I never give up, even after being bucked off

Afew years ago, we bred two mares with a Frenchmans Guy stud up in Arkansas. That stud is Frenchmans Guy on top and Doc O Lena on bottom. He’s about 15 hands tall. They rope and run barrels on him and they’ve got several colts that have become good rope and barrel horses as well.

I don’t like horses that are much over 15 hands tall because if they don’t make a rope or barrel horse it seems they are harder to sell. The smaller type horses seem to sell better and they eat less too. So, this horse was the best fit for our two mares.

One mare was used as a reining horse until she got hurt. She is kind of foundation bred. She’s got Checotah Bee and Zippo Pine Bars on her papers. The other mare we rope and run barrels on. She is War Leo and Doc Bar. She had a tendency to buck after she hurt her stifle. She had never bucked before that stifle injury, but we didn’t own her long before she got hurt either. So we really didn’t know if she was a bucker or not.

The colts were born about three weeks apart and we were lucky enough to get two stud colts. The Checotah Bee mare had a blue roan colt. The Leo mare had a sorrel colt.

We fooled with them a lot. This summer they turned three. The Leo colt my daughter sent to a good trainer. The roan colt I sent to a cowboy on a ranch. The trainer told us the Leo colt would buck. The roan colt came back from the cowboy and he said he’s really level headed. I guess that Leo mare passed the bucking on to her colt.

My daughter decided to sell the sorrel colt because she’s going to be gone for three years to Chiropractor school. I sent him over to the cowboy to be rode. He said he will try to buck a little, but he has always been able to pull his head up. He said he is smart, cat footed and really cowy.

So I get this sorrel colt home and I want to ride him. I have the idea of making videos roping the team roping dummy we pull with the four wheeler. I get on him and I can tell he’s a little humpy. He walks around with a hump in his back. I take my time and try to walk it out of him, which eventually his back levels out and he begins to move around normal. So, I ask him to lope a circle. Things are going ok and I’m really enjoying the ride. He’s a quick timed type of a horse and he’s short necked. I’m thinking he is going to be fun to rope on.

Now we had loped circles for about ten minutes. I’m smart enough to try to get him a little tired, so hopefully I’ve got all the buck rode out of him before we pull the sled and I’ve got a rope in one hand. We are loping around as pretty as you please, he’s got that rockin chair lope down as pretty and smooth as can be. That little colt buried his head and I mean did start to buck. I pulled on his head and he just put it down between his front knees and bawled like a bull just turned out in a heifer pasture.

Now, there’s two things going through my mind, pride and self preservation. On one hand my wife and son are watching so I don’t want to jump off, because they will rawhide me from now on and call me too old to ride colts. On the other hand I am thinking this will likely mean a trip to the chiropractor or at minimum a few cortisone injections from the old doctor at the walk in clinic in town.

This durned colt is giving an NFR performance and for a few jumps and I’m staying hooked. Shoot, I felt like Billy Etbauer on one of them from the eliminator pen. There ain’t nothing to this, his bucking is as smooth as his short lope. I was having fun. Then the danged bridle rein broke, oh crap.

I was using that bridle rein just like a saddle bronc rider, lifting to keep my big butt in the saddle when he made a jump. When the rein broke my ability to stay in time with him went bye-bye. He launched me like I was shot out of a cannon. At one point I could see him underneath me as I was flying up, up and away. That didn’t hurt at all, coming loose from him.

When I hit the ground, now that hurt. I tried to hit and roll out of the way. I landed in front of him. The only problem was I rolled with legs and arms flaying and flopping. My shoulder popped, hip sockets and back all popped. When I stopped rolling that durned colt was almost on top of me. He could have stomped me into a mud pie there in the arena dirt. Just as he was about to squish me, he stopped dead still and put his nose down on my face. I think he was checking to see if I was alive.

Now, I’ve always, always been taught to get back on a colt so long as your able. So after I was able to stand back up, I stepped right back in the middle of him. We loped a few more circles. I didn’t try to rope the dummy, my shoulder hurt too bad. I loped and loped him and he never made a false move.

I got off him and handed the reins to my wife. She unsaddled him while I went for some Advil and a shot of medicinal Jack Daniels. That evening I took a hot bath. As I hobbled my way into the living room she gave me a little kiss and said, “That’s why I married you, you never quit, even when you should.” That made the pain go away better than the Advil, I walked into the living room almost without a limp, almost.

EDITOR’S NOTE: James Lockhart lives near the Kiamichi Mountains in southeast Oklahoma. He writes cowboy stories and fools with cows and horses.