AQHA Best Remuda 2005 - Babbitt Ranches

coming up next on america's horse we visit the high plains of northern Arizona and the Babbitt ranches winners of this year's AQHA bear best Ramudu award ranching is never easy and even more so in the desert how did the Babbitt ranches become one of the best we'll find out with any successful ranching operation it takes the right combination of cowboys and horses the Babbitt ranches have some of the best of both and we'll meet them next on this week's america's horse [Music] [Applause] America's horse the International report on the world's most versatile equine breed the American Quarter Horse I'm Jeff Mathers welcome to America's horse since 1992 AQHA and Bayer have presented the best Ramudu award it honors the contribution ranch horses have made to the heritage of the American Quarter Horse today we're just outside of Flagstaff Arizona headquarters of this year's winner the Babbitt ranches [Applause] [Music] the landscape is not exactly what you picture when you think of a ranch in Arizona but it's not far from it either rolling hills volcanic rock and dusty trails cover this northern part of the state like branches everywhere regardless of the land the work still has to be done this morning begins like most spring morning's do on a ranch with over 8,000 head of cattle breakfast is served horses are rounded up saddles are packed and it's all hauled down the road the open pastures where this year's calf branding is in full gear this is the CEO bar the original land of the Babbitt ranches that were founded here in 1886 by the five babbitt brothers here you'll find american portal horses that embody the spirit of the AQHA bayer best falooda award a group of working horses bred for the ranch specifically the work and pen cattle in babbitt ranches is made up of three holdings one is the co bar the other is the cataract and sp and those three combined is what we call babbitt ranches babbitt ranches president Bill cord ASCO speaks with a sense of pride when he talks about the horse operation I think there are several things that go into you know developing a Ramudu first off is the history of the horses to begin with and the purposes that they were evolving with with the operations in this case here babbitt says has you know nearly 120 years of history where they were raising cattle of which the horses were a primarily primary tool for that purpose secondly of course is that Babbitt's has been blessed with some very special people who have a unique passion and understanding of horses how to fit them together for working ranches along with that the AQHA providing you know things with a solid pedigree information standards and guidelines and all and the research that goes into that Babbitt's has had people who could take all of that and i call it what the sense of art you know produce the horses that we have here today ranch manager vic help is one of those artists credited with sculpting the Ramudu you know the horse business is exciting I can't think of anything fun er and breeding horses and raising them up then them going on to be a good horse those that's the ultimate it's a lot of fun Vic's fun has turned the Babbitt ranches into a place where Cowboys come to work and ride they're looking for good horses and ones they can count on you got to have a good horse because you never know what you're gonna run in and so cuz you might you might need to go check fence Eddie run into a cow having having trouble having a calf you might have a mix-up run into anything American quarter horses have their work cut out for them at the Babbitt ranches every day of the year for the past 120 years someone has been on horseback on this land the Babbitt ranches are the 14th winner of the AQHA bayar best Ramudu award when we return we'll take a closer look at this historic ranch and take a tour of their pastures which run almost the entire length of the state of Arizona and later a closer look at what makes these American quarter horses the best America's horse is brought to you by Bayer corporation makers of quality animal health products MBNA America the official credit card of aqh a FedEx you can always rely on the ultimate and reliable shipping relax its FedEx and by professionals choice the official provider of sports medicine products welcome back to America source in 1886 five brothers from Cincinnati Ohio moved out here to begin what has become one of the most successful ranching operations in the world with 20,000 dollars in their pocket the brothers left Ohio and headed west to raise cattle in New Mexico cheaper grassland in Arizona however would be where they would settle there were five brothers and with the marketing and enthusiasm to head out west they read pamphlets and did some exploring got on the train checked out a few places across the country and ended up settling in Flagstaff Arizona and it was a very short period of time after that when they were able to purchase some cattle and start building babbitt ranches in recognition of where they came from Cincinnati Ohio they came up with the seal bar brand and that's what's on the Hereford cattle today today babbitt ranches is about a little over 700 thousand acres it has private land state land for service babbitt ranches consist of three different areas of northern arizona north of Flagstaff is the co VAR a 635 section ranch to the west 225 sections that make up the cataract ranch and the 225 section SP ranch southwest of that the co barb and the cataract our home for the cow calf operation and the SB carries the yearlings part of the ranch borders the Grand Canyon and the terrain varies depending on where you are it's landscape is very disciplined verse here we're in higher altitudes you know maybe close to 8,000 feet ponderosa pine and Aspen's with the mountains and and snow but it isn't taking about about 20 minutes down the road and you start to drop off into more pinyon-juniper type country and then further out into more of a grassland area about every place the horse puts his foot there's a rock either next to his foot or pretty close to its foot the country is some country that's that's just kind of rolling and then there's some country that's you think well this is just a big old Mesa can you ride just a little ways and you've just dropped off into the King the ranch terrain has made for some interesting trivia questions it was used for commercials the movie quicken the dead and NASA has brought the lunar rover there for test rides for horses and cattle the land offers more than what first meets the eye over on seal bar we have the Malachi soil or the cinder soils over here we have this limestone soil and anyway you know it's just real good for growing plants and then we have this four wing saltbush chamise here in any time you have this you'd really probably don't have to feed in the wintertime because the cows this high in protein just like putting out protein blocks it's also real good we feel like put a foot on a horse because it just makes her feet hard and puts puts good bone to raise up you know run your yearlings and two-year-olds and three-year-olds even out out here really gets a good bone structure on your horses for all their history the Babbitt family might be considered a new breed of Rancher they take an extra effort to work with the local community as well as state and federal governments in managing the land they've been making efforts to put their lands into conservation and they've accomplished this already with one ranch called the cataract ranch which i think is either the sixth or seventh largest conservation easement in the country and i think that they're very hopeful that they'll be able to do that with the remaining properties that they have sometime soon in the future the Babbitt ranches have already designated forty thousand acres as open space development of any kind will not happen on those lands it's a commitment they hope to increase and an example of their commitment to the land and the communities where they live airplanes helicopters and motorcycles have never been used to run the ranches here the job of managing the land and hurting the cows have always been done by the American Quarter Horse we'll take a closer look at the AQHA Bayer best Ramudu when we return we'll also discover the family Nexen and has made the Babbitt ranches successful that's next on America's horse welcome back to America's horse the Babbitt ranches have been run by the same family now for more than a century each generation carefully passing on to the next the art of managing a ranch and managing life since its beginning the Babbitt ranches have been a family affair there were the Babbitt brothers and since then the ranches have been passed down through family connections ranch headquarters in Flagstaff is not the only place where family roots run deep the modern history of ranch management grows there as well described by John Babbitt as the essence of the co bar Bill Howell worked as ranch manager for 25 years Frank banks did the hiring there's a whole story in itself how he went to work through the Babbitt's dad they had some horses that would there's bucking a little bit and added rode Bronx at the rodeos and dad rode good and so anyway they got that job to ride those horses and you know I got on this horse and rode out there and helped but the cattlemen of course US different trails and stuff like that mad that sucker blow his whistle money damn short dead buck I got him rode out two of them guys walked to the bunkhouse so Frank never really ever did say anything to me you know yeah i boiled when he dropped his men off he took me with him I thought was this good or bad so we rolled on my father he said Tom I haven't had any horse tracks in this trench for quite a while if you want a champ I'll give you a kid supporting a wife and two small boys and without a job bill Howell immediately took him up on the offer ten years later he was asked to manage the ranch he accidentally found while he was looking for another job I've said people have asked me about dad and anyway I said he's the most versatile person I've ever known to be able to design shipping pens to write a bronc to trip steers to cut cattle out of a herd or set up a roundup on in her to make a drive or do it anyway just all-around cowboy and you know just proud as I could ever be on the dad his subject for him and after graduating from college came back to the ranch learning from his dad Vic took over the reins and became ranch manager in 1991 the mentor now worked for the student and not much has changed dad was one of those strong personalities I am a little bit to that he never had too many per se bosses that actually bossed he you know he was a he was a leader in ever in every way so anyway dad and I really that really worked well which says I'm an oldest son and anyway we just thought alike and he was probably waiting for me to come up to the idea thinking well about time you thought of that you know those kind of deals we never had a cross word a lot of people think that's not hard you know I didn't get no tired [Music] somebody else to make those distinctions and then we shared a quite a few species we still Sheriff they also agree on the most important lessons learned how to repair cook person I taught him to do to take what my knowledge and passed it on to him was a lot of respecting he'd ever sent to me honesty those character qualities respect those truth you know those things is what dead most honest man I ever knew so that's why I guess I best thing you know I wouldn't that would be more important than learning how to rope or learning how to drag kids or you know those those kind of things although they're important too but for Vic it's been the perfect situation before we make a move we know where the other one's gonna be in so anyway we really work work well together and I just tell people I can't think of anything better to come back to this Ridge my daughters were around my dad and I just got to spend my my life working with my dad in anyway looking back 20 you know I'm thankful that I come back to you when I they offered me the job I didn't know that I would want to work for dad you know teenager and I was in my 20s and didn't I want to come back but then looking back on it you know 25 years back this best thing you ever did even though bill Howell claims to be retired you can still find him out here every day it's American Quarter Horses that make the Babbitt ranches so successful a closer look at their horse operation when America's horse returns America's horse has been brought to you by Bayer corporation makers of quality animal health products American Quarter Horse Journal the official publication of the American Quarter Horse Association MBNA America the official credit card of AQHA and by Ford the best-selling trucks are built Ford Tough welcome back to America's horse the 14 winners of the AQHA Baer best Ramudu award are all unique in their own special way and each ranch today faces its own set of circumstances ranching in the new millennium but there is one thing that they all have in common the heart and soul of each operation is the American Quarter Horse I think that people know when they come to Babbitt's what to expect I think that you know they're looking forward to going to work at a ranch that has cattle that has worked on a daily basis on horseback those type of things I think that you know that people may have come to ride the horses too since its inception the Babbitt ranches have been in the horse breeding business Babbitt's uses horses because of need to do that if there were other pieces of equipment or other ways to do the same thing that was more efficient and less costly so on and so forth you know I think that we would definitely explore those opportunities and we have but with the diversity of the country whether it's mountainous trees rocks sand and also the expanse in the size of pastures things like that nothing has come close to the ability of the quarter horses to gather count and work their first registered horse was a horse named NACO purchased by ranch manager Frank banks since then Bill Howell and now Vic have continued to build upon a foundation that has given the Babbitt ranches a Ramudu to be proud of but I will tell you that of all my travels and all of the things that that I know of which more or less there I have never met a person who is as artful when it comes to breeding horses as Victor how the Babbitt ranch is currently stand seven stallions many of them Ramudu comes from cowboy drift tanks charge and bar deck of wood and proud gun sires PC Wade's frost also stands at the Babbitt ranches cowboy Ben driftin is Vic's horse well he's the son a cowboy drift and out of our one of our Hank charging bar mares that we've slowly raised he and anyway he's a ten-year-old now and we rope off of him I rope off of him and head off of and we take him the cowboy reunion and do calf Ropin and healing and hidden and then we tie down stairs and then Harvey he took him to the ranch rodeo in Amarillo two years ago and roped a cow on him so he's just a versatile horse just used him for everything on the ranch and my daughter reason we keep him up here is because my daughter breakaways on him in high school rodeos he's handy here and we can just come up here and catch him and load him in the trailer and go right straight to high school rodeos he's just a really smooth traveling easy riding horse it's got a lot of cow and he really watches a cow and he's also of course got a lot of speed out of box all those a lot of those cowboy discourses are rodeo types anyway it puts a real good head on most all of his babies sharp little ear good eyed Colts each cowboy is given a string of five to eight horses to ride each year the ranch holds a sale of their hashknife horses smooth travelin horses that are gentle to ride and we're selling all the babies at the horse sale and to sell about 40 head a year and what would a kind of unique way that we do that is that we sell them always the second Saturday of July they should be the 9th of July and we sell them now with a 250 dollar deposit and then but we run them through the winter and into the spring and then people come and pick them up in March each stallion is put out with his mares in early April the foals begin to arrive just in time for the spring and summer grasses that are so rare in these parts making for a healthy yearling actually we probably wouldn't we very many Colts a tall-tale chain and bring them in and and alter break them along as we have time but then along about late February what we haven't got done we'll go ahead and wean the rest of them and get it get them all dopes to lead so the customers they'll be ready to go when they come into March as far as Brandon we brand the Colts that usually the day before the sale Vic also keeps about 70 to 80 horses around for the ranches Ramudu he says he's happy with these horses but ever the artist he's always looking to improve his Ramudu spalatin this year it looks as though he's working with one brush sorrel seems to be the popular color this year you breed a buckskin to chestnut get a sorrel you beat a buckskin to a black and get a sorrel we're always looking for new blood and something that might might work and so you know I'm gonna ride these kind of cross in the cowboy drift mares with the plague instead and the Sun frost horse we're gonna ride those see how they turn out and it'll be just no time at all we'll be keeping fillies out of the the proud gun horse and we'll be looking for a stud to cross him on and anyway were you know what that many mayors we're always looking always got our eye out for new blood and and wanting to ride them and just testing them and trying to you know just trying to make them the best that they can be and just checking those mares out and seeing which studs they're crossing best with like if I get one that I don't think the conformation is quite as what as like and mate switch the mayor to a different side shift she'll be a little better congratulations to this year's winner of the AQHA bayer best Ramudu award the babbitt ranches and a special thanks to Bill Carrasco and the cowl for their hospitality up here in northern Arizona as they give us a taste of the ranching life that's this edition we'll see you on America [Music] [Music] [Music]

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Length: 26min 41sec (1601 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 21 2018