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A MOMENT IN TIME
Previously published in the Aug. 1986 New Mexico Horse Breeder
The Cowboy and The Lady
THEIR LIVES ARE VARIED BUT HORSES ARE THE CORE
They are the cowboy and the lady, as different as can be; yet they share a common love and dedication to the equines which take top ranking at Rush Rancho. Rush Rancho, owned by Bill and Dee Rush, is a peaceful, small horse breeding farm tucked away in one of those surprisingly green, eye-pleasing settings that both delight and amaze those visitors whose only acquaintance with Truth or Consequences is seen
from the freeway. Bill looks the part of a horsebreeder...his bushy, white mane, deeply tanned face and hardened hands are mute testimony that he is no stranger to the life
of a cowboy. He moves around his horses with a quiet authority that can’t be learned. As he takes the halter and approaches the stud Joy Giver, the hot-blooded horse and white-haired horseman with a background of tall trees and a swiftly flowing river give the impression that the scene could as easily be Kentucky as New Mexico.
Dee, on the other hand, is small and energetic. At 21, she was the evening supervisor at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Albuquerque. She was operating room supervisor at Carrie Tingley Hospital at the time that the facility was doing advanced orthopedic, pediatric surgery. She has been known to make up to 80 dozen tamales for friends and business associates at Christmas time, and often serves up culinary delights from an old wood-burning stove that was a gift from a friend in Nebraska.
Yes, the couple have their differences.
Bill rodeoed professionally for 25 years. Dee still serves as administrator of Sierra Vista,
the community hospital located in Truth or Consequences. His family moved west in a covered wagon in 1879. Hers immigrated
from Spain and Italy. She loves to get into the kitchen and cook. He’s at home training horses. The differences in the partnership are part of the strength of this unique couple, and when it comes to horses, Bill and Dee stand together.
Bill is the horseman. He takes care of the training, building, fixing, breeding, feeding,
BY CAROL WILSON
and other day-to-day chores associated with a horse farm. Dee uses her medical background by doing rudimentary veterinary work. She also keeps the books for Rush Rancho.
As a love for horses is a natural Rush trait, Bill’s affection for the equine world came as naturally as breathing. His grandparents moved from Rushville, Illinois, to New Mexico in 1879. After a short stay at the head of the Black River, they moved to the Salt Flats on the west side of the Guadalupe Mountains. The nearby post office where the Butterfield Stage stopped was called Orange, but the place was also known and Crow Flats. It seems that there was a large crow population which lived in the bushes of Salt Flat. When the stage came through and the crows were flying, the stage didn’t stop because they knew that it was Indians that had disturbed the crows.
The Rush family trapped wild horses at the point of the Guadalupes, then trailed them to the market at Fort Worth. Bill was born in an oilfield tent in Dublin, Texas. His father had 160 horse and mule teams in Dublin during the yeas of 1917, 1918 and 1919. The teams skidded rigs and hauled pipe in the oilfield. “The mud was hub deep in 1919,” Bill related. “Dad sold his teams and moved back to New Mexico.”
In the Land of Enchantment, the Rush family bred Steel Dust Quarter Horse mares to Thoroughbred remount studs and sold the offspring to the U.S. Calvary. Calves were bringing a twenty dollar bill at the time, and horses brought $175 apiece. It just made sense to raise horses. Bill grew up riding half- Thoroughbred, half-Quarter Horse mounts and to this day prefers that combination for his personal horses.
As a 13-year-old cowboy, Bill won the title of World Champion Kid Rodeo Cowboy in El Paso, Texas. The year was 1934. His horse, Star, carried him the 100 miles to
El Paso, where he competed and won the championship title on the same horse. The prize was $150 saddle made by S.D. Myers.
The early taste of victory was sweet for the young cowboy, and Bill spent 25 years of his adult life as a professional rodeo cowboy. Fifty rodeos a year on the average, he lived out of the car and pulled two horses on almost every highway in the nation. Those days, travel time of six or seven days from the East Coast to the West Coast with a loaded trailer was considered good time.
Bill hasn’t missed Cheyenne Frontier Days since 1944, and twice won the bulldogging in Cheyenne. He competed 17 times in Madison Square Garden and has done it all, from the bulls and bareback broncs to the roping and bulldogging events.
He remembers the rodeo days as a time
to testing your mettle, forging friendships, and enjoying the unique partnership between a finely-trained horse and his rider. “My bulldogging horse died in 1955,” Bill remembers, “I leased a horse from Casey Darnell. At Cheyenne that year, I dogged two steers from his mare that no other cowboy had ever caught, and then went on to win the bulldogging by three or four seconds.”
After a quarter of a century on the rodeo circuit, Bill quit the rodeo in 1963. “The Grim Reaper made me quit,” he jested. “I was just getting too old.”
The years on the circuit, plus his many years cowboying, left him with a great many memories and a legion of friends. Bill can sit at the dining room table and entertain guests and family for hours with tales of cattle drives, lightning, great horses, and accomplished cowboys.
Many of Bill’s rodeo horses were also great runners. One calf roping horse was entered in 14 match races and never lost. Another experience which was to mean
more to Bill when he started breeding racing horses was the time Bill and his brother unloaded the great stud Nassack. Nassack was the son of John P. Grier, a horse who had run second to Man O War three times. He was 19 when he was purchased by Mr. Bissell of Corralitas and loaded on a pullman
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