Legendary Ranches: The Horses, History And Traditions Of North America's Great Contemporary Ranches (Western Horseman Book) - Softcover

De Galard, Guy De; Endersby, Holly; Mccraine, Kathy; O'Byrne, Tim

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0911647805 ISBN 13: 9780911647808

Publisher: Western Horseman, 2008

Synopsis

Over a dozen traditional ranches are profiled, highlighting their history and impact on North America and its cattle and horse culture. Selected ranches from every part of the continent offer a wide representation of the ranching industry. Each chapter captures the spirit of the ranch, covering history, traditions, lifestyle, livestock practices and the human personalities who founded the outfit and those who guide it today. The collection abounds with interesting stories of how the ranches survived and thrive in a modern era, staying true to their roots and preserving the “cowboy way.”

About this title

About the Author

Tim O'Byrne was raised as an "army brat," finishing high school in Alberta. He then spent 16 years as a cowboy working on the big ranches of Alberta, British Columbia and the western United States. He now lives in Picture Butte, Alberta, with his wife Chris and their son Mark.

Smith was an associate editor with "Western Horseman" magazine and spent a number of years training horses and giving riding instruction. She has earned a state Quarter Horse association reining championship, showed in hunt-seat classes, and team penned.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

From the chapter titled “O RO Ranch”
“The O RO Ranch is different.
Many a legendary cowboy has left horse tracks in the shadow of Mount Hope, the imposing peak at its center that presides like an ancient pyramid over a grassy plain, flanked by high mountain ranges and rugged, gaping canyons. Those tracks, tracing back to an old Spanish land grant, have been swept away by time, but they live on today in the memories of a new generation of men who still spend their lives looking between the ears of a horse and following a cow.
At 257,000 acres, the O RO Ranch north of Prescott, Arizona, is certainly one of the largest, roughest, most remote ranches in the state. Separating it from its neighbors to the south is Burro Canyon, a mere jagged line on the map, but it may as well divide two different worlds. Cowboys still tell tales of the orejanas, wild unbranded cattle that dwell deep in the canyon, and since it's mostly inaccessible, even horseback, the whispered legends of these old mossybacks live on in the imagination.
Partly because the ranch is, for the most part, closed to the public by locked gate, there's an intangible mystique surrounding it. Anyone who's ever lived or worked here feels it.
Life on “the big outfit,” as former manager Bob Sharp called it in his 1974 book by the same name, might be more modernized today, but the people who live and work here are still a special breed, “more independent, carefree, proud and loyal,” as he put it.
The “RO's,” as local cow people know it, is still strictly a horseback outfit, and it's one of the few ranches left that runs a wagon, spring and fall – out of necessity, not for show. This is no place for “wanna-be” cowboys. A hand here had better be able to live in a tepee five to six months out of the year, shoe his own horses, mount a snorty horse at daylight, and spend a hard day in the saddle, come rain or shine. Men like these are a dying breed.”

About this edition

• Publisher: Western Horseman
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0911647805
• ISBN 13: 9780911647808
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 263