My Ace in the Hole

In the old days, you seldom saw a white horse or a painted horse in the rodeos, because it seemed like they just didn't have the breeding to make good roping horses. One of the few I ever saw belonged to a fella I used to rope with who had a white horse that scored pretty well in the chute and would give you a good loop, but he didn't have a "stop" on him. You always trained your horse to stop hard and fast after you had roped the calf and jerked him down so that you'd be right there by the time the calf got up. You had to let the calf get back up on its feet before you could throw him and tie him, and if you were ready for him, you had a big advantage. At both Madison Square Garden and the Calgary Stampede, there was a 10-second penalty if you jerked a calf down, because the Humane Society had decided that it was cruelty to animals.

Anyway, I'd seen this fella rope off his white horse and I knew that the horse was a pretty good one, except that he couldn't jerk a calf down; he just sort of bounced when he stopped. He worked the rope pretty well – backed up and kept it tight after you had roped the calf so that you could get a good hold on it and pull the calf toward you. If your horse doesn't keep the rope tight, the calf can run anywhere it wants to.

This fella was at the rodeo in San Antonio when I got there (back in the mid-'50s). I knew that he liked to play poker, so he and I started playing head up, 30 minutes of lowball and 30 minutes of high draw. It wasn't too long before he went broke and wanted to borrow some money.

"I'm not in the loan business," I told him. "You're playing unlucky, so why don't we just quit and play some more tomorrow? Maybe your luck will be better then."

"I'd sure like to keep on playing," he answered, "so I'll tell what I'll do – I'll put up my horse."

"That's OK with me. What do you want for him?"

"$800."

"Well, why don't I just give you $800 worth of chips. If I win them back from you, the horse is mine. If you win, you keep the horse."

"Fair enough. Give me the chips and let's play."

We started dealing. Pretty soon this poker hand came up that I'll never forget. We were playing high draw and he dealt me three aces, a deuce, and a 7. I opened the pot for $50 and he raised me $100. I called him and drew two cards, an 8 and a 9. He also drew two cards. I led off with a $100 bet and he raised all the rest of his money. I took a little extra time to think it through. "He drew two cards," I was thinking. "Surely he wouldn't be drawing at a flush or a straight, so he must have trips. I hope he didn't catch the fourth one or make a full house, because I sure haven't helped my aces." I called him. He had three kings and got no help on the draw, so I won the pot – and the horse, of course.

"Well, now you own the horse," he said, being a good sport about it.

"Yeah, but I'm gonna have to feed that horse, and I don't have to feed money when I win it," I said, laughing it off.

I named my new horse "Ace," because I'd won him with three aces. The next morning, I loaded Ace in the trailer and headed back home to Tyler.

"Where'd you get that sorry lookin' gray nag?" my daddy asked when I came into the house that evening.

"Won him in a poker game," I answered with my chest stuck way out.

"Well, it's about time you won one. You've sure lost enough of them," he quipped, referring to the time I lost ol' Glass Eye in a poker game in Idaho.

I went out on the town that night and the next morning when I came downstairs for breakfast, Daddy was sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee. I knew he'd been up at daylight and already had roped off Ace.

"Well, how'd you like my new horse?" I asked.

"I wouldn't give a quarter for him!" he answered. "He can't even jerk a calf down. He gives you a pretty good loop and scores in the chute, but you won't win a nickel on him."

"Well, I'm going to Canada with him. He's gotta be perfect for the Stampede, because if you jerk a calf down up there, you get a fine. He's just what the doctor ordered."

"Good luck to you, Son, but don't call me for no money."

Canada was a long way from home for a piney woods boy like me, but I had a '50 Chrysler and a good horse trailer and headed north with Ace in tow. But I'll save that story for another time.

Editor's note: Cowboy Wolford is the author of Cowboys, Gamblers & Hustlers, an account of his adventures on the rodeo and poker circuits of yesteryear. It is available through Card Player, Barnes & Noble, and gaming bookstores across the nation. For more details, visit www.pokerbooks.com.