Welcome to Milliron Monday where every Monday we celebrate the legacy of Pete Smith, D.V.M., and Milliron: Abbott “Pete” Smith, D.V.M. The Biography (Monday Creek Publishing 2017). A graduate of Colorado State University and a well-known veterinarian in southeast, Ohio, Dr. Smith continues to motivate and inspire. Follow along every Milliron Monday to revisit Dr. Smith's biography.
Stored in a box of important papers, Jody Smith found Pete's high school notebook. The notebook contained homework, graded with comments by the teacher. A treasure of a find, Pete had written stories and poems of his high school days. Pete's children had never seen the notebook; they never read the stories. For Pat, Pete's son, I was inspired to place all of Pete's high school stories and poems into one collection - The South High Horseman: Stories and Poems by a Teen Cowboy. Here is an excerpt...
Another Horse to Break
I sat on the top pole of the weatherbeaten corral contemplating the four-year-old sorrel stallion which was standing by the far wall.
“He sure is a beauty, isn’t he Burl?” I said more than asked.
“He’s all right,” was the reply, “he’ll make a good horse once he’s gentled down.”
There was silence again as Burl took a sack of Bull Durham from his left shirt pocket. He opened the sack with his teeth, a thumb, and a forefinger. Taking a cigarette paper from the side of the sack, he held it between his thumb and forefinger and made a trough into which he poured a little pile of dry brown tobacco. He pulled the drawstrings shut and put the sack back in his pocket. The lithe muscular fingers smoothed out the stuff, and with a rolling motion of thumbs and forefingers he enveloped it in the fine white paper. He licked the cigarette along the seam and twisting one end put the other between his lips.
Lighting a match on his Levis, he held it cupped in his tanned and calloused hands while he lit his cigarette; then rubbing the burned out match with his fingers, he held it by the tip and dropped it into the dirt.
“You know what I’d like to see?”
“No, what?”
“A wild horseshoeing contest.”
“That’s about the only thing they didn’t have at Cheyenne this year.”
We looked again at the horse. He sure was a dandy.
“What do you say we do it like they do in the wild horse racing at Cheyenne?”
“All right by me; let’s go.”
I took my nylon rope and started walking.
“I’ll squeeze him past you along the fence,” Burl volunteered.
“All right, I’ll catch him and let him pull me around till you get there. Then we can work up to him along the rope, and - well, no need making any long range plans, I guess.”
Burl went around him, and the horse started past me along the fence. I caught him and held on. Burl got there, and together we worked up to him along the thirty-three feet of rope. We finally got to his head.
“You want to mug him while I go get the saddle?” I asked.
“O.K.”
I held the rope while Burl clamped on to the poor critter’s head with the vice-like grip of a bulldogger and sank his teeth into the horse’s right ear.
The saddle, bridle, and blanket were huddled in the corner. I got them and went back to Burl and the horse.
Throwing the sheepskin blanket on, I cinched up the saddle and took the rope.
“You can let go of Reddy’s ear now if you want to,” I said.
He did.
I forced the horse’s jaws, slipped in the snaffle bit, and adjusted the bridle while Burl held the rope. It was a beat-up old bridle with no jowl strap or even a curb. Somehow I was really attached to the old thing though. It was just right for the job since I didn’t have a hackamore. Couldn’t hurt his mouth with some accidental sharp pull like if you were using a spade bit. Still you could discipline him.
Gripping the reins beneath his quivering lower lip, I gave a last look at the rigging.
I passed the right rein over his neck, and pulling his head to the left, I mounted him easily and confidently. It seemed strange to me how I was always nervous while fooling around with a horse that I knew was going to buck. Once I was on him the feeling disappeared and everything in me solidified; my whole system settled down. It felt good up there.
Automatically I took a deep seat and swinging my stirrups slightly forward leaned just a little bit back; then as I took a long rein, he felt the slack and started giving me everything he had.
Explaining how I feel when I’m riding a bucking horse is hard. There’s an odd sensation of knowing the horse is bucking, but there’s no real feeling to it. It’s like fighting, in that I’m kind of numb through the rest of the fight after the first wallop.
As the horse bucked I suddenly began to feel off balance. The horse felt it too, and with a sudden burst of earnest bucking he unloaded me solidly into the corral fence. I wonder what it would be like to fly. I was probably in the air long enough to find out.
Had the horse been one of the stock buckers we kept around for rodeo purposes I would have felt like calling it a day, but you can’t do that when you’re breaking a horse. If you’re still whole you’ve got to get back on and ride him out. The worst thing I could have done would have been to let the son of a gun think that he had accomplished something by throwing me.
It was for these reasons that I gathered myself from the fence and ambled over to the horse. I happened to glance at Burl just then. He was meditating over a spot on his hand with as straight a face as you’d hope to see.
I managed to corner the horse and taking the reins, I again mounted him. He shied badly as I got on, and for a minute I thought I was done for, but somehow I stayed with him. For what seemed like a long time he tossed and turned, bucked, crow hopped, and bucked again, never sparing me a second’s rest.
Bucking is hard on a horse though; it jars his every bone, raises havoc with his joints, and pulls his muscles besides taking a lot of energy. A good minute of that is approximately equal to a good day’s work.
Four minutes of hard amateur bucking and this horse was through. He stopped, and in short, jumpy steps started walking.
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