Page 74 - Speedhorse February

LOOKING BACK
a perfect strike. When that stud chain with its large snap whizzed around his front legs and creased those tendons, he suddenly became all mine. He dropped to his knees with the most puzzled expression imaginable. Now that I held his attention, the combination of level talking and rib nudging with the toe of my boot finally brought him to his feet. Bandaging him for shipping was now a piece of cake. No problem.
Unfortunately, I had a standard Quarter Horse trailer, which was much too low, and he bumped his head the first time he started in, and that was that. With the aid of a nerve chain, I managed to empty a bottle of Bell’s tranquilizer in the vicinity of his mouth, but mostly on myself. But eventually, with the aid of a naïve visiting horseman, the horse was loaded. I do not recall the fellow’s name who so gallantly aided my cause, but I hope he’s healthy, wealthy, and happy as hell. No fooling. I was a young buck then, and after muscling him in, I chugged on over to Booga and Carl Mercer’s ranch to dawdle and brag until the Los Angeles traffic terrors were off the freeways before taking dead aim
on my non-stop journey to Tucson. It took 16 hours to complete the drive over that miserable
highway 80. The Interstate highway program hadn’t come west yet.
He tried me only one more time . . . the following day. I unloaded him at home and told my foreman, Frank, “Don’t anyone touch this horse while I’m sleeping off this trip.” There was a lot of greenery around the stables that I was cultivating to graze the young horses on. And to prove to Spotted Bull that his fortunes had taken a turn for the better, I led him out of his stall to graze the green barley. But I was also very wary and quite ready to cope with any nonsense, and he didn’t fail. Guess he felt obligated to test me one more time. We didn’t travel 50 feet before
he struck with his left front foot. It swished by the recently vacated area of my right hip. You’re right. The lead chain went wham and he went down. It wasn’t two weeks later that Ernest Stanley and his colleagues from the University
of Arizona brought classes out, and those who wished to would caress the horse, pick his feet up, check his teeth, etc. No halter, no shank, no nothing. The horse would just stand there and lay poses on the class, some utterly ridiculous, but after all, what would any self-respecting clown do! You’d come in with a camera, particularly
a movie camera, and he’d really put on a show for you. I told Frank one day, “Sometime, while Spotted Bull is performing his sunfishing act for the camera bugs, he’s likely to snap a front leg if he touches down wrongly.”
And sure enough, that is precisely what happened, I received a call from our regular vet, Dr. Anderson, at a feed store in Tucson. He said, “I hate to tell you this, but Spotted Bull has shattered a leg. He was just playing out
in his paddock.” It frightened him when the bone snapped, and he bolted around his acre pen a couple of times, bone chips flying, before Frank Figueroa could stop him.
I said, “I’ll be right out.” I sped home, a fifteen minute drive, and the horse was minus about three inches of cannon bone by then.
He wasn’t the kind of horse we could breed
on three legs, so it was necessary to put him down. He was 13 years old. I had only owned him two years. His untimely death was most unfortunate in my opinion, not so much from a selfish viewpoint as from the fact that a few astute horsemen were recognizing the horse
for the great progenitor he was. And that is the sage of Spotted Bull, in capsule, as I knew him.
2-time Champion Sire Three Oh’s, grandson of Spotted Bull, is shown with C.W. “Bubba” Cascio, Jake Cascio and Jerry Nicodemus. Speedhorse Archives 72 SPEEDHORSE February 2025