The foundation for Pacific Bailey began in 1946 when Guy Ray Rutland purchased a good-looking palomino yearling stud
colt, a son of Hank H and out of an own daughter of Old Joe Bailey named Beauty Bailey. Guy Ray named the well-muscled
colt Gold King Bailey. He would later stand Grand Champion at Halter at both the Denver National Western Stock Show and
the Fort Worth Fat Stock Show in the same year, a feat that has never been repeated. He was also considered to be one of
the fastest match racehorses in the country. Guy Ray raced him successfully for 4 years before Gold King Bailey ruptured a
hind leg muscle leaving the gates. An explosive start was, and still is, a trademark of the Bailey bloodlines. Nothing could beat
him away from there. Eventually standing at stud at Rutland’s ranch, Gold King Bailey was bred to Bud Warren’s great
daughter of Leo, South Pacific, who was a full sister to Rosa Leo and Croton Oil, in 1957. The resulting foal was named Gold
Pacific.

After a successful racing career, Gold Pacific was retired to stud in 1962. However, after only 2 small colt crops, tragedy hit
the Rutland Ranch. Gold Pacific died during the summer of 1964, only three months after Gold King Bailey had passed away.
Now the search for a stallion prospect out of Guy Ray’s young stud colt pen intensified to carry on the bloodline of which he
was so proud. After several attempts to sell one particular sorrel colt failed, Guy Ray began to reconsider. As a weanling, a
foal by Gold Pacific and out of the mare Nell Bert McCue was priced at $400, but no takers. As a yearling, still no sale with a
$1,000 price tag. So Guy Ray decided that he was going to prove to everyone that what he had been saying about this colt
was true.

Although he only stood 14’1 as an early two year old, this colt named Pacific Bailey, was going into race training with Guy
Ray’s son, Cliff. He didn’t need any more size, at the time, to prove worthy of his ancestry. As a two-year-old, Pacific Bailey
started 19 times with 14 Wins and 2 Seconds with 4 Stakes Wins, 2 Stakes Placed, 2 New Track Records and a New World’s
Record at 300 yards! He ran AAA time 8 times that year and was one of the top contenders for Champion Two Year Old
Running Stallion of the AQHA. As a three year old he had 8 starts, running AAAT two times, AAA five times with 2 more New
Track Records under his saddle.  At one time or another, Pacific Bailey had beaten 4 of the top 5 finishers in the All American
Futurity in 1965. The only one he hadn’t outrun was the winner, Savannah Jr. They never met. But while at Raton for the
Oklahoma Futurity, Norman Cates, owner of Savannah Jr., came up to Guy Ray and told him that he didn't think he could
outrun Pacific Bailey. As fate would have it, they would never find out.

While still in the saddling paddock getting ready for Pac's trial heat for the Oklahoma Futurity in Raton, one of those freak
mountain storms swept across the track with a twenty-seven mph headwind. Pac was bet down to $2.20 for a $2.00 ticket.
While they were loading, it started to hail, something Pac had never seen before. When the rest took off he stood there in the
gates with his head down. The jockey started to pull him up, then saw an open hole and pointed him toward it. Pac went past
every one but Cee Bar Deck who won by a neck. The storm had put the electric timer on the blink, and this heat was hand
timed. Pac failed to qualify while Cee Bar Deck was the last horse to get in the finals. A lot of controversy surrounded the
"time" of the trial and how coincidental it was that Pac missed the finals, under all these circumstances, but Cee Bar Deck got
in. Cliff was broken hearted and felt he had got cheated out so he loaded Pacific Bailey and headed for home - "A mistake,"
says Guy. "I should have hung around and carried out my plans for paying late penalties and entering Pac in the Raton and
All American futurities." After being in the mountain altitude and then coming back out of it, even if only for a week, it wasn't
probable that Pac could be hauled back out to Ruidoso from Kansas and expect to do good. The mountain air just won't allow
it. So instead, Guy Ray chose to head back east for some futurities of much lesser notoriaty. Something that would prevent
many of the top broodmares in the country from coming to breed to him when he went to stud.

After breeding to his first book of mares in 1967, now standing 16 hands and weighing 1300 pounds, “Pac” went on to the
arena to earn his AQHA Champion status, standing several times as Grand Champion at halter over some of the nation's
leading halter horses.

From the first foal crop in 1968, Pacific Bailey was The Second Leading Sire of 2-year-old Race ROM Qualifiers in 1970 with
21. Only 41% of his foals were starters while Jet Deck was number one with 24 ROMs with 90% of his foals being starters
that year.

Each year thereafter, until his death, Pacific Bailey ranked high among the elite sires list of the breed. He was A Leading Sire
of Race ROM Qualifiers, Stakes Winners, Race Winners, Most Wins, and Money Earners and still ranks as one of the All
Time Leading Sires of ROM Qualifiers as well as Leading Broodmare Sires in the AQHA. He is the sire of World Champion
Running Gelding Pacific Dan SI 104, who had 57 lifetime starts with 29 wins, 11 seconds and 7 thirds as well as standing
grand champion at hater. In 1981, two other sons of Pacific Bailey tied for 3rd in the nation as Leading Horse of Races Won
of the AQHA that year. Jumbo Pacific SI 105 and Mr Smooth Pac SI 103, both stakes winners of 10 races that year. No other
sire in the nation had more than one offspring represented in the top 20.  His get have also earned him many distinctions in
the arena, siring many Show ROM Qualifiers and 3 AQHA Champions, versatility that few stallions have ever exhibited. He
was the sire of GOOD LOOKING racehorses that could “DO IT ALL”.

For the record books, Pacific Bailey sired more registered horses than any other stallion in the history of the AQHA, 2,942
foals in all. Guy Ray, who was among the first breeders to use artificial insemination, made breeding to Pac an affordable
opportunity for many. His stud fee started out at $350 and never exceeded $1,500. Even at the top of his popularity, Guy Ray
refused to raise his fee. His justification: “Don’t exclude the small breeder that put you where you are today”. His motto still
lives on today:

 

 

 

 

 

Pacific Bailey helped to make Guy Ray and Mildred E. Rutland The Leading Breeder Of Winners and ROM Qualifiers in 1967
and 1970-77. Their eight consecutive years atop the annual list of AQHA leading breeders rival a mark set by Frank Vessels

Sr. in the 1950s and ‘60s and equaled in 1999 by Edward C. Allred, being one of the All Time Leading Breeders in the quarter
horse industry.

For 27 consecutive years, the Annual Rutland Ranch Production Sale was held, attracting buyers from all parts of the
continent. In 1982, over 100 weanling offspring of Pacific Bailey were sold for an average of just over $3,000 each. It was
events such as this that helped build the steel and concrete mare barn that is literally bigger than a football field with
dimensions of 252 feet by 320 feet with 148 stalls, each measuring 16’ by 16’. It has always been considered “the barn that
Pac built”.

Guy Ray Rutland was a true horseman. He was proud of his horses. To have accomplished so much in the horse industry
with his home bred, Pacific Bailey, on a “poor boy’s” budget was a feat that will probably never be equaled. A dream was
most definitely lived out. He would ask people to come look at his horses saying, “It’ll be worth your trip just to see Pacific
Bailey”. He was proud. The reaction on people’s faces the first time they would see him told the story. It was something that
they would never forget.

Pacific Bailey exemplified what Guy Ray thought the perfect quarter horse should look like and be able to do. His strong
ideals of the American Quarter Horse were simple: It should be able to “do it all”. Today’s more “use specific” horse seems to
have somewhat strayed away from these original ideals. As Webster’s dictionary defines quarter horse: (So called because it
was formerly trained for races up to a quarter mile.) A strong saddle horse originally bred in the western United States. We
now seem to have specific breeds within the quarter horse industry. Even the American Quarter Horse Association has
recognized this. Once, the Quarter Horse Journal was the official publication for all quarter horses, no matter their activity.
Today, the original Journal is directed toward the show horses. The Quarter Racing Journal is directed to the racing side.
Many more specific use publications have since established to recognize the cutting horse, the barrel horse and the hunters,
just to name a few. It seems as though if one truly wanted to “do it all” on an American quarter horse he would need at least a
five-horse trailer to participate. Not so with the offspring of Pacific Bailey. That tradition is still being carried on through his
descendents.

Pacific Bailey was bred to his last book of mares in the spring of 1993 with the same enthusiasm and fertility he had in 1972.
For his entire life of 30 years, Rutland Ranch was his home. He was a part of the family. He would get a kiss every morning
from his pal, Cliff Rutland. He was a proud animal and would make anyone associated with him proud to be around him. Such
is so of any great athlete. There is a certain aria about the great ones. Pacific Bailey definitely had it.

He was laid to rest in what is still today considered as “Pac’s pen” along side Gold King Bailey, Gold Pacific, Bar Money,
Carrara Marble and King Leo Bailey. As Guy Ray Rutland would say,
“May the good Lord take a likin’ to him!”

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