Page 73 - Speedhorse February

LOOKING BACK
The Tucson papers told it like it was, but by the time it hit the Horse Journals and other magazines, the stallion was a man-eating devil! I even read one article where he grabbed Mel by the shoulder, and after flinging him to the ground proceeded to stomp on him. How about that! Mel told me the horse didn’t touch him. He said it was a foolish mistake on his part, and Livingston concurred by saying it was just one of those things.
Of the Spotted Bull foals that I raised, which would include Manor Man, Arizonan, Sonoitan, and Intrigue, all were alert and easy to train and handle. I’ll tell you where some of this notion that he was vicious got started. When they first brought him in from Kentucky, I was anxious
to see him like everybody else. I went over with Dink for my initial look-see and what I saw was a lot of class! They had him in a small paddock that had a little open-ended shed at one end, and that was it. And there were always people there
swinging their hats and picking up pebbles and throwing them to make the horse move about, and he couldn’t escape from this annoyance. So after a week or so of this nonsense, he became irritated. He would pin his ears and pop his teeth and try to run people away from the fence. He was saying, “Go away and leave me alone.”
Dumb as I am, I told Dink, “I’d get this horse away from the curiosity seekers. They’re worrying him to death. They will make a physical wreck out of him.” They moved him out of the heavy traffic, and the horse was fine.
Eventually, Spotted Bull was leased and stood a season or two at Lillian Post’s California Stallion Manor, and that is where he was
when I bought him as an 11 year old. He was, astonishingly, mostly being ignored out there, anyway. They were standing 14 stallions at the time. So I made my deal and went out there to pick him up. There were something like a dozen employees on the grounds when I arrived on
the scene. After being directed to Spotted Bull’s stall, I got out my shipping bandages to do up his legs before I loaded him. My sixth sense was off duty or I would have suspected something wrong when I had to step up to get in. Nobody had cleaned his stall out in no telling how long! In another two weeks, he would have been able to step right over the Dutch door. He came at me with eyes and teeth flashing, and man, I must have set a record for the backward flip- flop over a stall webbing! By this time I had an audience. Every hand had dropped what he was doing to watch the Arizona idiot be devoured,
I guess. Well, I was just a little mad! I laid the bandages down, and I took about three wraps around the old knuckles with the lead shank and reentered the dragon’s lair, but this time
at the ready! When he repeated his charge, I wrapped that shank around his front legs in no uncertain terms. There’s not a horse living that will take anything from the knees down! It was
Grandson of Spotted Bull, Three Oh’s, wins the 10th All American in 1968. Jack Sheaffer, Quarter Racing World Archives
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