ROUND UP ON THE HAYTHORN RANCH ARTHUR, NEBRASKA In the mid to late 1960s, I think it was, the judge of the Quarter Horse show of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo was a man named Waldo Haythorn from Ogalalla, Nebraska. I first met him early in the show as the judge of the Youth Horse Show. A week or so later, he judged the AQHA Horse Show. Waldo had been described to me as a rancher and wellknown steer roper. He owned a large, if not the largest ranch in Nebraska. That information led me to believe that he would like a big, strong horse, so I made sure I brought a horse to the Quarter Horse show I knew he would love, Penny’s Rojo. Rojo was a 3 year old and would show in the junior gelding class. He stood a little over 16 hands high, was a bright red sorrel and looked like he could pull down a barn. I was also showing Busy San, a gorgeous 4 year old gelding by Leo San and out of a Joe Reed mare in the senior gelding class. I had already won everything but the grand stand, including the Junior Western Pleasure, but arrogant me
wanted both Grand and Reserve Gelding. Well, Waldo did choose Busy San as Grand Champion Gelding but did not pick Penny’s Rojo as Reserve Champion. Good sportsmanship prevailed, and I remained gracious and polite, but I was still ticked off. The next week, we went to New Orleans to the annual AQHA Convention where I ran into Waldo Haythorn at breakfast one morning. I joined the group and everyone at the table proceeded to swap horse stories. Out of the blue, Waldo, looked at me across the table and said, “You thought I should have used your junior gelding as Reserve Champion in Houston, didn’t you? You knew he was my kind of horse.” I agreed that I had been more than a little surprised and had not been happy with his selection. He answered, “I’m going to buy that horse from you and it would have looked bad for me to make him Reserve and then buy him.” My mouth fell open, and I waited for the rest of his proposal, as I had not been trying to sell the horse. Waldo said he had some 30 brood mares of Eddy and Joe Hancock breeding that would not foal until late May or June. He proposed trading me his entire filly crop, regardless of the number born, for Penny’s Rojo. As he said, there might be two fillies or there might be 20. I thought about it for a few minutes and stuck my hand out and said, “Deal.” I shipped Penny’s Rojo out to Waldo’s son, Craig, who was attending Texas Tech in Lubbock. Then I waited for weaning time on the Haythorn Ranch in Nebraska. We arrived at the ranch in October to pick up 13 prime weanling fillies, plus one or two yearling fillies Waldo had decided to throw in for good measure. I should point out that Waldo traded fillies because they only used geldings for their ranch work and really had no use for the fillies. Today, the ranch has a much larger herd of brood mares and a production sale each year. It just so happened that a cattle buyer had contracted for 150 head of yearling Hereford steers to go in a feed lot, and Waldo and the ranch hands were preparing to round up about 1000
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Pat’s Horse Tales
