Page 28 - 17 August 2012

Ronnie Stewart doing chores at Double S Farm (top), with his dog King (top right), and giving a ride to granddaughter Skylar, one of six Stewart grandkids (right).
Below—Ronnie and Royal Shake Em, a horse the Stewarts consider a part of the family.
a farm back in the ’60s, when things weren’t
as complicated as they are now,” Ronnie said. “He’d been a rough stock rider and broke horses, but when he got too old for that, he started in the breeding business. People would pay us to turn their mares out in the pasture with our studs, and we always had a few racehorses on
the side.”
Ronnie’s job from the time he was in junior high school was to handle those studs. While still in school, Ronnie broke into rodeo, riding bulls and bareback broncs. “When I met Ronnie, his leg was in a cast,” said Bonnie, by that time a barrel racer. “He’d broken it in about eight places riding bulls.”
They met in eighth grade, dated all through high school and married in 1969. They started their family—three boys: Ron Jr., Jake and Phillip—in 1971.
the tranSition
After his father died in 1978, Ronnie worked in the racing offices of various tracks. In 1981 he took on the job of managing Diamond S Ranch, where he still spends time each day monitoring their horses’ needs.
Bonnie attended nursing school and spent quite a few years as a labor and delivery nurse.
“I was trying to help Ronnie out at Diamond S and work at the hospital, and something had to give,” she said. “And when we found land for our own place, I had to think about what I wanted to do. I chose working together with the horses.”
Although she occasionally feels like she needs to go back to the hospital and work some double shifts to get some rest, she has never regretted her decision. “I do pretty much the same thing that I did there, but with a bigger species,” she said.
While Bonnie loves the mares and babies and handles most of the farm’s paperwork, Ronnie concentrates on promoting their stallions and business, and on the farm’s feeding and conditioning program.
“They have a combination of rare talent,” said Dr. Theresa Dwyer of Salado, Texas, who has been their attending veterinarian for 16 years. “Bonnie is truly caring when it comes to the horses, and most especially the babies. And she always has the clients’ best interest in mind.
“Ronnie is an unbelievable horseman and he knows how to promote stallions, the farm and the people he meets,” she added. “He totally understands the stallion and how to get the most out of them from the reproductive end; how to care for them; and what crosses well with what kind of mares. And with difficult breeders, he’ll try everything it takes to get a mare in foal.”
the double S Family
Although Double S was involved in producing Panther Mountain in 1999, Ronnie gives major credit for that to his partner, Danny