My business is the horse business. For almost 40 years I have raising, training and selling registered Quarter Horses. On Thanksgiving weekend, as I watched my 2011 weanlings leave the yard with their new owners, I thought back to the beginning of my relationship with the Quarter Horse.
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| Feather, Timber and Whiskey with new owners. |
That was a long time ago – 1966 – and since that time have bred, raised and ridden many. But what about the horses I rode (and loved) before? What about the “grade” horses in my life? And… are these purebred, “Cadillac” horses I ride now as tough as the mixed breed models I rode all day on roundups then hauled to horse shows in the back of the truck on the weekend? Or are they better?
Grade horses settled the west long before I came on the scene. They carried riders, pulled wagons, sleighs, mowers, rakes and stone boats, they packed unbelievable loads into areas not accessible to wagons. They endured hardships beside their owners. Most of all they willingly served. They had to be tough to survive . . . and sound! Although the definition of “soundness” remains the same today, the importance of a sound horse in those demanding conditions was much higher. Whether in the unsettled, vastness of Saskatchewan (where I grew up) or the harsh wilderness of the Chilcotin (where I live now), horses often meant the difference between life and death – and those horses were always grade horses, the result of select breeding all right, but of the "toughest and most sound", not the prettiest! One has to admire and respect those horses. Call them what you will – grade, unregistered, mustangs – they contributed to our ancestors’ survival!
The first horse I remember is a plain brown mare with a kind heart. Pronto belonged to my mother but she was the first horse I rode by myself and, of course, she was grade. Mom's favourite was one of Pronto’s daughters, Pride, and that black, grade mare was one of the gutsiest horses I will ever know. To say she had “heart” does not adequately describe her courage in the face of a variety of adverse conditions and expectations. Mom rode her almost every day in the spring, summer and fall. In the years she taught school, she used her to get there; she checked cattle, cut anything out that needed to come home and rounded up huge fields on Pride; and she rode the six miles out of the ranch to pick up the mail on her – summer and winter! Mom often said Pride would never quit – she would keep going until she died trying…
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| Mo with Pride and Charm (Pride's sister) |
Dad rode Tex in those years. I don't remember Tex very well although I have a picture of dad holding me as a baby on him. I think he must have died when I was very young. Besides ranch work, Tex carried Dad in the calf roping event at the Calgary Stampede. Do you think any calf ropers ride horses that are not registered today?
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| Dad and Tex |
When I was about fourteen, Mom and Dad decided I could ride Rocky. Like Pride, he was not a purebred animal: like Pride he was black; like Pride, also, he was high energy with a never-quit attitude. I loved it. Rocky carried me over the Coteau Hills on roundups, fun "free" rides bareback in the paddock, through the snowbanks on not-so-much-fun rides to the farm where I boarded to go to school in the winter and around barrels and poles at rodeos and horse shows. I ran him the last time at a rodeo at Clearwater Lake when he was twenty years old. He won the pole bending and placed in the barrel racing. He had six happy years of retirement on the ranch before I had to say good bye.
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| Rocky |
Eventually, my parents gave me a horse – a grade, but with a Quarter Horse sire. They had invested in a Quarter Horse stallion, Copper Red Boy, and he had sired my Cheetah. Her dam, however, was a grade mare we called Cherry. I was told she had Thoroughbred and Standardbred blood and certainly that made sense since a few good Thoroughbred stallions had come in to the country. Cherry had not been ridden much. A hired man started her one winter and described her as “the roughest horse he had ever ridden” He said the saddle jerked forward and back when she
walked. I guess we can credit Red for taking that out of her colts because she had several by him and they were not rough-gaited.
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| Cheetah |
Cheetah was another Pride or Rocky. She was small, only 14.1, and fine-boned but she was tough. She handled the cold, snow-deep trail I rode in winter with just as much guts as Rocky had. I barrel-raced, flat-raced her and anything else I wanted. She remained sound until, retired and raising foals, she was kicked in the knee.
So . . . as I look around at my herd of registered Quarter Horses I have to ask myself if they would have what it took to do the work I did with those grade horses. I can’t be sure, but I think not . . . except for one. Wildwood Soul O Silk would carry me until she dropped. She has many of the same qualities of Pride, Rocky and Cheetah - one tough little horse!
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| Silk "going down the fence" |
"Just a grade," I would say when someone asked me about Cheetah, but I think now I sold her short. I should have left out "just" and said, "She's grade," with the pride she deserved.
