The Horses of the Block: 1 2

The following text is extracted,
with the author's permission,
from Arnold McKee's
The Forgotten Corner: The Roundup of 1994

The Stud Branches

...For sure in the fifties, if not before, there were small bands of horses grazed in the Block. These were people that raised horses and had for a while, in most cases... Once these stud branches were established they would pretty much keep their territory, and when rounded up, it was known the areas that each had, and were worked accordingly to sort. Once a year or every two years these horses were gathered and the offspring taken out and maybe some mares culled or added, whatever had to be done to work the herds.

This is a restricted area, so how did this come about? Nobody at the time really gave it much thought, after all if someone was getting grazing, more power to them. It was not till the Roundup of 1994 that people started questioning this situation and all sorts of assumptions were made... It was said that as fast as the Army chased these horses out of the Block, they were put in again... So the Army gave up and let the ranchers run their stock at will! If you just accept this statement as is, blaming those unlawful ranchers, I guess you could about believe this. But it has to be remembered these herds were worked and managed at least once a year. Now this means these ranchers were allowed in at some time to do this or these herds couldn't have been managed...