I was just a kid when I went to a Pitzer Ranch sale for the first time. I believe it was actually an all-school field trip—that will give you an idea of the rural place I was raised in and what we did for fun back then! I remember sitting in the stands and calculating in my head how much money I had in my bank account and how much of my allowance I would need to save weekly in order to buy a colt of my own. I have always been inspired by the Two Eyed Jack horses.
When I was about eight, my dad bought a yearling stallion, a grandson of Two Eyed Jack named Watch Joe Starlite. He was a late-born colt, a little runty, and came to us congested and coughing. There was nothing exceptional about the plain little sorrel colt that walked out of the trailer, but the genes he possessed brought great value to our small broodmare bunch. Within a year he was shiny and filled out, and beginning training. Within two years his first colt hit the ground, who happened to be the first horse I ever trained, my gelding Rudy.
We never came up with a unique name for our stallion. The first thing he was dubbed was “Pitzer Jack”, and this stuck with him, often being shortened to “Jack”. He was a son of Watch Joe Jack, one of the most famous sons of Two Eyed Jack, and would have cost my dad a lot more if he hadn’t been such a runt. He remained short, maybe 14.2 hands, but had great compact conformation, putting strength, agility, athleticism, and cow sense into every colt born on our ranch. We crossed him with taller, rangy Three Bars bred mares, all gray colored, and got a lot of grays and bays from him.
Jack’s colts had some buck in them, but with the exception of one, they were all trainable, willing colts. We trained them to work cattle and carry a rider, and that’s all that we expected of them. They were intelligent and beautiful, but we were a ranch family, and there was no need or opportunity for them to exel as show horses or rodeo horses. They did their job with cattle, and they did it well, and we loved them for it!
One of Jack’s colts we named KJ, after our ranch brand. He was a striking bay, big, strong, and bold. It was the firstborn for our mare Tara who had bucked hard and remained untrainable, and my sister Kandra had gone off to college and KJ slipped through the cracks and we never got him started as a two year old. When he was three, we put a saddle on him and he bucked so hard that Dad sent him off to a trainer. The trainer returned him, telling us he was getting a little too old to break horses that rank. We tried two more trainers, getting the same response each time. We brought him home and while he was separated from the others, eating his grain in the round pen, I used to turn over the feed bucket and climb on him bareback. When I told my dad this, asking if I could train him myself, Dad quickly sold him to a bucking string for a rodeo horse. He did it to protect me, but I always thought there was nothing wrong with KJ other than maybe being cinchy and a little cold backed.
I grew up with Pitzer Ranch horses and I’ll always love those bloodlines. My dad sold Jack back to Howard Pitzer when I was in high school, I think in 1996, when Howard was scouting for horses to fill spots in his fall sale. I found out Jack still lives on a horse farm in Iowa somewhere, and was still standing to a few mares the last I heard. He was a good stallion with even greater colts, and I’ll always have fond memories of growing up with Jack.
Here is Jack’s Pedigree:
