How good was Skipper W?
Good enough that sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, great-grandsons, great-granddaughters, great-great-great-whatevers right down to today, nearly half a century after the stallion’s death, are proudly proclaimed “Skipper W-breds” by their admirers.
A 1945 sorrel stallion by Nick Shoemaker out of Hired Girl by Cowboy, Skipper W was bred and owned throughout his life by H.J. “Hank” Wiescamp.
Skipper W grew into a well-proportioned stallion standing about 15 hands and weighing 1,300 pounds, with speed and athleticism that he still passes on.
“Usually a stud becomes better known as a sire of sires or a sire of broodmares,” said Hank, who entered the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 1994. “Skipper W turned out to be a sire of both. Skipper W flat out-produced himself. I don’t know any other way to put it. When I bred him to a mare, he consistently sired a foal who was better than both he and the mare.”
Skipper W was shown only three times – as a 4-year-old at the National Western Stock Show in Denver, the Colorado State Fair at Pueblo and the New Mexico State Fair at Albuquerque – and was grand champion at each. Retired undefeated, he still went to occasional ropings but never competed seriously.
Skipper W sired 132 foals that were registered with AQHA, an untold number of other horses in other registries and quite a few with no papers at all. Of those in the AQHA Stud Book, 73 were performers, including 58 that earned 1,392 halter points, 27 with 586.5 performance points, and 13 that became AQHA Champions. The stallion also sired three race winners.
Skipper W never stood to outside mares and died of a heart attack at age 18 in 1963. Hank kept back seven of his sons and 57 daughters for breeding.
Skipper W was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 2011.
Biography updated as of March 2011.