One of two sons of prominent Oregon businessman and politician Peter J. Stadelman, J. Wilbur Stadelman was born in 1905 in The Dalles, Oregon.
In 1930, Wilbur and his brother George purchased their father’s Stadelman Ice Company, founded in 1898, and renamed the now Yakima-based Stadelman Fruit Company, which still exists today. Wilbur was said to have shipped more than 50-million boxes of cherries in his lifetime.
Wilbur and his first wife Florence got into Thoroughbred racing in the late 1950s. Their first runner of note was Doctrinaire, who they had claimed for $20,000 at Del Mar, and who would shortly thereafter win the 1960 Longacres Mile by 3 1/4 lengths.
The Yakima couple soon acquired their first broodmares, and while the first runner they bred was unplaced in 1962, the following year they would have two horses (Concession and Merry Mixture) win four races and place 11 more times, to earn $8,307, and their Systematic would finish third in the 1963 Mile. That year would also mark the death of Florence.
Stadelman, along with A. J. Penney, was one of the “movers and shakers” who founded the Yakima Valley Turf Club and was the Yakima track’s first president in 1961.
In 1966, Stadelman had his second Mile winner in *Aurelius II, and the Argentine import would later become a successful sire in Washington.
A. J. Penney’s son Jim would train Stadelman’s Luck Amuck to win the 1966 Mary Broderick Memorial and also Stadelman’s first homebred stakes winner, 1971 Mary Broderick winner Hot Feet, the first foal out of future broodmare of the year Hold Hands. By the time 1973 rolled around, Stadelman had remarried and Hold Hands’ second foal, Whatawaytogo, had won a division of the Yakima Derby in his and Marianne’s colors.
The Stadelmans had their third Broderick Memorial winner in 1976 when Hold Hands’ fourth foal, a filly by *Aurelius II, won the race. Any Time Girl, who had finished third in the Hollywood Lassie Stakes (G2) prior to her trip to Longacres, next won the Debutante Stakes at Bay Meadows by six lengths. Sent to Santa Anita for the $100,000 Oak Leaf Stakes, a 1 1/16-mile Grade 2 event, Any Time Girl emerged victorious by the closest of margins, but only after the filly bolted to the outside rail, “running sideways as much as forward.” Only the photo finish camera could tell for sure that the Washington-bred had become the state’s first graded stakes winner. She finished her campaign with a second in the Bay Meadows Lassie Stakes and was ranked the fifth highest weighted two-year-old filly in the nation, as well as Washington horse of the year. She came back the following year to place in three California stakes.
As good as she was, her half-sister Table Hands, also a Stadelman homebred, would eclipse her record in 1979. In her five starts at two, the daughter of Table Run never lost, including a 4 1/2-length win in the Hollywood Lassie Stakes (G2). She was sold to Peter Brant and Joe Allen for a reported $500,000 and recorded a six-length tally in the Del Mar Debutante Stakes (G2) for her new owners. On the year-end Experimental Free Handicap, only champion Smart Angle was weighted above the Washington horse of the year (120 to 119). Table Hands would win the Santa Ynez Stakes (G3) at three.
The Stadelmans would later breed and race stakes winners Aurelius Crown and Table Sean before Wilbur’s death in 1984. That was the same year Got You Runnin, a filly bred by Marianne, would become the first Washington-bred to compete in a Breeders’ Cup championship race, en route to being named state champion two-year-old filly, and Hold Hand’s final champion, 1989 Washington sprint champion Crystal Run, was born.
Marianne, who died in 1997, also bred 1990 state champion A Little Bit Tipsy to bring the total of Stadelman-bred champions to five and this with less than 50 runners bred total.
The Stadelmans were among the top 20 breeders on ten occasions and finished in third place in 1976 and 1979.
