not that long ago

[jodywy]

The pictures of the horses and 5th wheels moving cows. Remember the ton truck and bigger trucks with stock racks. Then backing or pulling into a bar pit so you didn't have to pull out the ramp to unload the horses. Seemed we rode longer then now with the trailers.

 

[Big Muddy rancher]

The pictures of the horses and 5th wheels moving cows. Remember the ton truck and bigger trucks with stock racks. Then backing or pulling into a bar pit so you didn't have to pull out the ramp to unload the horses. Seemed we rode longer then now with the trailers.

Ain't that the truth.

We had a F700 with a 18 ft box. so we could use quite a few banks and road ditches to unload. I remember gathering 15 sections then trailing yearlings 10 miles to town then turning around leading a couple saddle horses and start for home. The kids complain when i even suggest that now. :lol: :lol:

 

[Soapweed]

Dad bought a brand new 1963 Ford 3/4 ton single-cab four-wheel-drive pickup, with a narrow eight-foot box and running boards. A hired man who was a good welder made a nice pipe stock rack. Two horses could be hauled in the pickup, but only if they didn't have on saddles. The same hired hand, whose name was Skeeter, also made a nice "home-made" horse trailer of steel with plywood sides. It could also hold two horses, as long as they weren't wearing saddles. This pickup and trailer was our main cattle drive / branding / 4-H / county fair / etc. traveling vehicle for many years.

Highway rules weren't as fussy as they are now. I recall one cattle drive in particular. This would have been the fall of 1963. The highway south of Merriman didn't go all the way through in those days, so we had to go west of Merriman fifteen miles to the Irwin turn-off, and then south about twenty more miles to get to our summer range. There were some horses already there, but we were hauling two horses on the pickup and two on the trailer. Probably at least six saddles were strapped onto the stock rack. My dad, mother, and two sisters rode in the front, with Dad driving. Skeeter, my cousins Ken Moreland and John Fairhead, and I each had a running board to stand on. One of the running boards also was cluttered up with the spare tire rack, so one of us had to share space with the tire. It wasn't what anyone would call particularly safe, but we traveled in this manner for the forty miles to the pasture. Ken's hat blew off at one point, but I think we got Dad to stop so we could fetch it.

Skeeter carried a 9-shot pistol in a nice left-handed leather holster that Gerald Goodwin had made especially for him. Somehow, as we trailed cattle, the pistol bounced out of the holster. We looked hard for it at the time, but couldn't find it. Everyone always kept their eyes open trying to find it for the next several years. Finally in the spring of 1968, I was about half dozing in my saddle, and looked down at a shiny object which proved to be the pistol. It wasn't in too bad of shape for having laid on the ground for the past four and a half years.

 

[littlejoe]

then a guy figures out to haul them backwards in pickup and weight's ahead of the back axle and butt's to the wind. then got old Smoky to jump in and out right in middle of county road. (gotta take the tailgate off, it don't feel solid)

Smoky would always be up for a ride home---and really, it don't take a stockrack to haul a horse, they never lean on it or anything anyhow--that'd get the occasional second look..

 

[Big Muddy rancher]

We were the end of the line of kids going into town for 4H so we would load up my sister's and my horses and maybe a couple for kids that didn't have one then stop a couple times and load up horses for kids that didn't have a way to haul them. I remember one time coming home from the Ogema fair one of our members was hauling his horse in the back of a pick up. The horse jumped out along the road, they got stopped and caught the horse so we found a bank and loaded him on with our load and took him home.

We did have a rank mare jump out of the back of the stock truck one time. We were coming down a big hill with a 50 ft ditch and she jumped over pretty high racks and down the ditch and ran for a few miles. Got her into a neighbors corral and loaded her up. I hope a Frenchman didn't choke on her. :lol: :lol:

 

[Soapweed]

Back in the early 1970's, my mother's cousin and her family were visiting from Minnesota. There were four wild little boys in the mix, and they kind of kept all the horses, cattle, dogs, and cats on edge while they were here. A trail ride was to occur on the river south of town, so we used a horse trailer to haul some horses to the site. Dad had these four wild little boys with him in the 1963 pickup, with one snorty horse on board tied to the top pipe of the stock rack, and they headed down the road. They hadn't gone half a mile when the horse spooked, jumped over the top of the cab of the pickup, put both front feet through the windshield, rolled off the hood of the pickup, and took off running dragging the piece of pipe that had once been part of the stock rack. Thankfully, outside of shattered glass being all over the kids and the seat of the pickup, no casualties occurred. That horse blew his chances of getting to be ridden on the trail ride.

Here is a link to the husband of my mother's cousin, and a couple of the two afore mentioned boys.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Najarian

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Najarian

 

[leanin' H]

Grandpa never hauled a horse. Said it ruined a good horse to haul him when you could ride. We hauled horses and cows in our stock rack all the time growing up. Remember my Dad putting two in the rack and pulling 2 in a two horse trailer going hunting. I gathered cows all day for a neighbor who hired me when i was 15. Dad dropped me off up at his ranch about daylight and i helped him (he was in his 80s and didnt ride anymore) get his cows down off the forest. Made it back to his ranch right at dark with the last few pair. Dad had been there (no phone there or cell phone then) and then left to go look for us. I said i'd start riding home in the dark and hopefully meet dad. Its about 10 miles back to town. Colin said lets load your horse and head down. He only had a flatbed without a rack. I said i better just ride and he told me i didnt know my horse very well. So i decided he was more experienced than me and we backed into a barditch and Cimmaron jumped on. Colin had me hold the reins through the passenger side window and away we went, not very fast. Met dad about 1/3 of the way home and he sure had a funny look on his face when he passed us. Went on home and Cimm jumped off. Dad told me i was too young to know better but Colin should of. :lol: :lol: :lol: Cimm was a heck of a horse and i think he figured hitching a ride was better that having to walk home, rack or not!

 

[Denny]

Grandpa never hauled a horse. Said it ruined a good horse to haul him when you could ride. We hauled horses and cows in our stock rack all the time growing up. Remember my Dad putting two in the rack and pulling 2 in a two horse trailer going hunting. I gathered cows all day for a neighbor who hired me when i was 15. Dad dropped me off up at his ranch about daylight and i helped him (he was in his 80s and didnt ride anymore) get his cows down off the forest. Made it back to his ranch right at dark with the last few pair. Dad had been there (no phone there or cell phone then) and then left to go look for us. I said i'd start riding home in the dark and hopefully meet dad. Its about 10 miles back to town. Colin said lets load your horse and head down. He only had a flatbed without a rack. I said i better just ride and he told me i didnt know my horse very well. So i decided he was more experienced than me and we backed into a barditch and Cimmaron jumped on. Colin had me hold the reins through the passenger side window and away we went, not very fast. Met dad about 1/3 of the way home and he sure had a funny look on his face when he passed us. Went on home and Cimm jumped off. Dad told me i was too young to know better but Colin should of. :lol: :lol: :lol: Cimm was a heck of a horse and i think he figured hitching a ride was better that having to walk home, rack or not!

A guy from north of town had a horse that would ride in the back of a pickup one time he took a corner a little to Beer fast and Mouse fell out and rolled into the ditch he jumped up and they said get in and Mouse just jumped right back in and away they went.

 

[loomixguy]

When I was a kid, every Labor Day about 4 o'clock Dad would either fire up the 64 or 66 Chevy and head the nine miles up to the pasture where Twister and his widows had been playing house since the first of May. About all it took was to pull up to the gate and honk. That old stud would come on the run. You better have the tailgate down and the gate open, cause he was getting in that pickup box, with no halter or encouragement. He wanted to go home to his pen and shed and eat grain twice a day, by golly!

The nine miles home was all highway, and we got the damndest looks from folks when they realized there was a loose horse in the back of the pickup. Twister was quite a character.

 

[LazyWP]

There was a guy that lived about 30 miles south of Ainsworth. Always had his horse with him, and was always at the bar. From what I have heard, he never had stock racks, and would sorta tie the horse to the pickup. Horse would get out, and graze til it was time to go home, then jump back in like a dog.
I only saw him going down the road with him in the back, going down the road.

 

[Grandad]

I had a horse, when I was a kid, that was happy to ride in the back of a pickup without any stock racks. I would ride up to the back of the truck, jump the horse in, climb off and away we would go.

 

[Ho55]

My Dad use to tell me of the winter of 77. It had snowed 6ft on the winter ranges. Cattle were snowed in and they had to break trails with their horses to get them to the county road so they could get them to corals to load them out. It took several weeks of work. They built chaps out of old Levi's for their horses front legs to keep from cutting up there legs. They had a 72 Ford with racks. Dad said when they got done their horses jumped right in. No bar pit or ramp needed. The horses had had enough.

 

[tamarack]

I had a colt that I bottle fed and would put him in back seat of my car and cruse town got to meet lots of girls with him at that time.After I moved from home I returned about a year later and he tried to climb in the pickup cab with me in it had a hard time breaking him of the habit. When I returned home next time Dad had sold him to a pack string heading to the Yukon.

 

[mustang]

When I was five or six, my older brother and I herded our milk cows along the country roads in the summer. We had a half breed Shetland/ Arabian pony to ride. The cows were pretty adept at finding holes in Mr. Masons fence. My dad didn't like it much when Mr. Mason would complain that his barley was being tromped down by our cows. We became pretty efficient at getting the Arab part of that pony through a 4 wire fence by pushing the bottom two wires down, while lifting the top two up. Ol Dandy would squeeze through in about five seconds flat, so we could have the cows back out on the road before Mr. Mason could see they were in his field.

 

[jeff in ca]

Great topic; took a trip down memory lane myself, recalling all the old trucks that were in the valley in the 70's. Every place had at least a one ton with a rack and their brands painted on the front.

Highway rules weren't as fussy as they are now.
Back when I was kid used to go town and see the trucks lined the streets near the water holes a couple came in with no racks at all. Some how these guys all lived to be a ripe old age..

 

[RSL]

Enjoyed this thread. I now realize that growing up we were at least 20+ years behind the times. I remember when I was about 16 being invited to a trail ride. We did not have a stock trailer and we rode everywhere. Dad and I taught an 18 year old saddle horse to load in the stock racks and I headed to the trail ride. Everyone else had a fancy trailer and younger horses. My little brother was staying at a neighbour's and I met him there. I hauled him double on the ride and at the end, all the young horses were totally played out. My 18 year old who had been ridden about 10 miles in the morning moving cattle and probably close to 75 miles during the week was just getting ready to go as the ride was wrapping up.
I jumped her back into the truck to take her home and folks were totally amazed. A couple of older guys still talk about that trail ride and the roan horse.