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.

Smuggling Mexico Money

Ansel remembers in the 40’s there was a limit to how much money you could legally bring out of Mexico into the US… Ansel forgot how much the limit was, probably $25,000 a year he guessed. There was a guy in Mexico that had a lot that he wanted to bring in, so he had a scheme of smuggling the money in through canner horses. He got everything he was going to smuggle in U.S. $1000.00 bills. He’d take 5 of the $1000.00 bills and wrap them in plastic folded just once lengthwise, then he’d slit the skin under the mane and put 5-$1000. wrapped in plastic and folded lengthwise in the incision, crudely stitch them up, and put them on a truck to be taken to a slaughter house in Arizona. Then there was someone in the Arizona slaughter house that would take the bills out. They used 17000 head of horses to smuggle the money through the kill plant. ($85,000,000 million)

Louie Krentz’ mother lived on the US – Mex border in Douglas AZ and knew about the 17000 horses that came across the border and 12000 head of cattle. Louie Krentz’ mother lived on the ranch on the border that their father homesteaded. Louie was a high roller, he furnished the money for Ansel to buy yearlings to run on the ranch in Harney Co. Ansel got half of the gain increase. Louie was living in San Bruno at the time, he and a another fellow were partners on a race horse. He also had an amusement center, pin ball machines and such. Ansel had the Lawen and Burns property at the time and ran an ad in the Western Livestock Journal classifieds looking for someone to run steers on a percent of gain on the Harney ranch. Louie responded to Ansel’s add and that’s how they became friends. When there was air service into Burns, Louie would fly up just to hunt ducks for the weekend at Lawen. Louie’s brother was 1st Vice President for the Bank of Arizona, Mackelvany borrowed 32 million one year to run cattle just outside of Yuma. And he lent Smith Company 8 million to build a slaughter house in PHX. He must have been pretty important.

A fellow jockey found alive and well in Culver, OR

Carl Johnson
Small world. A couple of weeks ago friend Paul Carter was in Culver on some real estate business and stopped at the Round Butte Inn to ask for directions. The waitress that he asked, directed him to a little old man at the end of the bar. The man was Carl Johnson and he very helpful, and given his small stature and age Paul inquired if he ever rode race horses, and sure enough he did, and not only did ride races horses he knew Ansel. Turns out he worked for Harry Walters at Prineville the same time Ansel did. Ansel was/is 4 years older than Carl, and Carl idolized Ansel. He was so excited to hear that Ansel was still alive.

So Paul and I thought it would be fun to surprise Ansel with meeting Carl, and on Wednesday we told Ansel we were going out for lunch and drove him up to Culver. Carl had lots more memories of Ansel, than Ansel did of Carl, that was probably due to the fact that Carl looked up to and idolized Ansel, and to Ansel who was a newly wed at the time, Carl was just another kid.

Carl lives a few blocks from the Round Butte Inn (it’s a tavern) and he’s part of the wall paper literally. He walks down most afternoons for happy hour and has a couple of beers. He is very proud that he has helped decorate the place with antique pictures from area.

Carl and Ansel reminisced about the great horse Harry had named ________ (I’ll get back to this)

The only memory Ansel has of Carl, was when Harry Walters purchased a stallion named Beeson. He was supposed to be very well breed, and they had a devil of a time, getting him to breed any mares. Ansel remembers the first time they tried to breed him, that it took four handlers, four hours… that the stallion did everything wrong, until he finally figured out where things were supposed to go.
Someone had started a bush track here in Bend that ran for a couple of years, he remembers he and Carl coming over to watch the horses