English - 0303 Roanie whę
when
where why how
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THOMAS MCGUANE Doamne a remarcable
Thomas McGuane is the author of ten novels, including Ninety-Two in the Shade, which was nominated
for the 1973 National Book Award; Panama (1978): Nothing But Blue Skies (1999); and The Cadence of
Grass (2002). He has also written screenplays, including those for Missouri Breaks (1976) and Tom
Horn (1980). Increasingly, however, McGuane is becoming well-known for his skills as an essayist, es-
pecially after the publication of his 2000 collection The Longest Silence: A Life in Fishing, which show-
cased his sharp wit and elegant style. McGuane lives in Sweet Grass County, Montana.
In this essay, from McGuane's collection Some Horses (1999), the author describes a rather re-
markable horse, one that seems to transcend his species. "Cutting horses" have traditionally been
used to separate a chosen cow from a herd. Typically, the cow does not want to leave the herd's
safety and will do everything in its power to elude the horse. The cutting horse must be smarter,
faster, and more agile than the cow. In the twentieth century, cutting evolved into a sport, with regu-
lar competitions and even a hall of fame. "Roanie" describes this world.
Sight
There is a notion that you get only one great horse in a lifetime, a persistent notion
that I hope isn't true; because, if that is the case, I've already had mine, in fact still
have him though he is an arthritic old man twenty-six years old. His name is Lucky
Bottom 79 and he was already a terrific horse when I acquired him over twenty
years ago, though for some reason, he wasn't doing much and had a reputation
for being a bronc that had probably kept someone else from buying him. He is
called Roanie for his red roan coat, a coat that turns almost purple in the summer, Sight
and he is not a very pretty horse. In fact, he won an informal contest one year in
Hamilton for being the ugliest horse in Montana. He has a slight Roman nose, ac-
tually called the "Burt bump" for a trait inherited from his grandsire Burt. As to the
length of his head, it's been remarked that he can drink from a fifty-gallon drum
and still keep an eye on you. His sire was a good horse called Lucky Star Mac, an
Oklahoma Star-bred horse; and his mother was a racehorse named Miss Glimpse.
Roanie is one of those hotheaded horses about which people say, "The only safe
Movement place is on his back." He can kick in any direction, has actually stripped the buttons-touch/moviement
off the front of a man's shirt, and the extreme suspicion that is continuously in his
imagery
eye doesn't come from nowhere. Roanie was not the sort of horse Buster prefers
but he once said to me, "Boy, when he was on, that roan horse was unbelievable!"
Lucky Bottom 79 was trained by a part-Cherokee cowboy named Ed Bottom,
who is, any way you look at it, an outstanding horseman who had made an everlast-
ing mark training calf-roping and cutting horses for nearly half a century. Like Buster
1
me like mercury
low, quick, and throwing me such an elegant head fake I'm lucky I didn't fall down.
Ed Bottom lives in Asher, Oklahoma, next door to the Barrow farm, former
home of Clyde Barrow. One of Ed's childhood heroes was a family friend, Pretty
Boy Floyd, and Ed remembers Pretty Boy coming home from robberies, hiding his
shot-up Hudson in a sheep shed, giving all the kids silver dollars, and pitching
horseshoes with the grown-ups.
I traveled to Oklahoma to try Roanie and I remember two things distinctly.
When I went out to the corral to saddle and work a cow on him, Mrs. Bottom said,
"Don't fall off."
Welch, Ed is a member of the Cutting Horse Hall of Fame. Yesterday ole tried to catch
, SightI movement