Doug Williamson: Defying the Odds

Reigning Cow Horses

Good horsemen are quick to credit their success to the horses they’ve ridden, but it’s difficult to include all the standout performers on Doug’s list. His most recent show-pen star is the palomino stallion High Brow Shiner. In addition to his finish at this year’s Bridle Spectacular, the horse has won two American Quarter Horse Association reserve world championships in working cow horse, and the 2015 NRCHA Open Hackamore World Championship.

In 2012, Doug claimed the NRCHA Snaffle Bit Stakes reserve title on ARC Sparkin Chics, a horse that will carry Doug in the NRCHA World’s Greatest Horseman competition in 2017.

Doug began showing Hes Wright On in 2008, and in 2010 he and the stallion finished second at the World’s Greatest Horseman and won NSHA’s World’s Richest Stock Horse. In 2011 they won NRCHA’s Open Bridle World Championship.

Before that, there was Smart Miss Merada, a Hackamore Classic winner in 2009 and 2010, and Docs Soula, an NRCHA Derby champion in 2007.

But all those outstanding horses were preceded by a special black stallion that Doug purchased as a yearling. Doc At Night, sired by Mr San Olen and out of Docs Hickory Nut, proved to be a quick study as Doug trained him as a 2- and 3-year-old. With an abundance of speed and intelligence, the stallion advanced to the 2002 Snaffle Bit Futurity open finals and then clinched the championship with a 227 score in his fence work.

“Once I turned that cow [down the fence] on Doc At Night, I knew I was going to win it,” Doug recalls. “He was a great cow horse. Cattle just couldn’t outrun him. He is probably the best fence horse I’ve ever ridden just because of his speed.”

The win earned Doug and co-owner Sandie Braden $100,875. The following year, Doc At Night placed third at the NRCHA Stakes. In 2007 Doug and the horse placed fifth in the World’s Greatest Horseman and finished reserve in the Open Bridle class held during the Snaffle Bit Futurity.

Later in the stallion’s career, Doug’s wife, Carol, began showing Doc At Night, and the couple bought out Braden’s share in 2012. The 17-year-old stallion, who has earned more than $165,000, is now retired, although Doug hasn’t ruled out team roping on the horse that loves to compete.

Doc At Night’s sire, Mr San Olen, carried Doug to his first Snaffle Bit Futurity title. The horseman was introduced to the fuzzy black colt while he was working for Tejon Ranch. Doug had hired his father, Sylvan, to find 20 broodmares and a few stallion prospects for the California ranch to purchase, and his search led him to the King Ranch in Texas. There, Sylvan found several quality mares and four yearling colts.

“Of the colts, [Tejon Ranch] only wanted the three sorrels [by Peppy San Badger],” Doug says. “The little black one was the one Dad liked really well. He called to tell me about him, and I thought, ‘Well, I’ll just buy him, then.’ When Tejon heard that, they said, ‘Well, we’ll buy him.’ He was the only one that ended up being worth a darn.”

The colt by Peppy San Badger and out of San O Lenita developed into a phenomenal athlete and was shown successfully in cutting competition by Carol into his 20s. Doug says the horse was so light in the face that during his entire cutting career he was shown in nothing more than a sidepull.

“He’s 27 years old and lives right behind our house today,” Doug says. “He is the only horse I’ve had that came closest to being what Baldy C was.”

To this day, Doug rates Baldy C as the greatest horse he’s ever shown. The 1945 stallion by King Clegg (who was by Macanudo) and out of Triangle Lady 27 was acquired by Doug’s father in the mid-1950s. Sylvan traded two yearlings and a 2-year-old to a local rodeo competitor for the seasoned rope horse bred by Burnett Ranches in Texas. Coincidentally, although the horse was truly a liver chestnut, he looked like a black when kept up out of the sunlight.

“That horse got his eye struck out when he was a yearling, but he could see more with one eye than any horse could see with two,” Doug says. “It didn’t bother him. The guy roped calves on him, but [Baldy C] was so quick and too sensitive in the mouth for him, so the guy didn’t like him. I went to roping calves on him and won every breakaway calf roping that there was. That horse was so smart about the [barrier]. If I would start him too quick out of the box, he would wait for the string and not break it.

“He was so light in the face that you couldn’t pull on the bridle reins. He would do something to make you quit it—by turning too hard, stopping too hard or doing something. So I learned not to pull on the bridle reins. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be worth a darn.”

When Baldy C was 16 and Doug was 19, the pair won the year-end AQHA High-Point Working Cow Horse title. Two years later, the two repeated the feat, but not after enduring quite a scare
during a yearlong break from showing.

“He had a heart attack,” Doug says. “But I brought him back slowly and got him back in shape. I would trot him a mile every day, and then walk him a mile. Then I built on that and finally had him fit enough to show. And at 18 he [won the high-point] again. Later, at age 21, he had another heart attack and died.”