Our county is populated with some of western history’s most colorful Horsemen. I’ve ridden with them penning cows, I’ve visited (VIZ– ted) with them at the coffee shop, and at dances, at weddings and funerals (same difference) and I never get over how funny and honest, and inventive they can be.

We traded a bull once for a spotted horse for my wife. He was a leopard Appalooskey. He could work cows, and rope, and even could hit a lick with a walking horse gait going down the road. We called him Willy, after his previous owner, an old tradition in our county. (Horses that people buy from me get called Doc.) When we got him to our place, Willy told my wife “now, don’t you worry none about them little spots of blood on him, I had to pop him with a 410 to get him up out of the pasture! ” Then he told me, “if you start off to rope, don’t open your mouth, he’ll run so fast you can’t close it! ” And finally this advice, “don’t close him in with a gate. He’ll stomp the gate flat. But he respects a Bob wire gap! “Then there were the two old cowboys who were arguing about how a certain horse was working while the third was riding. One says “I don’t like the way the horse is going” the other laughs and says “it ain’t nothing wrong with the horse, it’s who’s in the saddle! ”

I’ve heard horses described as “worthless as TWO hot watermelons.” Or that he couldn’t outrun a fat woman carrying two tubs of water! Another old Ranney advised us to teach a horse to neck rein by crossing the reins under the horse’s neck.

Finally, the old codger who was looking at a young woman’s horse. He said “there’s only one thing wrong with this here horse.” She responded all flustered “well what is that?”

“He ain’t mine!”