Sheldon MorrisonSheldon Morrison and the Damele Curly Horse On February 27, 2010, Mr. Sheldon Morrison was kind enough to let me interview him about the Dameles and the breeding work that they did to develop the curly horse that they found in the Mr. Sheldon Morrison was born in
In the early 1900’s the mines and smelters were still in production in Eureka and Cortez areas, some very large teams of horses and mules (some as large as 20 head) were used to pull ore, freight and charcoal wagons, so hay was in great demand to feed all these animals. Therefore the fields at Three Bar Ranch were enlarged to raise as much hay as possible to feed the Damele horses and cows and also to sell and haul hay to Cortez to help supply the livestock there. In the early 1940’s when the modern tractors and haying equipment became available, the work horses were no longer used by most ranches. Benny Damele being the exception, used teams to feed cows in the winter, haul wood and posts for fence repair. A good saddle horse became more important, because the number of Damele cows were increasing and the country to be covered horseback, grew in size. The Damele family experienced a number of very hard winters. The first was in 1932, then in 1948 and 1949 and then again the spring of 1952. The 1932 winter killed almost all the mustangs in the area. The horses that survived that bad winter were all curly haired horses. The Dameles caught one of those horses and did manage to get it broke to ride. ( None of the living Dameles remember anything about that horse, good or bad) The horse was later sold. Returning to Three Bar Ranch form Roberts Creek Ranch, on Flag Day, 1947, Uncle Chris, Aunt Pat, and Cousin Crystal Zumwalt and Sheldon (Pat being the oldest daughter of Bernard Damele) found two baby colts along the road. One was a curly haired horse colt and the other was a straight haired filly, both were bays. They were so weak, they were caught on foot. Uncle Chris tied their legs and left them by a cedar tree. A short time later he returned with the pickup and brought them to the ranch. The colts were bottle fed and played with by the kids on the ranch. The filly grew up gentle, but the curly never did gentle down and soon got too dangerous to be around kids and was shipped out when he was around a yearling. Sheldon doesn’t remember what happened to the filly. The Dameles realized that the curly coated mustang had the ability to survive. But they also realized that these wild curly mustangs were what was called junk and knot heads. These junk mustangs were also very highly inbred and of poor quality. They realized that they were not in and of themselves good riding horses. Before they could become good riding horses they would have to be improved. So the Damele family set about the vital task of improving horses that were mere survival machines by crossing the wild mares with good quality domestic stallions. (Interviewer’s note: Few people realize the brilliance of what the Damele family did. They saw the potential to take poor, inbred survival machine mares, cross them with good quality stallions that were not related and produce an exceptional good and thinking type of horse.) In 1951, Benny Damele broke to ride and introduced the first stallion to improve the wild curly mares. They called this stud,
In 1959 Benny Damele acquired Nevada Red as a long yearling into his breeding. Nevada Red was called Arab Red by the Damele family. He was a bright sorrel. As a two year old he ran into a barbed wire fence and tore his chest open. LaRaine Damele kept the injured colt on the back porch and nursed the wound so that it could be kept clean. She literally sowed buttons on to the big flap of muscle that had been torn away. She would unbutton the flap, clean the wound and then re button the flap closed. The wound healed perfectly, with out even a scare. This kind of care is very similar to what is practiced today by the best vet hospitals to care for this kind of large wound. When Nevada Red was old enough to start breeding, he was put with mares that were out of
Sheldon says: At this point let me add, any of these colts that continued to buck or show any sign of possible meanness during breaking, they were discontinued and shipped out. This business has no place for a horse a man can’t trust.
Sheldon on Peacock Photo courtesy of Sheldon Morrison Sheldon’s favorite horse at Dry Creek Ranch was a little horse called Peacock which Peter J, Benny’s older brother, broke to ride. He was out of
Mr. Morrison said that
Benny Damele felt that the best cross for the mustang curly mares were either Arab or Morgan stallions. They, Dameles, always tried to cross good quality domestic stallions with the inbred early curly range mares. It was the result of crossing new blood into the original curly genetic base that resulted in the good Damele curly horse that formed the back bone of the ABC Registry. The Damele family sold the Three Bars ranch in 1956 or so. After that the Dry Creek and the Ackerman ranches became their main base of operations. Benny Damele was like a brother to Mr. Morrison, as I wrote above. During the 1960’s, about the same time Mr. Morrison moved away to make a living, marry and raise a family, Benny Damele really started raising curly horses in earnest. At one time he had as many as 6 or 7 stud bands. Towards the end of his life, Benny Damele only had 2 or 3 bands. When Mr. Damele realized that he was dying of cancer, and it broke his heart to have to sell his horses and Benny was never the same again. In 1991, he died at the age of 62. However, Benny Damele was always a gentleman. Shortly before his death he did grant an interview to a writer and told a little about his curly horses. However, the interviewer was very hard on Mr. Damele and did not respect his feelings. Yet ever so, Mr. Damele remained courteous to her. Benny Damele was always good to his horses and had a special way with them. Once he gained their trust, he could do almost anything with them. There was never any rough or harsh treatment of the horses at any time. As stated before, any horse that tried to buck more than a few times was dropped. Benny learned his horse sense from his Dad, Peter L. Damele who was known as probably the best horse man in this part of the country. Sincerely, Penny
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