Lightning Bar - Breeding Career

Breeding Career

The first year Lightning Bar stood as a breeding stallion his stud fee, the amount charged to breed a mare to him, was $250 (approximately $2,200 as of 2013) but only nine mares were bred to him. The next year, he bred 11 mares, but in 1956, he bred 102 mares at $500 (approximately $4,300 as of 2013) each. One of Pollard's attempts to advertise his stallion involved letting one of his ranch hands take the horse to a local jackpot roping. Pollard assumed that the hand would just ride Lightning Bar around and show him off, but he later discovered that more was involved. Pollard said later that "I should have been suspicious when he (the ranch hand) returned with Lightning Bar that afternoon, with a sheepish grin on his face. I asked him how the horse was received and he said 'The stud did good and I won the jackpot!' After congratulating him, I asked which rope horse he had used. He replied, 'The stud.' "

Pollard said of Lightning Bar that "I always had to be careful about the kind of latch I used on a gate with that horse. He could figure them out faster than I could. He would open a gate, and go for a stroll." Lightning Bar sired 148 foals in his eight breeding seasons, and 118 of those foals went on to either race or show careers. Of his foals, 108 started races, and 77 won, earning a total of $476,949. The most successful of his foals, Lightning Belle, earned $60,134 (approximately $456,000 as of 2013).

Five of Lightning Bar's foals earned AQHA Championships: Cactus Comet, Crash Bang, Lightning Rey, Pana Bar and Relampago Bar; Lightning Rey earned a Supreme Championship. In addition, Lightning Bar's offspring earned $1,163.32 in National Cutting Horse Association sanctioned cattle cutting competitions, and four earned a Superior Halter Horse title from the AQHA.