Second-Career Star: Cacharpas

By Andrea Caudill

We all know that Strawfly Special is a world champion sire – that’s why he was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame. Progeny names such as world champion Tailor Fit come immediately to mind. But Strawfly Special is also the sire of top performance horses Open Supreme Champion Gotta Good Habit (one of only 52 horses to ever win the title) and another second-career racehorse, world champion Cacharpas, who at 15 years of age won a gold trophy at the 2019 Adequan® Select World Championship Show in jumping. 

Bred, raised and owned by Geronimo and Jackie Ramirez’s Dos Arcos Del Cielo Racing LLC of Tucson, Arizona, Cacharpas is the product of teamwork – Gabriel races them, and if they are ready for a second career, Jackie retrains them for other events. 

The now-16-year-old brown stallion is out of Hall of Fame stallion First Down Dash’s daughter Eloquent Dash, making him a half-brother to A Dasha Red (by Red (TB), $151,512).

Cacharpas began his racing career in 2006 at Los Alamitos, right in the middle of one of the toughest groups of freshmen in recent memory. He loaded up in the gate against classmates FDD Dynasty, a champion, millionaire and sire, and Grade 1 winner Trisk before a minor injury sidelined him. He never returned to his full race potential after that. However, in his home state, he went on to break his maiden and eventually retire with seven starts and earnings of $3,745. 

“We breed our own, and if they don’t want to run, then I train them to be show horses,” Jackie says. “Whatever horse doesn’t want to run, we turn them into a show horse.”

While Jackie is a jumper, if the horse shows promise in a different specialty, she finds them the perfect home, whether that be for barrel racing, dressage or whatever else they seem to excel in. 

“They’re all very different personalities, and they all need to be ridden, treated and trained to their needs,” she says. 

Cacharpas enjoys jumping, and successfully competed for years with Jackie in United States Equestrian Federation competition in the modified junior/amateur jumpers, going over jumps that vary between approximately 3.5 to 4 feet. 

However, he had an injury to a muscle in his hindquarters that put him on the bench for six years. While he was rehabilitated and ridden for exercise, he wasn’t shown competitively like he had been before.

“It took a long time for him to get sound again, and I really thought he’d never jump again,” Jackie remembers. “The only reason I did is because I ‘fired’ one of my other horses because he was being a knucklehead before the winter circuit. I looked at Cacharpas and said, ‘All right, you wanna come out and play?’”

She eased him back into competition, and also tried AQHA competition with him for the first time by showing at the 2019 Arizona Sun Country Circuit in nearby Scottsdale. The horse came back with a bang – earning a circuit champion award. 

They then headed to Fort Worth, Texas, for the 2019 Adequan® Select World Championship Show, a long 15-hour one-way drive, but the results were worth it. The duo overcame the heat and exhaustion and ticking a pole that stayed up in the finals to come home with a gold globe.

“It was so awesome,” Jackie says. “He deserves it. He’s such a hard worker, he puts his little working cap on and gets the job done. He’s really quite agreeable and forgiving, obviously. But it was awesome.”

The pair’s plans are up in the air for 2020, but Cacharpas will likely continue enjoying his job at a comfortable level, either in the show jumping ring or as a three-day eventer. And Jackie will still be enjoying her second-career racehorses. 

“The racing Quarter Horses can do anything you want them or need them to do, whatever your chosen discipline may be,” she says. “They are such natural athletes that can excel in show jumping, cross country, dressage and barrel racing, but are also perfect if you want a horse for pleasure and trail riding. There’s really no need to go out and get another horse if you have a good brain in an athletic racing Quarter Horse. I love, love, love these racing Quarter Horses.”

Second Career Stars is an ongoing series on retired racing American Quarter Horses in new careers. If you know of a horse that should be featured, write to acaudill@aqha.org. AQHA News and information is a service of the American Quarter Horse Association. For more news and information, follow @AQHA Racing on Twitter, "like" Q-Racing on Facebook, and visit www.aqha.com/racing.