For the first years of Go Man Go's racing career, his owner faced difficulty in registering him with the American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA), a matter that remained unresolved until 1958.

His daughters also produced, or were the mothers of, several race winners, including the Hall of Fame members Kaweah Bar and Rocket Wrangler.

Go Man Go was foaled in Wharton, Texas in 1953, as a result of the second breeding between the Thoroughbred stallion Top Deck and the Appendix Quarter Horse mare Lightfoot Sis.

B. Ferguson had purchased Lightfoot Sis when her then-owner, Octave Fontenot of Prairie Ronde, Louisiana, decided to get out of the horse breeding business.

[10] Ferguson paid $350 for her (equivalent to $4,000 in 2023)[10][3] and bred her in 1952 to Top Deck (TB), resulting in Go Man Go's birth the next year.

[11] Lightfoot Sis showed classic short speed in her pedigree,[8] although she was unraced due to an injury as a filly that left her blind in one eye.

[10] Her sire was the Thoroughbred stallion Very Wise, and her dam was a Quarter Horse mare named Clear Track.

[8][c] Scott Wells, a racing correspondent, wrote in The Speedhorse Magazine that Go Man Go "grew up lean and hard-boned, long-bodied and long-hipped, but not the best-looking horse in the world.

One of his jockeys, Robert Strauss, recalled later that Go Man Go "was ornery from the day I met him, but he was the greatest horse I ever rode".

"[17] Robert's brother Eldridge, who was the trainer, once worked the colt minus half a shoe and Go Man Go still managed a time of 18.9 seconds for a 350-yard (320 m) distance.

[1] In the moments before his very first race began, Go Man Go flipped over in the starting gate, unseated his rider, crashed through the front, and ran around the whole track.

Two years later, at a Los Alamitos race meet, Green claimed that his newest horse, Double Bid, could outrace Go Man Go.

This incensed Ferguson, who had just entered Go Man Go's full brother Mr Mackay in a race with Double Bid.

Ferguson bet Green $42,000 (equivalent to $455,600 in 2023)[22][3] against Go Man Go that Mr Mackay would beat Double Bid in the upcoming race.

The way to advance out of the Appendix into the Tentative registry was to qualify on performance grounds and pass a conformation examination conducted by the AQHA.

So Green appealed to the Executive Committee of the AQHA, which had the authority to award Tentative numbers to horses regardless of conformation exam results.

[2] As a broodmare sire, or maternal grandsire, his daughters have produced Rocket Wrangler, Mr Kid Charge, Kaweah Bar, and Go Together.

[30] Go Man Go passed through several hands after Green owned him, including Les Gosselin, Frank Vessels, and Harriett Peckham, who was his owner by 1972.

[7] A further honor was the naming of a stakes race after him,[33] the Grade I Go Man Go Handicap run in September at Los Alamitos.