The red colt

Dad raised a small sorrel colt with a blazed face. He was a good-looking horse, well put together, as the cowboys say. When the time came to start breaking the colt,
a young man who was working for Dad begged for the opportunity to start this horse. Dad eventually agreed, wanting to pass on as much knowledge as possible and give the young man a chance to learn.

Dad coached him as he worked on this red colt, and after a few days of corral work, he was ready to ride. I can’t recall all the details, but what sticks in my memory is that the colt started bucking, and the young aspiring cowboy got thrown off a couple of times.   

Dad felt disheartened as he had high expectations for the colt. He turned to me and asked if I would take over the training. I agreed, realizing that it would be best to start over with the colt, essentially going back to ground zero in the training process. Things went smoothly with him. I don’t recall him ever bucking with me during that time; he seemed to be a quick learner and picked up his training well.   

At that age, I had more “get it done” than common sense. I had been riding him for about three weeks or so, and I had yet to rope anything from him. There was a bull that was lame from what we call foot rot, which was a simple infection in his front foot. I was attempting to load this bull into a trailer, the bull weighing 1,200 to 1,300 pounds. The young horse wasn’t very big, weighing around 900 pounds. The bull was hot, agitated and determined to go lie down. He had no intention of loading into the trailer. I was equally determined not to give up. In my youthful confidence, I made the poor decision to rope the bull to load him.

As expected, the situation quickly escalated from bad to worse. The horse, being young and still not handling well, caused me to lose control of my rope. The bull bolted off into the pasture with my rope around his horns. I knew I had to retrieve my rope, so I devised a plan. I galloped alongside the bull, intending to get close enough to grab my rope and free it from the bull’s horns.

As I closed in, the bull started hooking my horse in the chest with his left horn. Despite the danger, this courageous colt showed what he was made of and stayed right beside the bull. I managed to grab my rope and successfully retrieve it, thanks to my horse’s determination and bravery.

That little horse with a big heart was named Swighammer! Yup, you would have had to know my Dad to understand. Swighammer went on to be a tremendous cow horse, but even when he was older, on a cold morning and he was fresh, you could expect him to buck a little, just enough to make it fun.