OklahomaHorses Magazine May 2023

10 OklahomaHorses • May / June 2023 career during the mid-1930s. He was notorious for running fast and then coming to a dead stop when the cow was roped. Most cowboys couldn’t handle that and tumbled over Baldy’s head. Baldy was owned by Rodeo Hall of Fame world champion ropers Ike Rude of Mangum, then Clyde Burk of Comanche, and then Troy Fort of Lovington, New Mexico. Baldy steered his riders into more than $300,000 in winnings, branding him as a champion. And there’s the bulldogging horse Baby Doll Combs. From 1953 to 1960, her riders earned more than $400,000. A gravestone at the rodeo cemetery pays homage to the mare, an inductee into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame and Oklahoma Quarter Horse Hall of Fame that Life Magazine featured twice. Artist, cowboy, and rancher Channing Peake and his wife, Katy, owned team roping horse Poker Chip, also memorialized at the cemetery. World champion roper Dale Smith bought Poker Chip, then lassoed back-to-back gold buckles in 1956 and 1957. Other horses are remembered in the gardens, including Hell’s Angel, Steamboat, and Elijah the packhorse. Plus there’s Abilene, the 2,100-pound Texas longhorn steer. As the museum’s mascot and public- relations ambassador, Abi moseyed along in parades and rodeos. “There is no cowboy story without horses,” Grauer said. “Horses play a key role in that. And there are no cowboys without cows. So those two animals are critical to the cowboy story. Famous horses like these are critical to telling that story in a compelling way. People come to the museum to pay their respects to their heroes on the silver screen or rodeo or other. These animals are congruent to that.” Grauer added, “Cowboys represent freedom and liberty across the world. They are the most recognized symbol, bar none. The horse is critical to how the world sees a cowboy. So a person on horseback is a person who is free. And having these horses here is a way to connect to the past. Midnight was unridable, for example, and to be close to even the remains is being in the presence of a giant.” Freckles Brown on 461 Tornado (Shoulders), ‘67 NFR Oklahoma City, OK. Ferrell Butler, 1967, photographic print. PRCA Rodeo Sports News Photographs, Dickinson Research Center, National Cowboy &Western Heritage Museum. 1998.008.2580.