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Written by PRCA ProRodeo/Photo by Kerri Allardyce
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Walt and Travis Tryan
“They had a special bond, and even in those final moments, Walt seemed to be looking out for Travis,” Tryan’s wife, Hillary, said. “Travis could have been badly injured in the fall, but Walt laid him down on the ground.
“Walt was gone almost immediately after that,” Travis said. “It all just happened really fast.”
Walt, who was buried under an oak tree at PRCA team roper Bert McGill’s Annadale Equine Center in nearby Sanger, Calif., had been voted the AQHA/PRCA Team Roping Heading Horse of the Year in each of the last three years and four times overall (also in 2003). He was also third in the balloting twice.
He won the award a year ago despite missing nearly two months of competition while recovering from a life-threatening bout of colic. Surgeons at the Idaho Equine Hospital in Nampa, Idaho, cut out a fatty tumor the size of a grapefruit.
“Walt dodged bullets a couple of times,” Hillary Tryan said. “He survived a case of ringbone about 3 years ago and then the colic last July. He had a fighting spirit and loved what he did. He always wanted to get back in the arena.”
Travis Tryan, a Montana native who currently lives in Santo, Texas, surpassed $1 million in career earnings last season, and the great majority of that was won on Walt, who Tryan once called “the greatest horse that has ever lived.” Tryan rode Walt at all nine of his appearances at the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo. His brother, Clay, rode Walt there once, as did Trevor Brazile.
While riding Walt at the 2008 Wrangler NFR, Tryan and his partner Cory Petska tied the then-world record time of 3.5 seconds in the eighth round.
Tryan’s backup horse, Gold Digger, 19, had colic surgery in December and isn’t quite ready to return to competition. Duke, a horse he bought from Speed Williams in 2009, died three weeks ago of liver failure. |
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