Riding the JK Brand
When I pulled into their yard tonight, Johnny and Cherri Knippling were canning corn. We sat at the dinner table and talked about their
grandkids, and their great-grandkids, and of course horses. I shared my thoughts on the growing sport of mounted shooting, and my hopes for its future. The view out the window of their home was, as always, fantastic. The panoramic view of the prairie overlooking Elm Creek will always remain one of the awe- inspiring vistas in SD.
Eventually I followed Johnny out to a barn where he kept the weanling colt I bought from him. This stud colt means a lot to me, as it will be the last crop to come from his storied ranch. The wrinkles and the creaking joints gave way to a lifetime of wisdom as he shared secrets to coax the magic out of a colt.
We visited about days long gone when the white man first settled Buffalo County. How the Grassland looked then, and how people worked then compared to the way they do now. It surprised me to learn how the Reservation for a long time had no internal fences whatsoever. There were no washouts, and the creeks were passible with wagons, because the silt on the hillsides hadn’t found its way down into the drainage-ways.
“Did people ever get together to race horses out in pastures back-in-the-day?” I asked as Johnny laughed aloud.
“Where do you think the term, ‘at the drop of a hat’ came from?” He asked. It turns out folks in the county rode out to meet on Sundays to race their horses in the middle of anywhere. Somebody would drop a hat, and hooves would pound like thunder. The ancient trophy that is a fast horse lived well into the mid-20th century on the plains, before progress took its toll. He told me about his days breeding race horses, and the days of producing ranch horses ever since.
As a chronic day-dreamer, my mind drifted to my awkward teenage years when I was judging horses in FFA. I found myself in hot water for missing the judging school before the State Convention. Embarrassed and unsure of myself, I went to see Johnnie. My advisor was steaming mad at me, and I was too ashamed of what happened to cause me to miss practice to tell my FFA advisor. Johnnie pulled out some dusty drawings of horses from an old chest and thudded them down in front of me. He explained proper confirmation and to never get suckered in by a pretty face. My first memory of real pride was winning that judging contest a few days later. Johnny probably changed my life, because FFA became a driving force in shaping who I am today.
This new stud colt is a buttermilk-colored dun with zebra stripes on his legs. He has the rump of a quarter horse and the breeding to win any pasture race in the country. If he turns out to be fast, his name will be “Smoke”, and if he turns out to have more cow talent then I will name him “Dusty”. He’s definitely “spookier” than most colts, which I’m excited about. Perhaps he still has some of that “race” blood in him?
People think it’s silly to invest in a horse that won’t pay a dividend for such a long time, especially in this market. Well, this deal isn’t an investment, and it’s not about a market. It’s about the brotherhood of a dying breed. I am among the last of the wild bunch who ever attended that country school in Gann Valley. This colt is of the last crop of horses foaled on that ranch. We ate the same dust, we drank the same water, we watched the same sunsets and we felt the same wind in our face. We are kindred spirits destined to partner up on the journey we call life.
Johnny’s stories and memories deserve a better writer than myself, and the unique era in which he lives will become a forgotten chapter in time. Today’s kids have video games, Facebook, and cell phones that are smart. Farm-work means setting the A/B line on a GPS and calibrating a yield monitor. How people back then even found out where that week’s horse race was without text messaging escapes us all… or it soon will.
