Page 44 - New Mexico Horse Breeder Summer 2018

A MOMENT IN TIME
He has been a prominent and successful horse trainer for more than forty years now; a rodeo performer of world championship caliber; a foreman of one of the West’s largest cattle ranches; a movie star; a bank robber... “How many lives does a cat have?” he laughs. “I must be getting awfully close now!”
One would certainly hope not. There aren’t enough like Frank Burns around anymore; they’ve always been in short supply. The col- lection of trophies which decorate one wall
of his Phoenix home is silver-plate evidence
of his achievements in several fields. Many of them testify to his success as a horse trainer. Others certify his courage and skills as one of the West’s premier rodeo performers. His eyes brighten with special pride as he picks out one particular silver plate and thinks back to the day he won it. Never mind that it was almost exactly fifty years ago, it’s the kind of memory that casts a glow down through a man’s life. In that fifty-year-old flashback, he’s riding out into a crowded Soldier Field in Chicago while the announcer booms, “Competing for the
relay riding championship of the woorrlllddd, Frankie Burns!” He grins as he remembers the shudder that stretched out ”woorrlllddd” sent up his spine. He must not have shuddered or shaken too much, though, because there sits the silver plate: “Presented by the Chicago Daily News to FRANKIE BURNS for WORLD CHAMPION RELAY RIDER, World’s Fair Rodeo, Soldier Field, Chicago, 1933.”
That special silver plate, as mentioned, is just one of many glistening in the Arizona after- noon sun, but the slight, quiet man standing beside them doesn’t quite seem to fit. You look at them – trophies won in two of the most dan- gerous and toughest sports, rodeo and horserac- ing – and you expect to see a big, rawboned, two hundred pound John Wayne type as their proud possessor, not this modest, unassuming one-time jockey who still looks like he could throw a leg up and boot home a winner or two any given afternoon. Nevertheless, the trophies are his and represent extraordinary achievement in a career closely bound up with the history of rodeo and horse racing in the West. His memo-
ries throw light on the roots fifty and sixty years ago of our modern, slick horseracing industry in the West and, historical value aside, simply deserve a telling. After all, how many world’s champions do you know?
He’s not quite a genuine native of the Southwest. Born in Missouri in 1906, Frank and his family moved to Alamosa, Colorado in 1908 in a mule-drawn wagon. (The trip took almost a month, partly because Burns, Sr. had to stop and earn a little money en route in order to keep stomachs full and the wagon moving.) The San Luis Valley was good to the Burns family. Father Burns farmed a little and ran some cattle, then settled down as State Stock Inspector for 35 years until retirement. Along the way a little sporting interest developed, and Frank’s father bought some race horses when the boy was six. For the seventy-odd years since, Frank Burn’s life has been linked to horses.
As a grade-schooler, Frank galloped horses for his dad, then as a teenager graduated to competi- tion at brush tracks and county fairs as a jockey. Having gained experience on his father’s stock
42 New Mexico Horse Breeder
New Mexico
Racing History
From the Fall, 1983 New Mexico Horse Breeder Magazine
written by Jake Spidle
Frank Burns:
No Rhinestone Cowboy