THE SIEBEN FOUR
By Marylu Weber
This story
started in 2008 when Whit Hibbard, a fourth generation rancher and Low-Stress
Livestock Handling Instructor, came to Theodore Roosevelt National Park to
share his livestock handling knowledge with the staff of the park. I had been invited to that workshop and had
the privilege of riding with Whit when he gathered and penned 10 of the wild
TRNP horses. At that time, a young blue
colt came up to him and sniffed his hand.
I told him he had to buy that colt and Whit took the bait. (Read “Whit’s Story” on this blog) Whit has never regretted that decision and
calls Teddy one of the best ranch horses he has ever ridden. Teddy is admired and coveted by all the
horsemen of the ranch. Whit’s nephew,
Cooper Hibbard, says of Teddy, “He’s like riding a dream!”
After the
suggestion by Whit, it was Cooper’s decision whether or not to add four more
North Dakota Badlands Horses to Sieben Live Stock Company’s cavey of ranch
horses. Whit told me Cooper would be
calling me, but as busy as a “CEO in training” of a large ranch can be, he didn't call me until the night before the sale. Based solely on Teddy and what his Uncle Whit had
said about the TRNP horses, Cooper was willing to take a chance and buy four
wild 2 or 3 year old stallions, sight unseen.
Though I knew the horses well, I wasn’t feeling entirely comfortable
picking prospective ranch horses from the 103 being sold. When I asked Cooper how he would get them
home, he mentioned a hauler named Steve.
Surprising Cooper that I knew of Steve, I told him I had talked to Steve
on the phone earlier that summer and liked him immediately. Knowing he was a experienced horseman and a
good judge of horses I enlisted his help in picking horses for Cooper. While looking at the horses in the pens,
Steve asked me if I knew Billie Rase;
Billie was a lifelong friend of mine and someone I had always loved and
admired. It turned out that Steve was
married to Billie’s niece. Any friend of
Billie’s was a friend of mine, so now I trusted him implicitly with helping me
pick horses! Steve graciously gave me
his list of 5 stallions he thought would make good ranch horses based on
conformation and attitude in the pens.
Without
knowing it, Steve picked four sons of Sidekick: Sage, a two year old gray overo,
and Peace Pipe, a three year old gray out of Snip’s Gray, Hawthorne, a two year
old, and Guitar, a three year old, both roans out of Embers’ Girl. His fifth pick was a sharp minimal sorrel overo,
Bandit, out of Dolly by Cocoa. These
were favorites of mine too, so I would bid to try to purchase four of the
five. I was able to win the bid on both
Sage and Peace Pipe with Sage going a little high and Peace Pipe a little
low. I was at even money when Hawthorne
came in. The bids quickly rose over my
allotted budget, but I really liked the 2 year old colt’s docile disposition,
so kept bidding and won him at $200 over budget. I was not to be so lucky with Bandit; his
coat still glistened and he was already showing a lot of muscular development. Soon,
at $1400, the winning bid was far beyond my budget. The young lady sitting beside us at the sale
had set her heart on buying Guitar and I was not about to deprive her of that
handsome young roan, so I quickly went to Steve to see what he thought of 3
year old Tomahawk who was just about to come into the ring. Steve gave his approval and I was able to
fill out the order of four horses with Tomahawk. Steve was
going to haul the four to Billings, MT yet that night, rest them overnight, and
meet Cooper in the morning. I was a little
nervous that I had gone $250 over budget, and that Cooper had never seen the
horses; I wondered what he would think of them.
The next day, when we were almost back home to Rapid City, I received a
call from Cooper. He said he was “blown
away” at the quality of the horses and thanked me for buying them for the
ranch. The four young stallions were
moving on to another stage of their lives.
Cooper drove
back to Cascade, MT with the four young horses that would one day be part of
the cavey of saddle horses serving the large cattle and sheep ranch his great,
great grandfather, Henry Sieben, had established in 1909. He was excited to show the horses to the
other three horsemen who would each work with one of the young stallions,
gentling it and training it under saddle.
Upon seeing the four stallions, the other men were also impressed with the
four and marveled at how well built they were for horses bred and raised
without human intervention. Whit Hibbard’s wife, Felice, a horse
enthusiast and rider since an early age, loved Whit’s Teddy. She said, if the new colts were a fraction as
good as Teddy they would be great ranch horses.
She had been studying the Phanfare.com photo files of sale horses and
was excited to see that some of her favorites were among the ranch’s new horses;
she admired the sturdy build, good bone, and large healthy feet of the wild
ones.
The first
order of business was to get the four young stallions gentle enough to be
gelded. Each man was to pick one
stallion to work with. Iain chose the
young gray overo, Sage. Brice liked the
way Tomahawk was built; he would one day look like his sire, Silver. Cooper had his choice of Peace Pipe, Hawthorne. He liked them both, but Hawthorne walked
right up to him so he figured Hawthorne picked him. Brent was to train Peace Pipe. The three other colts were pretty easy to
get the first halter on, but Tomahawk was not very trusting. He was finally caught, sedated, and all were
gelded, then all four were turned out in a large paddock to heal and get
accustomed to life on the Montana ranch.
.JPG) |
| Bryce and Tomahawk |
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| Cooper and Hawthorne |
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| Iain and Sage |
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| Brent and Peace Pipe |
