horse award as well as a Race Register of Merit from the AQHA. The best speed rating, or racing grade, he achieved was AAAT, the highest grade awarded at the time. Go Man Go was named World Champion Quarter Running Horse for three years running, from 1955 to 1957. He was the first two-year-old to win the title. He was a multiple stakes winner, and his wins included the Pacific Coast Quarter Racing Association Futurity, LA Autumn Championship, and the Clabbertown G Stakes, which he won three times in a row. At his retirement, he held the world records at 440 yards (400 m) and 350 yards (320 m), as well as age and sex records at 400 yards (370 m). Go Man Go is still the only stallion who has been World Champion Quarter Running Horse three times, and, along with the mare Woven Web (TB), is one of only two horses to be three-time winners of the award.
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