Page 73 - September 2016
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Immersion Therapy
Butch Wise saw an ocean, jumped in, and kept on swimming until he arrived at a wonderful destination
by Diane Rice
When Butch Wise graduated from Oklahoma State University in 1973 with an animal science degree, he knew he wanted a career in the equine industry. He just didn’t know what kind of career he wanted. But for the last 40-plus years, he’s carved out a unique niche brokering the cream of Quarter Horse and Thoroughbred running stock, which led to his position as general manager of the Lazy E Ranch in Guthrie, Oklahoma.
Butch says nothing could have prepared him for the position he’s held for the last 23 years. “When I first came to the Lazy E in the 1990s, Bill Witman and I were partners in Ridgeleigh Farms in Purcell, Oklahoma, and our farm was for sale,” Butch says. “Ed Gaylord [who built the Lazy E] asked Bill and I to help with his farm, but a year and a half went by before we finally signed on. We came up here on a two-year deal, and I’m still here.”
When asked what prepared him for the Lazy E, he says, “Nothing could prepare you for that!”
“I’m not trying to be facetious,” he adds. “There’s just nothing that could prepare you. It’s an interesting occupation and we have a
varied clientele and a varied group of horses, and we have a business plan that works for us. On a day-to-day basis, it’s got a lot of moving parts and there’s no typical day, so there aren’t many ways to prepare for it. Rather, it’s been immersion therapy.”
History in the Making
Born to Floyd and “Pink” Wise in Poteaux, Oklahoma, in 1950, Butch and his two older sisters grew up in Heavener, Oklahoma, where Floyd roped and raced on the bush tracks that abounded in that area. “It was about the time Bill Hedge was starting Blue Ribbon Downs,” Butch says. “We were very close to that, and I rode a lot of match horses when I was a kid and rodeoed. So, I was around fast horses since I was a little kid.”
After graduating from college, Butch went to work for Melvin Hatley in Lexington, Oklahoma, breeder of Kingdom Key, Real Easy Jet and Stars In Her Crown, among others, and where Mr Jet Moore — the first winner of the Champion of Champions — stood. “I was there until a tornado came through and tore
up the farm,” Butch says. The damage was
so extensive that Hatley closed the farm,
and Butch moved on to work for a friend in Missouri, managing a portable cattle feeding equipment company for Cox Manufacturing. He stayed there about 16 months.
“Then Audie Rackley, editor of the Quarter Horse Journal at that time, called me,” Butch
says. “That was about 1975 or so. He was an
old Oklahoma State guy, too, and said they were looking for someone to sell advertising for the Journal. At that time, if a sale company bought so many pages of ads, the AQHA would send a ring mantoworkthesale,forPR.Igottogotoalotof sales. I met a lot of people and saw a lot of different kinds of horses. I went all over the country, and that’s when I decided I wanted to sell and trade. I stayed with the Journal for 15 or 16 months, then moved to El Reno and went to selling horses.”
He founded his agency, Wise Sales Co. Inc., and retained Stone Chase Stables LLC when Bill left, and has married them with his position at the Lazy E, which, along with the Lazy E Arena, was bought by the McKinney family in 2013.
“I was around fast horses since I was a little kid.”
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