Home Forums Gear Horses and ATV's Hancock bred horse

My wife is looking at hancock. What can anyone tell me about them? John L. Moore are you out there?

I've had a couple. Tough bastids with good feet and conformation. Kinda pig-headed and both liked to buck, but took to cow work......

That's been my experience as well with Hancock they do you like the book but they are cow savy

Blue roan?

mine were bay roans

Thanks the bucking or cold backed part pretty much convinced my wife away from the line.
One hits a certain age and the criteria changes towards mellow/slow

Where are you looking Dan?

There was certain bloodlines I had a strong preference for (Little Peppy, Leos Question, Poco Bueno) but I have the thought it's much too difficult to continue the traits, (even the SLL clones didn't do nothing). With so many well bred horses I'd look for a good minded athlete that has a good chance of being cowy.

And that advice and $5.00 will get you coffee at starbucks.

They are great if you need to ride and work 5 days a week and then go to the roping on the weekends. Most I’ve been around couldn’t stand much prosperity but there are some lines of them that are a lot more user friendly.

Fred

Had a friend in Roll, Arizona that raised Hancock horses. He did very well with them. Sold a lot of them into Mexico for racing and use in various other pursuits. Saw a lot of his horses used in rodeo events in this country.
When they made the movie Tombstone, they wanted Kurt Russell to ride a black stud horse. Head wrangler looked far and wide for a suitable horse and couldn't find one. Some one mentioned a black Hancock stallion in Roll, Arizona that was pretty gentle. They ended up using him. That's the horse that jumps through the window.
They might have their quirks but they are trainable and you can get the job done on a Hancock horse.

Dang Mark! We was just talking about this at the tonto basin gathering!

Beautiful Horses!

The reputation of liking to buck is not a rumor. Most will buck!

Dan H, Tell your wife to stop looking at pedigree's and start looking for a nice horse that will suit her needs, I have seen very few nice horses that were not well bred, by the way she can't ride the papers. Rio7

All horses have their own personalities besides the inclinations of behavior from their bloodlines. I have a horse that is from the Pitzer ranch in NE that has Two Eyed Jack ancestry. He has had good excuses to buck in the past and declined to do so. He is big, 16H and 1250# by girth tape, but comfortable to ride because his chest is deep not broad. If I ever get another horse I will look for one just like him.

If you like the roans, and they are pretty, you should check out the "Come to the Source" sale https://issuu.com/bluehalfblue/docs/2017catalogsmallsize. The horses are primarily from the Blue Valentine line. One ranch west of Laramie usually has their brood mare band along Highway130 in the spring and crop of new foals is a beautiful sight to see each spring. Good luck on your search for a horse!

The Hancock bred horses I've been around have been inclined to buck...and work hard. Both also had alligator heads which isn't a big deal to me but might be for some folks. I don't have a lot of experience with them past those two but I've wondered the past several years if folks have been focusing on them because of the roan/color traits and if lesser horses may end up resulting from the focus on color....but again, just an outside question not an observation.

Know Two Eyed Jack, I stood 2nd behind him and Howard Pitzer, at the Quarter Horse Congress I think it was 1966 or 67 I have forgotten the year, Two Eyed Jack was a really nice bay horse and a above average sire, but don.t forget Howard Pitzer had one of the best brood mare bands in the country at that time his mares would and did make several studs look better than they were.

Most of the Joe Hancock horses in the Wyoming Colorado area had there roots form the Claybaugh Ranch, Gillette , Wyo. they had a sizeable broodmare band, and Joel Hancock, Big blue roan horse that was tougher than nails, almost all Hancock horse could run and stop but you couldn't turn one around in forty acres. Ken Claybaugh, was the top pick up man in the PRCA for almost 20 years always voted in to the NFR finals by the cowboys, he always rode his dad's horses, and if Ken couldn't kill them no one could. Been there done that got the scar's to prove it . Rio7

Thanks for the replies. My wife is looking for a new horse and the description of one that she was interested in from the Billings auction caught her attention. The Hancock part was after tame, no buck, bomb proof, gentle, good work ethic, etc. passed on it.
She is looking for a mature horse, mares are fine, 14 ish hand, laid back calm mind, nice walk, no speed demon , must be used to ropes- ponying , no kick bite witchy to other horses, grandma/grandkid safe. Color-broke. Not butt ugly, good conformation, good hoof quality and size appropriate to 1k# horse. Let me know if you hear of one. Thanks. Did I mention mellow and broke?
Her horse that met this description died this past fall,

I know where there's a unicorn you may be interested in!

I keep telling her she would look good on my ride, but she must not like the long ears or something.

Just grow your hair longer!

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Bay roan mare, stud was Hancock line. She was never bad at bucking just real ground shy for quite awhile. When she was three though she did pile drive me into the dirt pretty bad. Cracked ribs and bruised me pretty good. She's settled in good now. Loves to work cows and she will not quit. She's nice to drag calves on.

She's 11 now, may not ever be a kids horse though. I've guided and hunted on her quite a bit too.

Top pic preg testing cows with my kids, couple years ago.

Bottom pic holding a calf, she was almost 4 in the pic.

Dan H - John L. Moore here. As you must know, I have written about Hancocks to some length and it would take a long article to cover all the bases here, but much of what you hear about the Hancocks being broncs just isn't true. Yes, there were some years ago, but many of those horses then were not broken until they five, six years old. But, why all the rumors? First, Joe Hancock had some Percheron blood and some Arab blood and that has produced some great bucking horses (look at the Tooke program for example) but he had so little and that was so long ago that it simply isn't relevant today. Secondly, one well-known Hancock was Buck Hancock. Perhaps a bad choice for a stallion's name no matter his color. Third, some of the old Bartender horses bucked, but they were not Hancocks, but Roan Bar looked like many of the Hancocks and people began confusing them. Fourth, Hancocks can be big and intimidating. Big framed, big feet, big head...they look like they could really buck if they wanted to. Now, I'm sure there are some that bucked, but I could probably name four or five lines of QHs that throw more fire than Hancocks. Finally, today's Hancocks are just a really different animal. I tell people if they are looking for a really docile colt, look for a Hancock-bred colt, especially a High Rolling Roany. Many of them are a bit too big and not very agile, but they retain considerable cow and good dispositions. If posting photos were easier, I could post a number of photos of Hancock-bred geldings being handled by my small grandchildren. Now, there are a lot of different Hancock lines so you always have to investigate the individual line, but generally speaking, the idea that Hancocks may have had some validity 50-60 years ago, but it is hardly true today. I think one problem is people like to perpetuate the myth and then others treat Hancock-bred horses as if they are going to buck, and of course, they pick on them until they do. Any horse with any bottom and fire is going to have a limit to its patience. The Oswald line that I am fond of, is a line you can't pick on. As an old cowboy/ horse trainer friend of mine says about the Hard Twists, "if you pick on them, they'll ante-up."

Seems like ol` Ezra had trouble a time of two.

Good to see you here John. Hope you are well

Thanks for the education. My wife and I both enjoyed the discussion.

Ironbender, thanks for the greeting. It has been a hard year in Eastern Montana. Record drought last summer, record snowfall this winter. We badly needed the moisture, but the drought and hard winter also meant everyone had to buy a lot of expensive hay. I am slowly working on my fifth and I think final Ezra Riley novel. Not much new besides extreme weather. I bought one of those new Henry Long Ranger rifles in .308 because I have an exquisite tooled and lined scabbard that I've had for years and used for a BLR .308 that blew up due to a faulty bullet. So, looking forward to tuning this new rifle up for a 2019 elk hunt with Warren Johnson and Hells A'Roarin' Outfitters of Gardiner, MT. I did a Facebook series on the historic FUF Ranch of southcentral Montana. They ran 15,000 horses on 1.1 million acres and had a crew that included two men who became famous writers, one who became a famous western artist, a freed slave and many others. The FUF horse operation existed from 1890 until 1910. I will be talking about it and other horse history on an upcoming episode of Special Cowboy Moments on RFD-TV. The FUF Ranch series ran for 30 installments on my Writer FB page and hopefully we will put all of that together into a small book. Hope you're farin' well. John

Great history of a great area John.

I'd enjoy another ride with Ezra.

The RFD-TV episodes will begin airing on May 2 and there will be three episodes featuring the history of Miles City,