Makin' Good Money With Good Eye

"Seventy-five percent of any roper is his horse," Will Rogers once said. I got my first good horse in the early '50s and named him Good Eye, because he was blind in one eye. As soon as my daddy had trained him for me, I drove Good Eye way up to Wisconsin, where they had a rodeo inside a building. Not many rodeos were held in buildings in the old days, just Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, Madison Square Garden, and Boston Garden. All the rest of them were held outdoors. The fella who put on the rodeo had a couple of ropers who worked for him driving trucks, hauling the stock, and things like that. Then they'd perform in the rodeo, all the while being on a salary. They got the best of anything that came up – I'd been around long enough to know that they didn't draw those calves just right.

The night that I was up in the roping, I tied my calf in 10.04 seconds. The officials had never heard of anybody roping a calf inside a building in that fast a time, so they figured that the stopwatch hadn't worked. They told me that I'd have to rope the calf over again after the show that night.

"All right," I bragged. "I'll tie that sonnagun in 10 again. I've tied lots of 'em in nine seconds in practice." The calves weren't that big, you know, so that was right down my alley, and I had a good horse. In fact, Good Eye was one of the best roping horses I ever had. You could haul him 500 miles, get him out of the trailer, and go with him. He knew how to rest while he was traveling; he was just a natural. So, after the show was over, they got the calf back in there, and they got the stopwatch, the timekeeper, and the flag judge all ready to go. This time I tied the calf in 9.06. They were amazed!

"Well, did the watch work right that time?" I ribbed them. "If y'all ain't pleased, why don't you run the calf back in there. I believe I can tie that sonnagun in eight flat." This is just the type of story that ol' cowboys like me remember for years.

Troy Fort was the world champion roper at that time. Troy and I were sitting around playing poker during the rodeo in San Antone, just passing time until the roping started that night. At about 6 o'clock we drew the calves.

"What'd you draw?" Troy asked. When I told him the number I'd drawn, he said, "You ain't got a chance! I was 44 seconds on that ol' heifer at Houston."

"Well, hell, there's a lot of difference between my roping and yours, Troy," I cracked. "I won't be that long." Everybody just laughed.

I backed ol' Good Eye into the chute and they let loose that big calf. I roped him, Good Eye jumped him down, I waited for the calf to get up, legged him down, and tied him in 12.1. Broke the all-time record at San Antone on the same calf that the world champion had roped in 44.0. Made Troy eat his words.

Ol' Good Eye and I went back home after San Antone and then headed out for San Angelo, Texas. Just me, my Cadillac, a trailer, and Good Eye – hell, that was all I needed in the whole world. When we arrived, Junior Vaughn from New Mexico was already there. He had a ranch, raised calves, and drank quite a bit.

"Whatcha doin', Byron?" he asked.

"Well, I just got in and I've gotta go find me a place to stay."

"Well, lookie here," he said, "me and so-and-so have two beds in our room, so why don't you just stay with us?" That was fine with me, so we all went to their motel room to get cleaned up before going out to eat supper.

"Hey, I've got an idea," I cracked. "Why don't we play some poker with our change and the winner buys supper?" They liked the idea, so we took all the change out of our pockets, got a deck of cards, and started to play lowball poker on a bed in the motel room. They might not've known that I'm a helluva lowball player.

Pretty soon they went broke and started digging for more money. I started playing with about $2.80 and by the next morning, counting what money they had and what they owed me, I had won $10,000! That was mighty near more money than you could win in a year at rodeoing. They were in shock, I was in the chips, and we never did go out to eat.

Ol' Good Eye and I had some great times together, but I'll save a few of those stories for next time.

Editor's note: The late Byron "Cowboy" Wolford wrote Cowboys, Gamblers & Hustlers with co-author Dana Smith. Wolford has been credited with being one of the best oral historians of poker who ever lived. His book is available through Card Player. Visit www.pokerbooks.com for complete details.