(as told to Walt Thayer, Box 2175, Wenatchee, WA 98801)
The story of the famous bucking horse, Midnight, in a recent
edition of Real West, prompts me to tell what I know about bucking
horses.
The greatest of them all, in my opinion, was a beautiful blood
bay called ‘Pin Ears,’ owned by Johnnie Wig toe of 20-Mile
the time he was born. He made 53 riders bite the dust before anyone
rode to the finish. That was long before the ‘sissy Holly
wonders’ thought up the flank strap.
Pin Ears was a ‘sun fisher’ and sometimes it looked like
he’d come down flat on one side or the other, but he always hit
the ground on his feet. With a tight buckled flank strap a horse
can’t get his head down to buck like the old timers. That’s
why every bucker of later years comes out just kicking his heels up
and all but standing on his head. Hard to sit, sure, but I
wouldn’t walk across the street to watch a bucker nowadays.
There were other famous bucking horses equally as good as
Midnight, such as Steamboat and some from the Northwest like Rubber
Doll, Shake ‘Em Down Sally, Snake, 5 Minutes to Midnight and
Badger Mountain.
After I retired from rodeo, ranching and the Wild West shows, my
friend, Gordon Yowell of Walla Walla, Washington bought a lot of my
early day equipment for his museum, such as saddle, hair bridle,
spurs, spinning ropes, beaded gloves and even my trunk I had when I
was with the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show. We had a certain kind of
trunk that would stand the gaff. I bought a 24′ one from Cy
Compton, the Chief of the Cowboys. He and his wife had a big one.
Several rare photos were glued to the tray lid and I couldn’t
get them off to use with my stories.
