First posted, Dec 30, 2008 Last update, Aug 25, 2010
Play song 4:16 The Yellow Stud
By Chris LeDoux Album: Cowboy
Artist biography
You can see more about breaking a horse on this page
If you are interested in learning more about the cowboys of past times and how they "ran" the horses, read the book "Three Mustangeers" by Will James
Somewhere on the prairie a yellow stud runs free
Runnin' through the sagebrush, down through the coulee
There not far behind him a cowboy rides along
Gonna try to catch him and break him for his own
The chase goes on all mornin' and late into the day
The cowboy changes horses he's staked along the way
The stud is growing weaker now and gettin' short of wind
He runs into the trap corral the cowboy shuts him in
The yellow stud with wild eyes that feared n' hated man
Finally standin' face to face in the hot and dusty sand
The battle starts and rages on beneath the burnin' sun
The cowboy tried but couldn't ride that yellow outlaw stud
So he sold him to a rodeo, and it spread throughout the land
The legend of this yellow stud, the badest of the bad
And then one day at Cheyenne we knew it had to come
The best of all bronc riders he drew that yellow stud
The wooden gate flew open and the stud he bailed out high
An explosion of yellow horse seem to fill the sky
The stud kept gettin' stronger n' thrashin' up the earth
The cowboy threw a stirrup and crashed into the dirt
So violently the stud had bucked that he slipped and fell
As he went down his backbone snapped the yellow stud lay still
Well as cowboys gathered round him, I heard one of them say
There'll never be another bronc, like the one that died today
But out there on the prairie, there's a mare with mustang blood
And a colt runs close beside her, a yellow outlaw stud
The yellow stud is a male horse of light brown almost yellow color
Coulee is a spanish word for deep gulch or ravine with sloping sides often dry in summer
To break a horse is to teach the horse how to be ridden.
A cowboy who wanted to catch a wild horse would stage saddled horses along the route he thinks the wild horse will take in order to give him a fresh mount every few miles. This way he can tire out the wild horse without wearing out his mount.
The cowboy will have built a trap in the form of a hidden corral with a hidden gate and hopefully he can chase the horse into it.
Rodeo bronc riders draw the names of the horses out of a hat to find which horse he will ride.
Bailed out high indicates the horse came out of the rodeo chute on his hind legs, see photo near bottom of page.
The cowboy threw a stirrup means he lost the stirrup and came off the horse
Play song 4:16
