Rodeo Legend — Harry Vold

BY FRIEA HOOPER-BRADFORD

In a time when integrity has gone out of style, Harry Vold still lives by the code of the West. Supplying bucking stock to 12 of the leading rodeos in the country, Harry seals every deal with a handshake. He moves among the kind of businessmen and women who live by their word. “They’d be insulted if I came up with a paper contract,” he says.

For this and many other reasons, Harry Vold is a household name in the rodeo world. Another reason is simply because he’s been around so long. Harry has been supplying the flashiest bucking stock to rodeos for 60 out of his 86 years. Ty Murray, seven-times all-around world rodeo champion; Marty Wood, world champion saddle bronc rider; and Harry Tompkins, eight-time world champion bull and bronc rider have all ridden into fame on the back of Harry’s stock. And then there are also Rodeo Hall of Fame inductee Larry Mahan and the legendary Jim Shoulders and Casey Tibbs (now in cowboy heaven). Their brilliant rodeo careers were not only due to their athletic skills, but also to Harry’s bucking horses and bulls.

But then you don’t have to ask for testimonials to discover the depth of Harry’s contribution to the rodeo world. Proof can be found in a collection of saucer-sized silver buckles that cover tables made from wagon wheels in the Vold home. A sample of the gold inscriptions read “Stock Contractor of the Year” for eight consecutive years and “1985 PRCA (Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association) Man of the Year.” They join the collection of nine silver-adorned halters for Angel Sings, Rusty, Wrangler Savvy, and other bucking horses of the year. Harry is especially proud of Bobby Joe Skoal, three time world champion, and his 777, his world champion bull.

Every inch of the walls in the original homestead on Harry’s Red Top Ranch near Fowler is covered with photos that tell of a life few men can top. It is doubtful that there is any famous rodeo rider from the past 60 years who is not in one of Harry’s photographs.Despite all the fanfare and fame, Harry is a modest man who takes pride in having contributed his part to rodeo. Without exceptional bucking stock, a rodeo is — well — just another show.

His humility may stem in part from a recognition that happenstance played a part in his destiny. That, and an appreciation for where he is now in comparison to his humble beginnings.

“I started from nothing,” he recalls. He was born in 1924 in Ponoka, Alberta, Canada. His daddy, Nansen Vold, immigrated to Canada from North Dakota, making a living buying, selling and trading horses. The Great Depression colored young Harry’s growing years and taught him to value every cent. His brother Clifford earned a dollar a day on roundups, which was cut to 50 cents as the depression deepened. Vold remembers Clifford winning the bucking horse event at the Ponoka rodeo. Six dollars was as much as a week’s wages. “Back then,” Harry says, “the bucking horses were snubbed to another horse. There were no chutes or fancy facilities.” That wild and dusty Ponoka rodeo, the introduction to Harry’s future, would later become the second largest rodeo in Canada next to the famous Calgary Stampede.

Although Ponoka was Harry’s start in rodeo, he still had to pay his dues before rodeo would become his calling. Working in the horse business with his daddy was a way to scrape by. Even good horses brought not much more than a hundred dollars during those hard times. Regardless of tough times and though he needed a job, Harry’s mother had ideas different than rodeo work for her son.

“My mother, born and raised in Oslo, Norway, figured that as a 16 year old, I had better learn manners,” Harry remembers. Kirsten Vold shipped Harry off to a Youth Training School in Bashaw, Alberta, where teaching manners was the most important part of the curriculum.

“Badly needed today,” Harry shakes his head with a bit of sadness. “We learned to set a table, stand up when a lady entered the room and remove our hats.”

Those “manners” would become an integral part of doing business in the growing world of rodeo.

When he finished school, Harry returned home to help his father. The horse business had recovered and horses started to bring a decent price. Fortunes continued to improve when Leo Cremer, a rodeo stock contractor and producer from Big Timber, Montana, sent a representative to Canada to ship stock to Montana.

Destiny once again intervened and would lead, although not obvious at the time, to Harry’s legendary success in rodeo. 
It started when, in 1952, disaster struck Harry’s rodeo business. The Canadian border closed because of an outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease. “We couldn’t ship horses anymore, and there was nothing we could do with them, couldn’t even sell them,” Harry recalls. That desperate time turned into an opportunity. Harry offered the bucking stock to the Ponoca Stampede for free. The horses were good broncs and caught the eye of the neighboring town of Stettler. “They paid $8 a head for 40 horses for three 
days,” Harry says. The rodeo business started to look real good.

Those first years of supplying bucking stock to rodeos far from home demanded tough hands to drive horses dozens of miles. “We drove as far as 150 miles, poking along,” Harry recalls. “We’d spend up to one week on the trail, and pay was 25 to 30 cents a day.”

Although Harry has fond memories of grub served from a chuck wagon and sleeping on the ground in bedrolls after trailing horses 25 miles per day, he certainly appreciated the railroad. As his business grew, he could finally afford the luxury of shipping his bucking stock by train. Rodeos wanted fresh horses, ready to buck, and Harry could deliver them over long distances by rail. Today, he wishes he could still ship by rail, but bucking stock is now transported in stock trucks. “The railroad is safer and more reliable, no breakdowns on the road,” he says.

During those early years of driving bucking horses, the drovers had to have a lot of cowboy savvy. “There are tricks 
to controlling a herd,” says Harry. He remembers learning early in life how to handle horses that want to stampede. 
“You don’t drive horses from behind. You are out to the sides and in front.” Harry learned valuable skills from the Sarcee 
tribe when he grazed large herds of horses on their reservation. Harry talks with admiration particularly about Rupert Crowchild, a horseman who he says could truly “ride like an Indian” and knew every trick in the book about rounding up horses.

Young Harry also learned plenty of horse sense from other top cowboys. “I worked with cowboy Lawrence Bruce. He taught me more than anyone,” Harry says. He also credits Bruce with teaching him the skills of rounding up, roping and handling rough stock. On the Vold Red Top Ranch, Harry handles his seasoned bucking horses as well as his up-and-coming colts the old-fashioned way. No four wheelers. No chutes for branding. If you work on the Red Top Ranch, you’ve got to be a real cowboy or cowgirl.

As Harry gained a reputation, he was also in competition with other stock contractors. A good relationship with the largest stock contractor at the time, Beutler Brothers, led to a partnership that became Beutler, Vold, and Cervy and was based in the United States. After four years, Vold decided to work independently and eventually became the largest rodeo stock contractor in the U.S. Today, he supplies bucking horses and bulls in 15 states. And he’s still on the road.

Harry was highly regarded as an auctioneer and owned a livestock auction barn. “I couldn’t be a real homebody,” he says, looking at his pretty wife, Karen. “It takes a special wife to put up with that kind of life.”

And Karen Vold is a special wife. She is an extraordinary woman who was a trick rider on the rodeo circuit and still teaches trick riding at the Red Top Ranch. Karen Womack Vold is in the Cowgirl Hall of Fame, while husband Harry is in the Rodeo Hall of Fame.

Harry met Karen when he hired his wife’s group of trick riders for one of his rodeo specialty acts in Wainwright, Alberta. They were rained out but traveled to the next rodeo and continued performing in the U.S.A. She caught his eye, and eventually he caught her hand in marriage. Karen was born and raised in the rodeo business and is no stranger to the vagabond way of life that makes their business so successful.

Harry, although he regrets his busy schedule when his children were growing up, must have done something right, seeing as all of his children are not only involved with but also love and live the rodeo life. “They were all good kids,“ Harry says with obvious admiration. “None of them gave us any trouble.”

Daughters Darce and Dona and son Doug own the Triple V Rodeo Stock Company. Darce has proved herself in the rodeo world. Likewise, Dona, also a horsewoman, has followed in her father’s footsteps as a rodeo contractor. Daughter Nancy (who passed away in 2008) Doug rode in and worked rodeos, was also a first-rate saddle bronc rider, inducted into the Canadian Professional Rodeo 
Hall of Fame. Wayne is the oldest, also inducted into the Canadian Professional Rodeo Hall of Fame. He owns a rodeo stock contracting business in Canada and proved himself early in his career with saddle bronc titles. Daughter Kirsten is now manager of the Vold Rodeo Corporation. Like her mother, she was a talented trick rider. After graduating from college, she was the only member of the family who drifted away from the life of rodeo, but that separation didn’t last long. She earned a degree in marketing and after two years, Kirsten came home to follow what’s in her blood.

If you want to see a proud daddy, just look at Harry. He doesn’t need to praise his children because it’s written all over his face. About Kirsten he brags, “She has all the horses on a computer. I use a pad and 25-cent lead pencil.”

The Vold clan’s home is an 1865 homestead on the 32,000-acre Red Top Ranch a ways out of Avondale. Harry and Karen still live in the house, although they added onto the original homestead. When I visited, we were comfortably seated in the ‘new part’ at a round table that could accommodate the entire Vold clan. A bull hide Karen had brought from Brazil covered the table. Handsome western art added a sense of gracious western living. The surprise came when Harry invited me into the homestead part of the house.

Next visit, I promised myself to take a few hours — although that would not be enough — to check out the museum-sized collection of memorabilia. It’s safe to say there are a thousand photos of rodeo stars, dozens of champion bucking horses and bulls, honorable awards, and gifts of admiration and gratitude. No doubt, Vold is proud of his accomplishments, but he takes greater pride in how others respect and remember him. He pointed at a headdress from the Sarcee tribe in Canada when it made him honorary Chief. The name Chief Many Horses fits Vold perfectly. That respect obviously means more to Vold than the bottom line. Countless friendships keep Vold actively involved in rodeo, but it’s also in his blood. Not much can keep this rodeo man from being in the saddle. Vold isn’t just a rodeo businessman, he is a genuine cowboy who wouldn’t think of quitting. And, if you see Harry Vold in the Grand Entry at any of his rodeos, he will be mounted on a black horse.

“I’ve always had black horses,” he says. “This latest black horse, Scott, is quite a looker, but also bombproof.” Vold wouldn’t let much grass grow under his horse’s hoofs even when he had to stay on the ground for a time because of a knee replacement. “The knee problems probably started 50 years ago,” he says, “I chased horses in Canada and I had one fall with me.”

Although there is no doubt he could still ride with the best, Vold no longer rides pickup. Pickup riders pick up the bronc rider — provided he stays on — aside from taking the bucking horse out of the arena. Vold explains that he hires only the best pickup men and clowns (bull fighters that who keep the cowboy out of danger). It’s just another way of doing things right.

Once rodeo season is over, ending in mid-September with only two rodeos remaining the rest of the year, Vold gets to enjoy his handsome ranch. The stone ranch buildings with red roofs cut silhouettes into the expansive prairie sky. A new crop of colts — possible future champion bucking horses — that already dwarf the average riding horses turn and race into the infinity of the land. They have plenty of good grass nurtured by prairie thunderstorms. “I feel very blessed when the horses get fat and strong and are in good shape,” Vold says with a smile.

Harry and Karen’s home snuggles under trees by the Huerfano River. It’s the sort of ranch you could stay home on all the time, but Harry Vold, even at age 86, is still a vagabond. He already looks forward to another busy summer and to his favorite rodeo, Cheyenne Frontier Days, the daddy of ’em all. He’s looking forward to providing a couple thousand animals, horses for rodeo queens and dignitaries, selecting specialty acts, and being with the 1,300 contestant. Everyone of the contestants, by the way, will know who Harry Vold is.

Freia Hooper Bradford knew Harry Vold during the late ’60s and ’70s, when her husband Joe Hooper put on weekly rodeos at Paradise Ranch. Freia worked as a pickup rider and remembers, “Even for an amateur rodeo, we got really good bucking stock from Harry Vold.”