Selling Louie LaClaire's grey bronc

Louie LaClaire from Warm Springs had a horse sale at the Redmond Auction yard and sold 80 head of horses he had consigned there. He hired Ansel and Jim Stirewalt to ride them all through the ring for him. He had a few other guys that would bring the horses up and keep them saddled so Jim and Ansel just had to get on every other one and ride them through the ring.

Ansel described how he and Jim would sell the horses. ( a Livestock Sales ring has a large IN door on one side and a second OUT door on the other) He said you rode the horse saddled into the small sales ring and after you turned the horse around a few times in the sales ring, you pulled your saddle off and set it down beside the IN door, then led the horse around the sales ring until it sold, then you led it out the OUT door. Jim would ride the next horse in, someone would have picked up your saddle to put on the next horse. So they each rode every other horse though the sale.

It was all going like clock work until this big good looking grey horse came up through the line.

Louie said the ole grey would buck some so they'd have to be careful… so Ansel immediately announced with authority that Jim could ride him. He figured it was all settled, since Jim didn’t say anything.

Darned if the next time he went out to get on his next horse, and there was the grey horse with his saddle on him and Jim was already in the ring. That bugger Jim he mused. He said he thought about it for a minute, and realized it would mess things up if he balked, so he decided he could probably steel a ride on him and get him sold.

So he ended up riding him in the sale ring turned him around a few times, and then he stepped off, and pulled his saddle with out any problems. The grey horse was a real good looking one, and ended up being the high selling horse.

Then next day Ansel got a call from the guy that had bought the big grey horse and said he wanted Ansel to come out to his ranch and ride him ‘cause he’d already bucked off four of his best cowboys.

Ansel said, Nope, he wouldn’t do that beins those cowboys that got bucked off had spoiled him and trained him to buck, an he wasn’t going to get bucked off.