colts

when i got out of high school  i didnt want to work the summer away on the cotton farm my dad ran. i had a belly full of hoeing weeds, irrigatting cotton and other miserable jobs that i felt were fit for lower classes of folks!! but i had no other choice. thats all there was in my home town at the time,cotton. there were a couple feedlots goin in but my chances of goin to work there were slim and none.  or so i thought. one night the phone rang and it was for my dad.  when he got off the phone he let us in on what was goin on. you see in those days you didnt ease drop on someones phone conversations, not in our house anyway, not if you knew what was good for you.
     it seems the manager at toveras or t&c cattle company as it was called needed some one to start some colts. if it worked out i would have a part time job when i went to school in the fall. my dad had told sam that he could get by without me as i worthless as a cotton farmer.
   my  dad and mom went to church with sam and helen the manager at toveras.  sam had seen some colts i had started in high school and thought i would be alright. well i went to work with a porters saddle a hackamore and a know it all attitude. boy was i in for a education. sam white knew more ways to gentle a colt and put a finish on one than almost anyone i met before or since. lots of top knotch horse trainers started out working for sam, then moved on to greater things. i cant say that about me, but i had some sucsess with my horses. i over the years showed some horses, having the state champion stallion two years running, and qualified him to the national show in all the cattle events.  this was with the things i learned working for sam breaking colts.  sam would come to the round corral and set there as i worked with a green colt talking to me. with out knowing it i was doing things sam wanted me to do and learning all the time. 
   i also found sam to be a prankster, a rough prankster. i would spend a week in the round pen with a colt , get a ride or two in then slip them out side. now there was no open country there abouts. it was accross a asphalt road in front of the barn and 100 yard up it to the main gate into the feedlot, the scale house set just beyond there. it had great big windows over looking the yard and down the road to the horse barn.  the first colt i took out of the round pen and started up the road to the yard was snorty, skittish and tempermental.  he had already run away with me in the round pen to the point we both got dizzy.  but i thought i had him ready to go.  as i almost got to the gate i looked up and here  come sam rollin a metal garbage can right at us!!  old colt stood for that about 5 seconds and we left, headed back to the barn!!i just went along for the ride, seemed like the thing to do at the time. it took me another week to get that colt back up that road, every time he would snort stamp his foot and if he couldnt run off would run backwards!! all this time sam was laughin his self silly. but i got even.
   we were weighin fat cattle one mornin. the last 5 steers wouldnt take the last step onto the scales. two of us a horse back were pushin the gate as hard as we could , our horses shoulderin into the gate and us hollerin and cussin. sam came out of the scale house with a hot shot. he handed me the hadle end with him holdin the business end when i grabbed the handle i got ahold of the button. ole sam let loose real quick!! he glared at me with fire in his eye. i smiled and said sorry. after a second he smiled and said were even.  over the next 6 years i started all the colts there with the exception of one crop when i was in the service. and what colts they were, 2 full brothers were rebel cause, tonto bar gill bred. both went to the track and could run a hole in the wind. the oldest one winning the consolation at the all american.  some were foundation bred quarter horse, buzzy bell h, tony, music mount , pelican and hancock.  mares were bred to rebel cause, vangard, little request and a little leo, yellow wolf stud that came from new mexico. he was just a cow pony stud but i think his colts were probably the best of the bunch.
    when i found out by mistake that sam was leaving i didnt see any sense in staying. never since have i run into a cow outfit, feedyard or ranch with such horses . of course i guess its easy to look back and say they were the best. but ill always believe they were.