Page 75 - September 2016

“I’m one of those very fortunate people . . . I get to do exactly what I want to do and I get paid for it. I love the horse business.”
Phillip Stewart, Lake Newcomb, Bob Newcomb,
Matt Witman, Jeff Tebow and Butch Wise at the
2009 Oklahoma Quarter Horse Racing Association banquet
MAKES HIM NEARLY IRREPLACEABLE.
and the state’s legislature. He received the Oklahoma State University Animal Science School Graduate of Distinction Award in 2004, and the AQHA Racing Council Special Recognition Award in 2007.
An AQHA director from 2001 to 2015, Butch jokes that he was recently “coerced”
into joining the AQHA Executive Committee in its efforts to expand Quarter Horse racing throughout the world. In doing so, and in building his bloodstock agency, he has traveled to Brazil several times with Vince Genco,
whose companies, Pacific Airlift and Verdugo
& Genco, transport horses and livestock from the U.S. to Hawaii and Brazil, among other places. “I first started working for Bill Verdugo in 1973,” Genco says. “We were just starting to ship horses down to Brazil. Butch was starting as a bloodstock agent and he started finding some mares and stallions for us to ship down there. So, we’ve been working together for about 40 years. We bought a lot of good mares from him and those mares started some good herds down in Brazil. We’re comfortable with Butch, so we still use him for most of the horses we send to the sales.
“Around 2005 or 2006, Butch, John Andreini, Ben Hudson and I went to Australia and put on a racing symposium with Trey Buck, AQHA’s former director of racing,” Genco adds.
“Between then and now, we formed a company that’s trying to bring Quarter Horse racing back to Australia.”
Butch’s executive committee mission also includes keeping young people engaged in the Quarter Horse business. “For the last 25 years, we’ve had a large internship program here at the Lazy E,” he says. “We have a lot of kids that come through here either on a three- or six- month rotation, and we’re particularly proud
of that. A lot of them are out running farms or corporations throughout the world, and it gives us great satisfaction to point to them and think about the time that they were here.”
Those interns have worked with Lazy E stallions, such as the number one living sire of stakes winners, Corona Cartel; 2015’s number- one sire of stakes winners and money earners, PYC Paint Your Wagon; One Dashing Eagle; Valiant Hero; Volcom; and other great stallions. They’ve also assisted with breeding some 1,200 mares and foaling out more than 300 each year, sale prepping 500–600 head, and tending to horses in the Lazy E’s post-surgical and race rehab program.
His Personal Qualities
Not many people possess the extent of equine knowledge that Butch has come by both naturally and by amassing through decades
of experience. That depth and breadth of knowledge makes him nearly irreplaceable. “Everybody can be replaced,” says longtime friend Lowell Neumayer, general manager of the Ruidoso Select Yearling Sales. “But, Butch would be a very hard one to replace. He’s very thorough in what he does; whatever he does, he does as well or better than anybody else. He’s a hard worker and he’s a good person. Whatever he tells you, you can write it down. If anybody needs any kind of favor, Butch is the first one to step up. He’s a friend you can depend on and he’s the best at what he does in the horse business. There aren’t many guys like him.”
Vince Genco agrees. “Success comes with hard work,” he says. “I’m a great believer in that, and I don’t know anybody who works any harder at the sales than Butch. He’s there early each morning, every morning, and stays till late at night when the sale’s over. Everybody wants to talk to him and he’s getting pulled in six different directions at once. I think being a hard worker has a lot to do with Butch’s success.”
It is hard work swimming an ocean, but Butch Wise has immersed himself in his chosen field and created a place at the top of his profession where he’s highly admired, liked, and respected by those who know and deal with him.
For more information on Lazy E Ranch, visit lazye.com and lazyeranch.com.
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