Kid Meyers and the AQHA Supreme Champion Title

Kid Meyers and the AQHA Supreme Champion Title

The orphaned foal became the first AQHA Supreme Champion, the most prestigious title a horse can earn and a tribute to American Quarter Horse versatility.

In an old black and white photo, a saddled stallion turns his face toward the camera.

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"Journal, The American Quarter Horse Journal" logo

Compiled from The American Quarter Horse Journal and They Rode Good Horses
 

Oklahoma Highway Commissioner A.B. Green had never been very interested in horse shows.

But when Miss Meyers died in March 1963, she left behind a month-old colt who would become Green’s first show horse.

Miss Meyers was the 1953 world champion Quarter Running Horse, part of Green’s stable of horses. He was a hardcore racing fan who had owned or leased top runners like Go Man Go and his sire, Top Deck (TB); Double Bid; and Barbara L.

Kid Meyers, the orphaned colt of Miss Meyers, never tasted mare’s milk after his mother’s death.

“I’ll never forget my mother mixing up PET milk and Karo syrup in a pan with a few other ingredients,” said Bruce Green, A.B. and Kathalyn Green’s son. “He started drinking out of the pan right away.

Kathalyn and Bruce, then 17, babysat the foal in their Oklahoma backyard for the next six months, taking him pans of milk, brushing him and playing with him. He loved running along the fenceline with the dogs or playing with a feed sack. He was treated – and responded – like one of the family pets.

“His intelligence, even in the early weeks of his life, amazed me,” Kathalyn said in a 1967 interview.

In the fall, he was returned to the ranch and the company of other horses. His pedigree – he was by Three Bars (TB) and his dam was by Leo and out of an Oklahoma Star mare – guaranteed he’d be prepped for racing.

In March 1965, Kid Meyers broke his maiden on his first out, taking a trial race at Val Verde Downs in Del Rio, Texas, by a length. Moving from track to track with trainer Roderick D. Kaufman during the next 15 months, he pulled out six wins from 23 starts. During the campaign, he earned six AAA speed index ratings at two distances (350 and 400 yards), picking them up at four different tracks. He was sent home from the track in June 1966 with total earnings of $10,655.


Miss Meyers passed her speed to her orphaned son, Kid
Meyers. PHOTO: Journal file photo

 

In 1966, AQHA came up with a new award, the Supreme Champion title, that would recognize horses that performed on the racetrack and in the show ring. To earn the title, AAA racehorses had to earn 40 points in halter and performance classes at five or more shows under five or more different judges. At least 15 of the points had to be in halter, and the horse had to earn at least two grand champion titles. At least 20 points had to be earned in show classes, and at least eight points had to be earned in a cow class.

The title was meant to be proof that the Quarter Horse was the breed that could do it all.

A.B. Green wanted to be the first to win the award, and he called on Jerry Wells to assess Kid Meyers as a halter prospect. Within a month of leaving the track, Kid Meyers was named the grand champion stallion at a show in Denton, Texas.

The stallion’s intelligence that Kathalyn had noted when he was a baby kept him engaged as he earned his western pleasure points within six months of leaving the track.

With his halter and western pleasure points in hand, Kid Meyers started learning to be a tie-down rope horse. At age 4, he was competing against veteran, seasoned horses, but he performed like an old veteran himself. His title was completed August 20, 1967.

For earning the title – the first Supreme Champion in AQHA history – A.B. Green gave Jerry Wells a chocolate brown Buick Riviera with white leather interior. Kid Meyers got a pan of PET milk with Karo syrup.


Breeder A.B. Green was determined to win the first
AQHA Supreme Champion title with Kid Meyers. 
(Journal file photo)

Kid Meyers sired 104 registered foals and died of colic in June 1970. In 1971, his sorrel son Mr Kid Charge won the Rainbow Futurity and the All American Futurity. Kid Meyers sired the earners of $380,377 on the track, as well as the earners of 158 halter points and 719.5 performance points.

His dam, Miss Meyers, was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 2009. Her sire, Leo, was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1989. Kid Meyers' sire, Three Bars (TB), was also inducted in 1989. Breeder A.B. Green was inducted posthumously in 2014.

Only 52 Supreme Champions


The 1961 stallion Fairbars was the closest
to catching Kid Meyers to become the first
AQHA Supreme Champion. He instead
became the second. PHOTO: Journal file photo

Kid Meyers’ closest competition in the race to become the first AQHA Supreme Champion was Fairbars, a 1961 chestnut stallion also by Three Bars (TB) and also out of a Leo mare, the 1949 sorrel mare Lady Fairfax.

Fairbars completed his Supreme Champion title in February 1968.

From there, the floodgates opened.

Five more horses earned the title in 1968, three claimed it in 1970 and eight completed the rigorous work in 1971. In 1972, six horses became Supreme Champions, with another six following in 1973.

The rush to the Supreme Champion title slowed in 1974, with just one horse, Jet Threat, earning the award. In 1976, three horses completed the requirements, with four in 1977, two in 1978 and four in 1979.

After that, horse owners seemed to lose interest in the title. It wasn’t until 1995 that the 45th Supreme Champion title was awarded. As of March 2020, only 52 horses in AQHA history, including the most recent, BRTSendingMyRegards, have earned the honor.

But the title is still out there – waiting for the next great horse to claim it.

AQHA Open Supreme Champions

1. Kid Meyers
2. Fairbars
3. Bar Money
4. Jetaway Reed
5. Miss Roy Deck
6. Cat's Cue Bar
7. Enhanced
8. Mach I
9. Milk River
10. Goodbye Sam
11. Desto Bar
12. Astro Deck
13. Leo Maudie
14. Diamond Dividend
15. My Stormy Boy
16. Lightning Rey
17. Diamond Duro
18. Back Stretch
19. Magnolia Pay
20. Hank Will
21. Deck Jack
22. Destiny Jagetta
23. Sugar Sabre
24. Linda Scotland
25. Goldseeker Bars
26. Joe Fax
27. Beatle Win
28. Fire Rocket
29. Sugar Rocket
30. Goldie Bars
31. Jet Threat
32. Bar H Raider
33. Little Town
34. Coldstream Guard
35. Wonder Seeker
36. Savannah Tiger
37. Th' Demon'
38. Sailor's Night
39. Coffee Bar King
40. Western Otoe
41. War Machine
42. Sir Savannah
43. He Rocket
44. Goldseeker Bud
45. Gotum Gone
46. Lucks Easyfanta Boy
47. Mr Joe Im Kool
48. Cartel Caliente
49. Fly The Red Eye
50. Gotta Good Habit
51. Ima Regal Choice
52. BRTSendingMyRegards