How I almost got to be a mounted shooter or I guess I would have named him Lucky

[Bad Blueridge Bob]

When I discovered cowboy shooting and SASS it was from a Pard some of you know Bull Durham, we were both cops working in the same police department in North Carolina, back before I retired and went to work for the Federal Gubmint. When Bull Durham was telling me about SASS and CAS I was soaking it all in like a sponge, I know I must have had this look like a kid first finding out about Santa Claus coming and bring gifts. Well I have always been a gun person, I have collected M1 Carbines, Thompson Submachine Guns and M1 Service Rifles, and now I had a reason to buy Colt Single Action Armies.

By the end of our second conversation I had purchased my first CAS revolver a 2nd Generation Colt SAA .45 5 ½" barrel with a blue& case finish. Well from that point on if it had Winchester or Colt on it I either bought it or traded for it, someone could have painted Colt or Winchester on a rock and told me it was the official door stop Sam Colt or Oliver Winchester has once used, I would have bought it. Well after awhile I had cornered the market on SAA Colts in .45 and .357 (Guns for whenever that little lady could be talked into shooting as well) in our jurisdiction, hell I sold all my Thompson's and Carbines. Two more of the fellows got involved in CAS by then, Skunk Hunter and Owen, both cops working with Bull Durham and me. Well it was nice having pards right there working together who could talk cowboy, life was good.

One day while at home watching TV and it came to me cowboy shooting was fun. Not just fun, it was Lots of Fun, and what would make it even more fun? To do it while riding a horse like I was watching on TV at the very moment. The more I thought about it the more intrigued I became. So I started on a quest to start Mounted Shooting, but I wanted to do this on the sly, I wanted my pards to know nothing about it, until I was ready to spring it on them. Actually I wanted to make them believe, I was a proficient equestrian. To do this I would need to buy a horse and learn to shoot while on the horse, and then shoot while moving on the horse. Well, the guns and ammunition I had, all I needed was a horse, and the related equipment associated with riding a horse.

Before I go on let me outline my vast experience in handling and riding horses. My mother and dad were both born and raised in southwestern Virginia, near Stuart. They moved to North Carolina after my dads return from Europe in 1945. Both my mom and dads families had farms and associated livestock. My mother's mother lived the closest to us, we lived in Mount Airy, North Carolina, and she lived in Claudeville, Virginia. So especially during the summers of my youth I got to spend time on her farm. It was not unusual for me and several of my cousins to be at granny's house for a week at a time. This being a very rural area there was not very much vehicular traffic on that dirt road she lived off of. In fact from the main road, which was dirt to my grandmothers there was a private road leading to her house that was at least ½ mile long. SO going to the mail box everyday was a good ways. Aside from cows and chickens and pigs my grandma had an old plow horse named Lightning and a one eyed mule named Jake. Us kids would get Lightning and Jake with the assistance of an uncle out of the barn or corral and ride them to the mail box and back we were not allowed to ride them on the road. We tried to talk grandma into letting us ride them to Mr. Elmer Vipperman's store on the Dobynns Road past Mayo Mountain Baptist church, she said not no, but hell no, you can ride them to the mail box and back, if I catch you riding to the Mary Horner Walker Presbyterian Church I will tan your hides, so you know Mayo Mountain Church is out of the question. So we would ride to the mailbox and back to her barn everyday, during those summers we were there.

As I remember it Lightning was a stealthy animal that would run like the wind, well would make you feel like you were sitting on a bullet as it was fired. Well maybe would feel like your head was hanging outside a window of an automobile speeding down the road. Well, I guess maybe it was like if the wind was blowing in your face as you were pushing a broken down car. Jake was just as fast however, Jake had a bad problem of biting people, maybe would account for the reason he had only one eye, I am not sure. I just remember my dad's instructions when he and mom would leave me there, "Stay away from that damn ole horse and mule".

So with my vast experience I was ready for the next step in my jump from shooting CAS to Mounted Shooting and I was excited, the more I would read the more excited I became, and wow looking at pictures of Mounted Shooters like Rocky Meadows, I was like "Oh My Goodness" when you have been hanging around with people that look like Bull Durham, Skunk Hunter, Owen, and myself, people like her are a vision, pure wonderful visions. Now I love my pards like the brothers they are, but if your choices of people to shoot around would be some beautiful vision of a lady or them fellows well even a blind man could make that choice. So I started looking for "The Horse" that steed that would transport me from simple CAS shooter to that of a Mounted Shooter.

I am sure every state has a publication where people can buy and sell items from houses to automobiles to old shoes to other members of the community. Back in the pre EBay day that was the way most un-wanted items were sold aside from yard sales. Well in North Carolina there are several, but the two that have the greatest readership, is the Carolina Bargain Trader and the Triangle Trading Post. The Carolina Bargain Trader generally covered from Raleigh east and the Triangle Trading Post covered Raleigh west. The Carolina Bargain Trader is unique in that it has paid ads and free ads. The paid ads are for items with a cost of over $1500.00 and items with a photograph. The free ads on the other hand were without a photograph and for merchandise with a cost of under $1500.00. I would search each ad for horse flesh (a term I picked up while watching TV that very day), and there were plenty of them but they were quite expensive. I remember hearing my grandma talking about giving $100.00 for Lighting when she bought him. I was not looking for a race horse I was looking for a cowboy horse one a cowboy could shoot from, another words I was looking for a horse that would fit my understanding of horses, of course I didn't realize at the time that I knew absolutely nothing about horses.

I have a friend that is quite an experienced and nationally recognized equestrian, living in Fairfax County Virginia. I had talked with her about horses and the best kind of horse to use for Mounted Shooting and always she would say things to me like, "Why don't you talk with some of the people that do Mounted Shooting and ask them if they can help you become involved in this evolution, this transformation from a stand on your on two feet shooting to shooting from the back of a horse". I remember her saying "Why don't you find some one locally that will spend some time with you becoming proficient in horsemanship". Why don't you at least call some of these Mounted Shooters and ask them what would be the best way for you to progress". Did I point out that my mother used to tell me I was stubborn as a mule, as stubborn as that old one eyed mule named Jake that my grandma once had.

So here I was with a new Carolina Bargain Trader sitting in my favorite chair watching Jimmy Stuart shoot a bullet thru a stamp, affixed to a washer in Winchester 73, when I saw an ad that hit me like a ton of bricks, it jumped out at me like a snake striking its prey. For sale good horse $150.00 call 252-555-5555 ask for Chad, Vanceboro, NC.
I picked up the phone to call my friend in Fairfax but got her voice mail at her office, I called her home but her answering machine came on. I read the aloud onto her answering machine, the next call I made was to the number in Vanceboro.

I spoke with the horse's owner's wife and she advised me that she would have her husband call me straight away. After about an hour my telephone rang and the called identified his name as Chad and the owner of the horse that was for sale in the Carolina Bargain Trader. I asked him about the horse and he said it was a stud horse with a good temperament, now at this point had I know anything about horses I would have asked many, many, questions, but I didn't I asked him how old the horse was and he said he was not sure but maybe 25. At the time I was around 43 or 44 so I figured that hourse was a young pup. He gave me directions and we agreed to meet my driving time from New Bern to Vanceboro. When I pulled up to this pasture where the horse was kept I was greeted by a man of wide stature, as I am 6'3" and at the time about 210 pounds he was every bit of 5'3" 400 pounds if an ounce. This man was driving a red Chevy pickup and I swear when he crawled out, the sound those springs made were sounds used in the sound track of a Steven King movie. Standing there next to the fence was a horse, I know it was a horse because I had seen them on TV before, and my gramdma's horse I had ridden. I know it was a horse because I had seen horse that looked similar to it before in cartoons, I didn't know what a swayback horse was, but I knew this one was on its way to being swaybacked if it wasn't there already. Chad and I talked a while about the horse and it stood by there beside the fence, I guess looking back on things it may have been leaning against the fence not actually standing beside it.

At one point in our conversation I asked about riding the horse, Chad look at me with his head turned like a dog that had just heard a funny noise and said "Ride the horse" What do you mean "Ride" the horse. He said I didn't bring a saddle or anything. I said flatly "Well I am not going to buy a horse that I don't even know is broken or not". So Chad crawled back in that Chevy truck and pulled away cussing as those springs were screaming. After about 30 minutes he returned and in the back of his truck was a saddle, bridle, blanket and other curious looking horse ridding accruements. He in cowboy vernacular 'Saddled Up".

He looked at me and I looked at him pretty much like gunfighters in the street, measuring one another up. He spoke first You want to ride him, go on ride him". Then I said, look Mr. I don't even know if he broken you ride him first. I guess if I live to be 100 years old. He placed his foot in the stirrup of that saddle and heaved himself into the saddle as he did that horses nostrils faired like a couple of number two washtubs and at the same moment, the poor horses eyes, got as big as softballs. Simultaneously the horse made a sound unlike any I have ever heard before or since, it was more of a bellow than a scream. Suddenly the horse collapsed it dropped as if It had been struck by lightening, that horse fell dead away. and its owner still in the saddle. There they were lying on the ground a dead horse and a 5'3" 400 pound man, the man was screaming help me help me. I rushed over looking down at the totality of the situation, nostrils faired, eyes bugged tongue hanging out, and then there was the dead horse. I grabbed a handful of the chubby Chad and I pulled and jerked and finally using my feet as well as my arms I freed him from being under the dead horse. As I helped him up totally out of breath he said "you owe me $150.00" I said for what he said "you killed my horse" I said no you killed your horse I watched you. Well the bickering and bantering kept going as I walked over to my motorcycle and rode back home, thinking this horse, this one made of steel, iron, and rubber is all the horse I need, Mounted Shooting well I will still look at picture of it and will still hope I can shoot around good looking folks not folks like me, but shooting just the same and be as happy as a lark. When I got home there was a message on my answering machine, it was from my friend, one sentence.

"John whatever you do don't buy that horse!"


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BOLD #7
FBI/NA 179th
Saint John's #3 AF&AM
USMC