Horse Handles

 Horse Handles 

                                                                              By

                                                                       Mike Capron

I can remember Gene Autrey’s horse was named “Champ” and of course Trigger of Roy Rogers. Lots of famous horses like Doc Bar and Secretariat which I remember but don’t have a clue why they were named that. Handles show up by accident and they stick. I have named horses because they remind me of another horse like Champ. I had a Champ once because he came to me without a name and I thought he was the spitting image of Gene’s horse Champ. It was bad luck to change a horse’s name, so if you bought a horse and his name was mud, you never changed it, it was mud from then on. But if he didn’t have a name you could give him a name.

 As the family was growing up it was fun to give all the animals names , and the kids got right into the act. I bought Wilson a horse when he was 5 or 6 that didn’t have a name. I ask Wilson what he was going to name him, without hesitation he said, “Orange Crush”, of course that was his favorite drink. 

He said, “He is orange isn’t he,”

It stuck and we still know who Orange Crush is….

The kids were good at naming the animals. They had trouble finding a name for a little dun horse and so his name got stuck with Dunny.  There was a little fancy black horse on the 6 bar ranch that we all liked to ride, we named him Chinati , someone said that was the name for Blackbird in Spanish, I am not sure but that name stuck. He was a horse with a strong attitude and sometimes he would buck a little. Anne could ride him and he never humped up with her. She claimed he was sweet and you had to be sweet to him.

I was riding some horses for Bob Reagan and they were all by a  Grey Stud out of some good King ranch mares. All were 3 years old and a great string of horses. Only one was a bucker and a good bucker he was. He had a great move that I never figured out how to negotiate. Some one was watching him one day and ask me what his name was.? I told him we hadn’t named him yet. 

He said, “ If I was you I would call him Alpo”.    It stuck. I rode him with a charro saddle(that had a machete on it},  the saddle fit his back real well and I could’t ride him when he bucked in any saddle, so I tried to make him as comfortable as possible. We sold him when we left the 6 bar to the Figure Two ranch and Paul Henderson was manager. During one cow work Paul ask Jack Kincaid if he would mind riding Alpo?

Jack said, “I don’t have a machete, but I think I can ride him if I go to the pick-up and get my ax”.

  Others come to mind that were good strong horses and their handles stuck and still describe them. Bugs, Rebel, Spider and Wilson’s head horse he called………Flash.

 Captain Crunch was another strong character. He was athletic, strong, had a bad attitude every time you saddled him and would put on a good show every time you rode him ,but not a bad hard bucker, but made lots of noise , squawking, crunching and grinding his teeth , Anne said she could hear him from the house. I was looking forward to getting him settled down into a working routine but he died before I got that done. I was upset but Anne said everything is for the best. 

Spook was another strong individual. He came to us because he was so hard to use. He had a very had time learning to raise a hind foot. He was very very difficult to put hind shoes on. The owner got tired of shoeing him, so we got to buy him cheap. He got the name Spook honestly because he spooked at many different things. You had to be on the ready when you rode him. Because he would spook at so many different things.

Another super individual was Juanito, he had a registered name that we shortened to Juanito. He was another favorite of Anne’s. He was smooth and a great herd horse. But he didn’t like the stiff bushes.

I had a friend ask me to do a painting of his horse named Mudflap. I said I would need a photo as I hadn’t painted many mudflaps………!!!!!!  No telling where that name came from.