WYO 2-Year-Olds

Shortly before being started under saddle, geldings owned by Woody Bartlett and Bill Smith trot into a round corral near Chugwater, Wyoming. Photo by Ross Hecox, Western Horseman, 2007

Hitch Cowboys

Hitch Ranch cowboys move yearlings to a new pasture at sundown in the Oklahoma Panhandle. The family-owned operation specializes in stocker calves with its feedlot, irrigated wheat fields and open pastures. Photo by Ross Hecox, Western Horseman, November 2017

Sons of Thunder

Two Belgian geldings named James and John pull a hay wagon on the Quarter Circle 99 near Loco, Oklahoma. Photo by Ross Hecox, 2024

Haythorn Hoolihan

Sage Haythorn ropes a saddle horse at sunrise on Haythorn Land & Cattle. Sage represents the fifth generation to own and manage the historic cow-calf operation located in the Nebraska Sandhills. Photo by Ross Hecox, Western Horseman, May 2020

Bell Ranch Remuda

Brady Clark brings in the remuda at daybreak on the Bell Ranch in New Mexico. He and the crew were staying out with the wagon, living in teepees and wrangling horses at the time. Photo by Ross Hecox, Western Horseman, 2012

Babbitt Bred

With Kendrick Peak in the background, Elizabeth and Benjamin Rodgers help move a set of Hereford cows on the Babbitt Ranch. The Arizona cow-calf operation has raised Horned Herefords for decades. Photo by Ross Hecox, May 2024

Doctor of Earth

Tripp Townsend ropes and doctors a yearling in an open pasture near Earth, Texas. Townsend makes his living buying high-risk sale-barn cattle, straightening them out, and selling them when they're ready for market.
Photo by Ross Hecox, 2023

Logging Miles

Miles Baker checks cows on his family's ranch near the Wichita Mountains in southwestern Oklahoma. The rope horse trainer believes putting horses to work in open spaces makes them better performers in the arena. Photo by Ross Hecox, Western Horseman, 2020

Cimarron Storm

Beneath an approaching summer thunderstorm, yearling mares hang out in a pasture at the Crow Creek division of the CS Ranch near Cimarron, New Mexico. Photo by Ross Hecox, 2023

Whiteface Gaze

A Horned Hereford cow peers from the herd in a corral on the Spider Web division of Babbitt Ranches in Arizona, waiting to be shipped to the mountains for summer grazing. Photo by Ross Hecox, Western Horseman, May 2021

Early Morning Glare

The cowboy crew on Babbitt Ranches heads out to gather cattle near the Spider Web Camp in northern Arizona. Photo by Ross Hecox, Western Horseman, May 2021

Sunup on the CS

Mares and foals graze at the Crow Creek division of the CS Ranch, northeast of Cimarron, New Mexico. Photo by Ross Hecox, August 2023

Sunrise Guy

At sunrise, Tom Moorhouse gets ready to unload a truck full of yearling calves on the Tongue River Ranch near Dumont, Texas. Photo by Ross Hecox, Western Horseman, March 2014