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Photo of Ivory Pal by Cheri Prill   Tennessee Walking Horse  Issue August 2010
by Gina McKnight. Author & Freelance Writer
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Ted Harvey: An American Wrangler

It’s 5:00 am in Cody, Wyoming, a couple of hours before sunrise.  Ted Harvey is awake and ready for his first cup of strong, black coffee.  He’ll go through a half pot of coffee before noon.  Ted is a handsome man and a solid buckaroo; a seasoned rancher and wrangler.  He wields the wrangler stride, necessary mustache, Levis that fit in all the right places and a wide smile. He has a solid history of skilled horsemanship, lasting kindness and engaging friendship. 
It’s 7:29 am now. The sun is up and trying to shine. On most days the sunrise is golden, azure and gleaming in Cody.  But today it is gray, perse and rainy, a typical autumn morning in wrangler country; hard, rugged and everything nature.  A climate manipulated and defined by the calloused hands and the sun-baked complexion of weathered wranglers. Ted has just come in from the barn; pulling horseshoes and trimming hooves.  He reaches for another steaming cup of stiff, wrangler coffee.

In 1967 Ted came into this world in Seattle, Washington. His family moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina when he was five years old. At the age eight, he was introduced to a horse for the first time while visiting distant relatives in France.  His encounter with the horse was exciting and humbling.  Ted remembers, “We were on a farm and there was a horse there.  My twin brother and I had gone out in the morning to pet the horse.  The farmer had just fed him his oats. I really wanted to pet the horse.  My brother kept telling me to leave him alone. The horse was swishing his tail and laying his ears back. I really wanted to pet him.  After a bit, the horse had had enough, turned around, and kicked me squarely in the butt.  He kicked me clear over a fence.  My brother is still laughing about that one.”

At the age of fourteen, in 1981, Ted and his family traveled to Cody, Wyoming for a dude ranch vacation.  Arriving at Valley Ranch, a sprawling ranch south of Cody, Ted became fascinated with the ranching lifestyle.  Staying at the ranch lodge, he became accustomed to the aroma, feel and sensations of western living. The horseback riding was exceptional; well-equipped for family vacations and novice riders. “Back then, I don’t remember much in the way of instruction,” says Ted. “They showed us how to go, stop and turn and that was about it.  In the lodge each evening at dinner there was a sign-up sheet for riding the next day.  You could choose between slow, intermediate or advance.  I went on every advanced ride for the two weeks we were there and I was hooked.  I knew then that dude ranching was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.”  Ted’s experience at the ranch would set the course for his future vocation and instill his love for horses.

Returning to North Carolina, Ted dreamed of being back in the mountains of Wyoming, riding horses and meeting new people.  “At that point in my life I knew nothing of horses or dude ranching.  I needed experience.  So, during high school, I worked shoveling manure at local stables. They would let me ride from time to time.  At seventeen, I returned to Valley Ranch and enrolled in their Wrangler School.  This was a six week course and consisted of eight other wranglers.  This was the real beginning of my formal education as a wrangler; I was a boy of seventeen from North Carolina chasing eighty horses across the Shoshone River at 5:30 in the morning with real cowboys who at the time I considered legends.” 

While attending Wrangler School, Ted had the opportunity to meet some real western characters; famous wranglers, gracious hosts and lifelong friends. “Everyone has people they have met who have had a profound effect on their lives,” he says.  “For me one of those people was a woman I met at Valley Ranch named Irma Larom.  Her husband, Larry, started the ranch in 1914 with one of the Brooks Brothers as a partner. By the time I got there in the 1980’s he had passed away.  But she was still there.  She was about 140 years old.  She wore full-length formal dresses everyday.  She liked to flirt with the wranglers and tell stories about going to New York City in the 1920’s and staying at the Waldorf Hotel.  They would party in New York in the winter and invite their friends to Wyoming for summer adventure.  Irma said to me once, ‘A well-run dude ranch is hospitality at its finest.’ That has always stuck with me and I have tired to live up to it.  Valley Ranch no longer exists, but for me it is where everything began.”  Ted’s journey to becoming a world-class wrangler was becoming reality.  His hard work and dedication to his dream was coming to fruition.  All he needed was a good horse, fitted chaps and a wide-brim hat. Oh…and a good dog.

Wrangler.  It’s a tough word, not for the weak of heart.  Being a wrangler is hard work, long days, extreme environments, great friends and the sweet fragrance of horses - a lot of horses. Wranglers have an honorable place in American history.  Ted explains, “Historically, wranglers were teenagers hired on the big cattle drives of the 1880’s – 1890’s to take care of the string of horses the cowboys used to work the cattle herd.  Depending on the size of the herd, a cowboy might have as many as six to eight horses.  On most drives, the cowboys did not own the horses they rode.  They were owned by the cattle company. This was to prevent the cowboys from quitting and riding off in the middle of a drive that lasted for several months.  During an average day, the cattle might only move eight to ten miles, but the cowboys would ride three times that and change mounts several times a day.  It was the wranglers job to make sure the horses were groomed, fed, shod and generally cared for so they were ready for the cowboys. Today, wranglers are people who work for outfits taking usually inexperienced riders on trail rides, cattle drives and arena events.”

After Wrangler School at Valley Ranch, Ted attended college in Riverton, Wyoming.  He majored in horsemanship, a two-year program including training in overall horsemanship; livestock feeding, colt breaking and training, farrier science, ranch management, English riding etiquette, and team roping. “What I really took away from this experience was a little knowledge about many different equine areas, and it gave me an experience base to land my first paying job as a wrangler,” he states.  “But, if I had known then what I know now, I would have majored in business.”

Ted’s first position as a wrangler was at Black Mountain Ranch in McCoy, Colorado.  It is at Black Mountain Ranch where he met Rowdy, a bay Quarter Horse gelding. Rowdy’s dam was a Quarter Horse named Joker who belonged to Sam, the manager at Black Mountain Ranch. Ted recalls his years at Black Mountain. “I started there in 1987 as a wrangler. After about a month into my first summer, the head wrangler was fired for let’s say inappropriate behavior with a married female guest.  The manager came to me and said you are the head wrangler now.  The following summer we had a guest named Chuck.  He was a wiry, cocky twenty-three year old from Pennsylvania who, after being a guest like me, wanted to live the dude ranch life.  The manager and I agreed to hire him.  Chuck turned out to be the best wrangler I had ever known.  We only worked at Black Mountain for three years together and went our separate ways. Chuck went to work as a hunting guide for an outfitter on the western slope of Colorado.  I went to Tumbling River Ranch near Mount Evans, Colorado, and became the head wrangler there.”  When Chuck left for his new position in Colorado, he took Rowdy, the bay Quarter Horse gelding, with him. Rowdy has been in Chuck’s family for nearly twenty-three years now. Recently, Chuck was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease).  Ted says, “Chuck and his family now live in Cody. I am honored to keep his horse for him.  My daughter, Wren, who is six years old, is learning to run barrels on Rowdy.  She won’t ride any other horse.”