�    Performance Horse  September 2007

Atwood’s performance horse program is concentrated at Stony Creek Station in Orland, California, under the direction of Jodi Elliot.

Tom Atwood loves a good per-formance horse as much as the next person. He appreciates an animal that can motor down the

fence, cut a cow with style, or mark well in a reining pattern. But more than anything, he wants to produce sound, well-mannered, versatile horses, and he has designed his far-flung Atwood Ranch operation with that goal in mind.

“I want to raise structurally correct and sound horses,” Atwood says. “I want to raise horses that people want to purchase and go on with in whatever discipline suits them and the horse. I’m happy to have them go in whatever direction they want to go.”

That isn’t to say Atwood doesn’t have horses that sport specific cutting or reining blood-lines. His stallion Ill Be Smart is a full brother to Smart Little Lena, while two of his other sires, One Smart Peppy and Colonel Doc Bar Chex, are by Peppy San Badger and Colonel Freckles, respectively.

Atwood and his wife, Julie, own several ranches, most of them in Northern California, but also in Oregon. His slogan “Cutters, Cattle, Cabernet” speaks to the range of his interests, from growing cabernet grapes in the vineyard next to where he lives to raising show and beef cattle, and performance and ranch horses.

While his horses are spread throughout many of his properties, his performance ani-mals are concentrated at Stony Creek Station in Orland, California, under the direction of ranch manager Jodi Elliott.

“With Tom, it’s truly a love of the horses,” says Elliott, who with her husband, Jack, has worked for Atwood some 20 years. “It’s a passion for him. He loves the babies and the broodmares, and he stands behind his horses.”

Trading DirtAtwood didn’t start out in the cattle and

horse business—he practiced dentistry dur-ing the 1970s and also handled his own real

&September 2007  Performance Horse    �

Cutters, Cattle Cabernet

By Tracy Gantz

Athletic horses, good cattle, fine wine and “trading dirt” have kept Tom Atwood busily diversified for nearly 40 years.

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�    Performance Horse  September 2007

estate investments.“I became a dirt trader,” Atwood says,

chuckling at the memory. “I buy and sell bare land.”

What he modestly leaves out of the story is that he has learned how to buy and sell land at optimum times. When cutting horses began to interest him during the mid-1970s, he hauled mares to Texas to be bred. That led to invest-ing in Weatherford property during the early 1980s, before that area, about 35 miles west of Fort Worth, began to boom.

“I was grousing to my wife about having

to haul my mares and the care they were get-ting,” Atwood recalls. “She said, ‘Why don’t you just buy a place there?’

“There weren’t many places with good, sandy soil. The pleasure and halter people were already in Aubrey and Pilot Point. But somebody told me that Weatherford also had sandy soil.”

With both the land and proximity to the best cutting stallions going for it, Atwood bought property in Weatherford, where he began raising top-caliber cutting horses.

“Cutting was very focused at that time, but

prices were depressed,” Atwood says. “I pri-marily concentrated on getting mares that had a good performance record.”

Atwood put together one of the finest cut-ting-horse broodmare bands in the country. He estimates that at one time he had about 15 Doc Bar mares. He owned mares such as Candy Bullette, who with Mike Mowery made the finals of the 1978 NCHA Cutting Horse Futurity, and Queens Are Better, who won the 1980 NCHA Summer Cutting Spectac-ular with Mowery and was reserve to Smart Little Lena in the 1984 NCHA Masters with Mowery’s brother, Rick.

During the Weatherford years, Bernie Kirk-land managed Atwood’s ranches. Atwood bred frequently to Peppy San Badger, a.k.a. “Little Peppy,” and became friendly with the King Ranch people. Out of the friendship evolved a dual sale featuring King Ranch and Atwood yearlings.

“We sold out of Will Rogers [Memorial Center in Fort Worth],” Atwood says. “I’d

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Although he can be camera shy with the media, Atwood (third from the left) poses for a picture with friends and associates (l-r) Kalley Krickeberg, Catherine Sapienza, Linda Parelli, Pat Parelli and Mike Sapienza.

With Tom, it’s truly a love of the horses. It’s a passion for him. He loves the babies and

the broodmares, and he stands behind his horses. —Jodi Elliot

September 2007  Performance Horse    �

have 25 babies, and the King Ranch would match that.”

The sales, which ran from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s, quickly earned a reputation as an outstanding place to find a young cut-ting prospect. Atwood was selling yearlings for $35,000 to $40,000 out of mares that had earned six figures.

Special EspecialThough Atwood prefers the broodmare

side of the breeding business, when the stal-lion Especial entered his life, he adjusted his operation to include standing stallions.

Especial, a son of Doc Bar out of War Leo’s Lady by War Leo, was one of the stallions in the Super Syndicate, a rich cutting open only to offspring of stallions in the syndicate. Even-tually, the Super Syndicate disbanded, and Es-pecial ended up in a sale.

“Bernie and I weren’t even looking for a stud,” Atwood says. “Bernie was buying cheap mares and pasture-breeding them. Especial was in the sale, and he came into the ring on three legs—he looked terrible. We bought Es-pecial for $7,600.”

Jodi and Jack Elliott had a ranch near one of Atwood’s Weatherford holdings. Jodi was buy-ing mares from Kirkland at the time Atwood and Kirkland came home with Especial.

“I was told that Especial was a savage and would be no good for pasture breeding,” At-wood says. “Jodi made him into a pup. She made a believer out of me.”

Especial, in turn, made a believer out of everyone by turning out well-constructed youngsters for Atwood.

“He put outstanding bone and feet on horses,” Atwood says. “I really liked that horse.”

The care that Atwood and Elliott give their horses has resulted in animals that live long, happy lives. Especial died at age 32, while Candy Bullette is still living at age 32, roaming a large pasture with a group of young horses.

“She’s a babysitter for us,” Elliott says. “We give these old mares and geldings a job to do, and I think that’s why they last so long. They enjoy being out there with the babies.”

The same special attention that Atwood horses experienced in Texas is the norm at the outfit’s primary California ranch, as well. Stony Creek clients, who range from celeb-rities such as actor William Shatner to local horsewoman Nora Stent, respond with loyalty to the good care their horses receive.

Stent, who owns TSR Quarter Horses in Fall River Mills, California, sends recipient mares

from embryo transfers of her Texas-based per-formance mares to Stony Creek to foal because, should anything go wrong, her ranch isn’t lo-cated close enough to an equine hospital.

“They have lots of room,” says Stent of Stony Creek. “It makes so much difference in the babies. Jodi and her staff are great and car-ing. They treat my horses like their horses.”

Return to CaliforniaAtwood developed Stony Creek because

he found himself flying to Weatherford fre-quently from Northern California and spend-ing about one week out of the month there. As shipped semen began making stallion and mare location insignificant, he decided to leave Texas and concentrate his holdings on the West Coast. He convinced the Elliotts to return with him.

Before moving to Texas, Jodi and Jack had owned a ranch in Fallbrook, a small town in

north San Diego county and were happy to return to California when Atwood asked them to. In fact, Jack, who shows cutters as a non-pro, is an electrical contractor and helped At-wood build the new facility.

Stony Creek encompasses 2,500 acres and houses the stallions and most of Atwood’s performance mares. Because the business has

changed since the Weatherford days, Atwood felt he didn’t want to try to compete at the most expensive level. That, in turn, altered what he looks for in a potential dam.

“The cost of those mares with the good per-formance records has gotten so prohibitive,” he explains. “It just doesn’t pencil out to spend $200,000 to $500,000, especially when you’re breeding to your own stallions. I’m going for pedigree and conformation now.”

Jodi helps buy Atwood’s mares, and she says she looks for young mares that have the poten-

Dalc

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Especial, a son of Doc Bar out of War Leo’s Lady by War Leo, was Atwood’s first great stallion.

I was told Especial was a savage and would be no good for pasture breeding.

Jodi made him into a pup. He put outstanding bone and feet on horses. I really liked that horse.

—Tom Atwood

�    Performance Horse  September 2007

tial to develop good families. She and Atwood also look for mares that will cross well with the Stony Creek stallions.

Currently, Stony Creek stands six stallions, four owned by Atwood (Ill Be Smart, Colonel Doc Bar Chex, One Smart Peppy and Boot Scootin Dually) and two for clients (Mr Bad-ger Lena and Doctor Shorty Brown). While Atwood will eagerly outline the good points of each, it’s hard for him not to show some fa-voritism for Colonel Doc Bar Chex, whom he bred and fondly calls “Target.”

Atwood sold Target as a cutter, and the stal-lion did well. Eventually, he was compelled to buy the horse back to stand at stud.

Just because an Atwood horse goes to stud, however, doesn’t mean he no longer sees a saddle and rider.

“Tom wants his stallions ridden,” Jodi says. “We work them on cattle as long as they’re legged up, and they love it. That’s why they are so good-minded.”

Atwood attributes much of the stallions’ manners to the gentle, yet firm way Jodi and her mostly female staff care for them.

“She just gets them to love her, and it shows,” he points out. “They’re doing what she wants, and they think they’re doing what they want. It’s a gift and probably her strongest suit.”

Jodi explained it this way: “We can’t out-muscle them, so we have to outthink them.

We give them the respect that we expect to get from them. Stallions are smart, and they can be as disciplined as anything else if they’re taught to do it.”

That discipline is impressive to even the top people in the cutting business. For example, Ken Wold happened to be at the ranch one day when Target was being exercised.

“Wold asked if he could ride him,” Atwood remembers. “He spent some time with Target, and he said, ‘I think I could do something with him in the World’s Greatest Horseman.’”

That might not have seemed unusual except that Target was 12 years old at the time. Wold put some training on the stallion and the fol-lowing year rode him to Reserve Champion honors behind Bob Avila and Paid By Chic in the 2000 National Reined Cow Horse Associ-ation’s Greatest Horseman contest.

Branching OutAtwood has branched out from the per-

formance horses at Stony Creek. He keeps his cattle on an 11,000-acre ranch in Red Bluff, California, and leases part of it to other cattlemen. He also has cattle and timber op-erations on about 100,000 acres he owns in Oregon.

Rob and Becky Williams run Longview Ranch, the ranch horse division of the Oregon operation that includes some cutters and rein-

Bobby Bo Badger, pictured here with rider Robin Flourney, stands at Longview Ranch, an Atwood-owned operation in Oregon.

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September 2007  Performance Horse    �

ers. They stand the stallion Bobby Bo Bad-ger, another son of Little Peppy who has per-formed as both a cutter and reiner.

Atwood’s interest in developing ranch horses also led him to purchase a Thoroughbred stal-lion named Red Fire, a son of Hennessy, who is a Thoroughbred sire of several talented run-ning Quarter Horses. Atwood plans to breed some of his mares by Colonel Doc Bar Chex to Red Fire.

“I want to get good, big ranch horses,” At-wood says. “They probably won’t be worth much, but I want to try it.”

Mike and Catherine Sapienza have begun another new Atwood division, Atwood Ranch Naturally, in Elk Grove, California. They are followers of the Pat Parelli natural horseman-ship method.

“We’re trying it out with my yearlings,” At-wood explains. “It makes sense to me to give yearlings some light training. The earlier you can teach a horse, the better it is for them.”

The Sapienzas’ methods echo much of what Jodi and her crew do with foals at Stony Creek.

“If the mare foals out here, the very next day the baby has a halter on,” Jodi says. “Some people bring in babies that are quite wild, and we start halter-breaking them right away. When people pick up their horses, they are amazed at how broke and calm the baby is.”

Atwood even has a training division in Southern California with reining trainer Danny Girardi.

“I have about 20 horses for him, and I ride his reiners,” Girardi says. “I’m going to try to qualify two of his horses this year for the [AQHA] World.”

Girardi has known Atwood for about 20 years, having shown Atwood’s horses since age 19. He has won the AQHA World in reining and has trained others to do the same. Girardi says that he and Atwood are now focusing on training reiners for non-pros instead of mak-ing the mad dash toward developing a futurity prospect. And while Atwood has performance horses in training, he offers most of his foals to buyers when they are long yearlings, keeping only the occasional filly to replace older mares in his broodmare band.

This past January, Atwood experimented with a sale at Stony Creek.

“For a first sale, overall we did fairly well,” Elliott says. “We took in outside horses, too, offering about 120 horses. Something like 750 to 900 people were there.”

The sale included horses of all ages, from yearlings to riding horses and broodmares.

With so many irons in the fire, Atwood has a lot to oversee. But he has installed key people at each ranch, all of whom are devoted to the same basic goal: producing sound, well-man-nered, versatile horses.

“This industry got to the point where we were producing throwaway horses,” Atwood says. “I have my own pasture ornament. That horse was so unsound; we use him for the kids. He has tiny little feet, and you can tell

his hocks are hurting him. The horse has no withers. He’s just not made to hold up. That isn’t what I want to raise.”

At Atwood’s ranches, whether it’s a perfor-mance horse, a ranch horse, or simply a riding horse, the animals are built to last.

“That’s the reason I’ve stayed hooked so long,” Atwood says with a smile. “I’ve found things I want to do, and I’m happy with it.”

At Atwood Ranch Naturally in Elk Grove, California, yearlings receive light training according to the Pat Parelli natural horsemanship method.

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