“That’s probably what you ought to do,” was Buddy Underwood’s first reaction.

He looked by flashlight in the middle of the night at the horse’s left hind foot, dangling like an empty glove. An out of town veterinarian already had told the owner of the sorrel stallion to destroy the horse. Sheet metal had inflicted a severe cut near the fetlock, severing the tendons.

The distraught owner, who’d once been offered $10,000 for the animal, brought the stallion to Underwood who’s not only a horse trader, but the professor of a “magic elixir” passed along to him by his father, Hollis.

Buddy claims exceptional powers for the secret lotion in treating horses’ leg injuries, but even he questioned whether the effort was worthwhile for the stallion.

Then he took a better look at the horse and “Red” got a second chance. There was something about the great-grandson of the great Otoe that changed Buddy’s mind.

Horse traders are not noticeably sentimental about horses but “if ever one did get next to me, I’d guess it’d be this one,” Buddy said.

It was March 1 he told the owner to unload the horse. “We’ll see what we can do,” Buddy said.

Two days later he called on Blacksmith Roland Bowman for help. At Buddy’s request Roland made the horse an extended egg bar shoe and put it on as the horse lay on his side on the ground, his leg swollen to an eight to ten inch circumference.

“You wouldn’t believe how pathetic he looked,” Roland Said

You wouldn’t know it now. Four months later Red is back on his feet, all four of them, and Buddy who bought the stallion from his disgusted owner, vows to ride him the stallion before the month is out.

Red’s foot isn’t perfect. He depends on that special shoe to support an ankle that bends forward, but it doesn’t stop him from doing his own version of a lope to the fence to nicker at the mares.

His hip that withered from disuse is getting strong and it’s a handsome hip. Buddy’s had offers from people who now want to buy the horse that nearly went to the killer.

“But every time I went to the barn, the horse would get up and eat, like he was telling me ‘stay with me.’” Buddy says.

So despite discouragement from practically everybody, he did.

And now Buddy and Roland smile as Red quietly wanders around the front yard nibbling grass at the Underwood’s home near Wynnewood.

“He’s got a Cadillac of a disposition,” Roland commented.

And a good head that tends to distract the viewers from that odd appearing foot.

The head is remarkably like Otoe’s in a painting that hangs in the Underwood’s home. It undoubtably is one of the reasons Red, real name – Marshall Whiskers – won his yearling halter class at Fort Worth before he went on to become a cutting horse.

He’s by Marshall Image out of Sally Whiskers and, for unexplained reasons, seems to have a lot of department stores in his background. Marshall’s Image is by Marshall Field, a son of Otoe out of a mare called Neiman Marcus, Neiman Marcus was sired by Croton Oil.

They bred the heart to beat the odds into Red and fortunatly for both of them Buddy sensed the horse could do it.

The second chance was all he needed.
 

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