Range Royalty

The long red carpet which Denver's historic Brown Palace Hotel spreads for the feet of royalty was unrolled at the front door one day last week. A curious woman asked, "Who are you expecting?" A bellhop grinned, said, "A $50,000 bull." Snapped the woman: "You don't have to be nasty." A few minutes later a $50,000 bull named T. T. Regent lumbered out of a truck, waddled up the red rug, was triumphantly installed in a pen in the lobby.

A similar performance by a second $50,000 bull, T. T. Triumphant 29th, was canceled at the last minute. T. T. Triumphant was indisposed, stayed behind at his veterinarian's orders. But a prize calf, sent as a substitute, plodded up the red rug as his representative.

Cattlemen, crowded into Denver for the 1945 National Western Livestock Show, saw nothing at all unusual in this procedure. Both bulls were white-faced Herefords, the predominant Western beef strain and the pride of Western stockmen. In bringing $50,000--the highest price ever paid for a U.S. beef animal--the T.T.s Triumphant and Regent had hung up a mark for stockmen to shoot at.

Ever since the Ralph Smith Farms of Chillicothe, Mo. bought an Aberdeen-Angus bull for a record $40,000 last March, the American Hereford Association had hoped for high-priced bidding on Herefords at Denver. But few would have bet that such a fabulous price could be topped, even in a boom year.

For raising the bulls that topped the Angus mark, Herefordmen had a Westerner to thank--Dan Thornton of Gunnison, Colo., who took home a total of $200,000 from cattle sales. Motorman Edward F. Fisher of Detroit and Banker Richard C. Riggs of Catonsville, Md. bid $50,000.

Hereford raisers had reason to hope that the mark would be broken again next year. In the closing minutes of the auction, Bob Lazear, manager of the Wyoming Hereford Ranch at Cheyenne, Wyo., received the most fabulous offer yet--$100,000 for W. H. R. Helmsman III, judged top bull of the show. But, income taxes being what they are, Bob Lazear was of no mind to set a record: he turned down the offer. Said he: "I wouldn't know what to do with $100,000, but I know what to do with a bull."

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