026-039_RL Cowan.indd

Ranchlands
Cowan Brothers
TOUGH
Ranching in central South Dakota can be both breathtaking
and backbreaking. The Cowan family has learned what it
takes to survive while building one of the most successful
horse programs on the Northern Plains.
STORY BY FRANK HOLMES
Ranching on the Missouri River Breaks
of central South Dakota is not for the faint of heart.
The “Breaks” are part of the vast Northern where weather-related words like “scorcher”
Plains region, where summers are short and and “whiteout” routinely work their way into
hot, and winters long and cold. It is a land conversations.
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The Missouri River Breaks of northcentral South Dakota have long
been home to the Cowan family and
its Sun Frost-bred ranch- and rodeo
horses. Here, Tigh Cowan and PC
Sun Wood participate in an early
morning gather.
DARRELL DODDS
To be successful here requires more
than just knowledge, ability and desire;
it requires staying power.
As a third-generation native, the late Pat
Cowan of Highmore, South Dakota, was
part of a ranching, rodeoing and horse-
raising family that had been tested and
tempered by the land for more than 125
years. It should have come as no surprise
that he, too, would not only survive his
portion of the test, but prosper in the
process.
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With a family history rooted in ranching and
great horses, the phrase “riding for the brand”
takes on a whole new meaning for the Cowans.
DARRELL DODDS
Settling In
The South Dakota chapter of the Cowan story had its beginnings
in the late 1800s, when young Lawrence Augustus Cowan moved
with his widowed mother and younger brother from Minnesota
to a homestead south of Harrold, South Dakota.
Born into a farming family, Lawrence branched out into cattle
ranching as a young man. In or around 1906, he married Mary
Tighe, a farmer’s daughter from southeastern Nebraska. Lawrence and Mary had six children, including Arthur Paul Cowan,
born in 1909.
In many respects, Arthur “A.P.” Cowan was the individual most
responsible for making horses and rodeo an integral part of the
family’s lifestyle. After striking out on his own, he settled on a
cattle and horse ranch southeast of Highmore, and married Mary
Gregg, a rancher’s daughter from nearby Crow Creek, in 1935.
As a horse breeder and trader, A.P. participated in the last years
of the horse-drawn era of transportation and agriculture. With a
breeding program geared to producing riding and workhorses,
he supplied thousands of animals to the U.S. Cavalry, and to
farmers and ranchers of every ilk.
After the age of mechanization replaced the horse with tanks
and tractors, A.P. began acquiring rodeo rough stock. In 1947,
he produced his first rodeo on the ranch, and it was followed by
in-state contests at Seneca, Watertown, Winner, Chamberlain,
Kimball, Fort Pierre and Pierre.
In February 1955, the South Dakota Rodeo Association was
formed and, by this time, the Cowan name was well known in
stock-contracting circles. A.P. was chosen as one of the new
association’s first directors and rodeo judges.
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Over the course of two decades—from the mid-1930s to the
mid-1950s—A.P. and Mary Gregg Cowan built their ranch and
rodeo holdings, and started a family that eventually included six
children. Of these, it was the eldest son, Pat, born in 1936, who
took up the family banner.
Full Speed Ahead
Pat Cowan, as noted by anyone who knew him personally or
witnessed him in action, was a driven man. Whatever the cause,
if Pat got involved, he got involved at full speed.
From the mid- to late-1950s, the 20-something cowboy called
upon his inner drive and sense of urgency to turn himself into
a top all-around SDRA cowboy.
In 1955, Pat was named SDRA champion calf roper and bull
rider. The year 1958 proved to be his best, as he was named SDRA
all-around champion, champion calf roper and reserve champion
bull rider. In 1959, the then-33-year-old was the association’s
reserve champion saddle bronc rider.
Throughout his rodeoing years, the young South Dakotan
built his Cowan Cattle Company ranching interests. In 1957, Pat
married Elayne Carmody, a schoolteacher from Parkston, South
Dakota. The couple had nine children: Doug, Todd, Patti, Mari,
Tigh, Caly, Shannon, Tork and Treg.
In 1959, the first of several tragedies struck Pat and Elayne, when
Doug was killed at the age of 1½ in a freak barnyard accident. The
fact that he was in Pat’s company at the time weighed heavily on
the young father’s mind, and he lost much of his drive to compete
as a rodeo cowboy. It didn’t take long, however, for him to find
new outlets for his seemingly boundless energy.
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From Rodeo to the Racetrack
Through rodeo, Pat had established many lasting friendships.
As noted by his son Tigh, several of those friendships positively
impacted not only the family’s horse endeavors, but the entire
Northern Plains Quarter Horse industry.
“In the late 1950s, my dad began to put a Quarter Horse program together,” Tigh says. “Stanley Johnston of Rees Height, South
Dakota, and Clarence Bearry of Fort Pierre, were the two men
who had the most influence on the program in its infancy.
“Stanley and Dad were the best of friends, and they had rodeoed
together in the early to mid-’50s. Stanley was a few years older
than Dad, and he got into Quarter Horses first. He was a top
horseman, and responsible for bringing such influential stallions
as Poco Speedy [by Poco Bueno], Orphan Drift [by Driftwood
Ike], Doc’s Jack Frost [by Doc Bar], and Sak Em San [by Peppy
San] to South Dakota.
“Clarence Bearry was one of the state’s first great racehorse men.
In the 1950s and ’60s, he incorporated such top speed-bred stallions as John Red [AAA, by Red Man], Lonsum Polecat [AAA, by
Leo], Sea Bar [by Lightning Bars] and Country Rebel
[AAA, by Rebel Cause] into his race- and breeding
program.
“As Dad set about putting together his Quarter
Horse program, the Johnston and Bearry horses
were an important part of the process.”
By 1963, Pat Cowan had decided to get serious about becoming
a Quarter Horse breeder, and the first steps he took in that direction led right to Stanley Johnston.
“Tex Fulton of Miller, South Dakota, was Dad’s brother-in-law,
and they rodeoed together in the 1950s,” Tigh says. “One day,
they drove to Stanley’s place and informed him that they were
in the market for a good-looking stallion with enough speed to
catch a calf.
“Stanley showed them a 7-year-old sorrel by Lightning Bars
and out of Bonnie A., by Joe Reed II. He was a good-looking horse
with a little bit of chrome, and AA-rated on the track. Tex and
Dad did some trading and wound up with the horse.”
Right off the bat, the partners decided to take their new acquisition, Laughing Boy, to the track. Handicapped by his age, the
game competitor managed to run fast enough to beat some
AAA-rated racehorses.
Training and racing the horse accomplished one additional
thing—it turned Pat Cowan into a racehorse trainer. Over the next
L.F. HENDERSON
Comes a Horseman
COURTESY TIGH COWAN
COURTESY TIGH COWAN
Above: The late Pat Cowan—patriarch of the Cowan
clan—was a man who tackled life with a fierce
competitiveness. Although this circa 1956 shot
depicts him with a little air between seat and saddle,
his demeanor makes it plain that he’ll still be upright
and in the middle when the whistle blows.
Upper right: In this decidedly more pastoral shot, a
quietly confident Pat Cowan seems very much a part
of the land and all that it holds. Right: The family’s
ranching and horse breeding endeavors are currently
headed up by brothers (from left) Tregg, Tork and
Tigh. The trio is shown here with their late, great,
Quarter Horse stallion, Sun Frost.
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decade-and-a-half, Cowan enjoyed considerable
success as a North Country racehorse man.
Throughout this period, Cowan built his
horse herd. While the Cowan-Fulton-owned
stud Laughing Boy was never an overpowering
racehorse, he did turn out to be an excellent
broodmare sire. Some of his daughters became
foundation producers for the Cowan breeding
program.
It would be some time, however, before that
venture took center stage. First, there was a
return to rough stock to be dealt with.
Gains and Losses
As the Cowan kids began to reach 4-H and highschool-rodeo age, Pat scaled back his track commitments and turned, instead, toward becoming
the best rodeo father and mentor he could be.
For rodeo mounts, the family again went
to Stanley Johnston. By this time, the breeder
had discovered what turned out to be a golden
cross—that of Doc’s Jack Frost on Driftwood
Ike mares.
Recognizing the potential behind the Johnston pedigrees, Pat and Elayne Cowan were
quick to add Runnin Gunn and Quickdraw
Cline—full brothers by Doc’s Jack Frost and
out of Prissy Cline, by Driftwood Ike—to the
Cowan Cattle Company remuda.
In a circumstance that would become bittersweet, it was actually Elayne who chose Runnin
Gunn in the early fall of 1974 as her son Tigh’s
personal mount. In November 1974, the 41year-old ranch wife and mother passed away,
the victim of a brain aneurysm.
“As I look back,” Tigh says, “I can see where
Dad was at the center of everything we did. But
Mom was always right there, too. I remember
her as a really good mother and a hard-working
ranch wife. Her passing was hard on Dad, hard
on us older kids, and especially hard on Tork
and Treg, who were just 6 and 4 at the time.
DARRELL DODDS
The cattle gather
provides an opportunity
for Tregg and Tevin
Cowan to get in a little
practice at plying the
family trade.
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DARRELL DODDS
Left: Breelyn Cowan and
her double-bred Sun Frost
barrel-racing mare find
a calming respite from
the hectic pace of arena
competition in spacious
pastures and quiet cattle
work. Left bottom: When
speed is needed, the
ranch’s T4 horses are up
to the task. Here, Patrick
Cowan and his top
rope- and bulldogging
mount head off a trio
of uncooperative Angus
heifers.
DARRELL DODDS
but he was good at letting us do our own
thing.
“In 1979, when I was a freshman in
high school, I won the high school saddle
bronc championship in Gillette, Wyoming. After that, it came time to compete
in the South Dakota 4-H Rodeo Finals
in Watertown.
“After winning the national title, I
didn’t think 4-H competition was going
to be that big a deal. I had gone out and
bought a new poly bronc rein. As I was
climbing on my last mount, Dad crawled
up behind the chute and asked, ‘What
kind of rein do you have there?’ I told
him and he said, ‘Don’t you think you should scuff it up a
little and take some of the smoothness off it?’
“ ‘Don’t worry,’ I said, ‘this is the way it’s supposed to be. I
know what I’m doing.’
“All I had to do to win the state title was stay on my last bronc
for eight seconds. But, on about the second jump, that pony
popped six inches of that rein loose and bucked me off.
“After we got home, Dad said, ‘Let me see that thousanddollar bronc rein.’
“ ‘It didn’t cost a thousand,’ I said. ‘It only cost 12 bucks.’
“ ‘No,’ he said. ‘I saw the saddle you could’ve won, and I’m
guessing it cost $750. And that trophy buckle you could’ve
won had to cost $250. So that means that bronc rein cost you
around a thousand.’
“Like I said, he let us do our own thing, but he didn’t miss
much.”
“I was blessed to have reached the age where I had some solid
memories of Mom to fall back on. But the two youngest boys
didn’t have that luxury. To this very day, we’ll be out working
cattle or something, and they’ll ride up and want me to tell
’em what Mom was like.
“But we dug in and we dealt with it. Grandmother Cowan
stepped in and helped out, but it was really the two older
girls, Patti and Mari, who assumed most of Mom’s role. They
cooked and cleaned and got everyone off to school. And we
got on with life.”
For Pat Cowan and his eight kids—then aged 4 to 14—getting on with life included a return to the arena.
Back to Rodeo
“When it came time for us kids to rodeo, Dad was pretty
supportive,” Tigh says. “He always knew what was going on,
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For the Cowans, summer and fall weekends
translate to “headin’ to the rodeo.”
DARRELL DODDS
Tigh Cowan gives his son Patrick a little “fatherly advice on the fly” in the bulldogging.
DARRELL DODDS
Tigh and his younger son, Hayden, make a tight run in the same
event.
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Slick bronc rein notwithstanding, Tigh proved to be an
extremely competitive all-around rodeo cowboy. In addition to his 1979 national saddle-bronc title, he was the 1977
South Dakota 4-H junior boys all-around champion; the 1982
National High School Rodeo all-around reserve champion and
reserve champion saddle bronc rider; and the 1980 and 1981
South Dakota 4-H senior bareback champion.
After high school, Tigh continued to compete in college and
SDRA-sanctioned competition in six events. In 1985, he made
the step up to the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association
and narrowed his focus to three events—saddle bronc, steer
wrestling and calf roping.
But Tigh was not the only Cowan kid who could ride. Older
brother Todd and younger brothers Tork and Treg made regular
trips to the winner’s circle throughout their 4-H and highschool years, with Tork winning the state high-school bulldogging championship in 1987 and Treg winning the state
high-school all-around championship in 1988.
Household duties prevented the four Cowan girls from
competing in rodeo as much as the boys, but they remained
an integral part of the ranching and rodeo scene.
On the ranching front, Pat Cowan was up to his old tricks,
aggressively turning the Cowan Cattle Company into one of
the top cow and horse outfits on the Northern Plains. Dating
back to when he began putting his Quarter Horse program
together, he had been searching for just the right stallion to
place at its head. In 1979, he found him.
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A New Dawn
“By the end of the 1970s, things were back to running pretty
smooth around Cowan Cattle Company,” Tigh says. “Runnin
Gunn and Quick Draw Cline, our two Stanley Johnston-bred
geldings, were doing a bang up job for us, not only as rodeo
horses, but as ranch horses. When Dad had a chance to go back
to Stanley’s and buy a weanling full brother to the geldings, he
jumped at the opportunity.”
The colt Pat Cowan purchased at the side of its dam was
Sun Frost, a 1979 palomino sired by Doc’s Jack Frost and out
of Prissy Cline.
“Dad’s biggest dream was to raise a good-looking stallion
that was fast enough to catch a calf and ‘cowy’ enough to be a
top cutting horse,” Tigh Cowan adds.
“He felt from the very beginning that Sun Frost was the horse
to help him achieve these goals.”
A Sire is Born
DARRELL DODDS
Pat Cowan started Sun Frost and trained him for cutting. In 1981,
as a 2-year-old, the stallion was ridden by Tigh to a win at the
regional high-school rodeo cutting in Watertown.
While showing considerable promise as an arena performer,
Sun Frost’s show career was cut short due to the even greater
promise he demonstrated as a sire.
By this time, the nucleus of the Cowan Ranch program was
in place, with Sun Frost at the head of a broodmare band rich
in the blood of the Johnston- and Bearry-bred horses.
The fact that the program was on the right track was quickly
validated as champions whose names bore the “PC” prefix
began showing up in cutting and rodeo arenas throughout
the country.
In 1984, Cowan Cattle Company held its first horse sale.
Billed as the “Cut and Loop Performance Sale,” it saw such top
arena and breeding prospects as PC Lace N Leather and PC
Sun Socks pass under the gavel.
Sun Frost was on his way as a sire, but fate decreed that Pat
would not be around to see what a masterful selection he had
made. In the fall of 1985, tragedy revisited the Cowan family
on October 5, when Pat was killed in a plane crash.
Real Survivors
DARRELL DODDS
Top: Breelyn Cowan and her buckskin mare PC Nikita Wood
turn in a fast run in the barrels, and Breelyn’s sister, Logan,
(bottom) does likewise on PC Sun Body Special.
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“It was late in the fall, and we were gathering cattle in a big pasture
north of Chamberlain,” Tigh Cowan recalls. “Dad’s friend, Tom
Taylor of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, owned a plane.
“Dad came to me that morning and said, ‘Tom and I are going
to hop in his plane and come up and help you boys out. We can
circle those cattle from the air and save you a lot of time.’
“So, that day they flew in to where we were working. They
helped us for a while and then some weather came in from the
northwest. It was a typical Midwestern storm, with dark, angry
skies and a lot of thunder and lightning.
“Dad and Tom got ready to fly home. I asked Dad if he was
worried about flying in that kind of weather, and he turned to
Tom and asked, ‘Are we?’ Tom said he’d flown in a lot worse.
I tried to talk them into leaving the plane tied down in the
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A “Frosty” Fix
After Dad died,” Tigh Cowan says, “we continued to run the ranch
as Cowan Cattle Company. In 1994, Todd decided to strike out
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LARRY LARSON
pasture and riding back with us in the truck and trailer, but they
decided against it.
“They wound up hitting a 200-foot radio tower and crashing
right on the Buffalo County line, 10 miles north of Chamberlain.”
In just a little more than a decade, the Cowans had lost both
mother and father. It would have been understandable if one or
both of these catastrophic losses had torn the family apart and
scattered it to the four winds.
In fact, the tragedies had the opposite effect.
“Dad’s death was an earth-shattering event to all of us,” Tigh
says. “But he had been preparing us for the challenges that lay
ahead. We just didn’t know it.
“Dad was the kind of man who, whenever there was a problem,
would sit down, figure out what to do and get after it. And he had
a sense of family that was unshakeable. He instilled these values
in us, and they were a big part of what held us together.
“So, we eight kids pulled together and got the job done. And
we survived.”
Survival in rural America during the decade bounded by the
mid-1980s to the mid-1990s was not just hard on the Cowan clan,
it was hard on the entire agricultural community.
The energy crisis of the mid-1970s was followed by the gas
and oil collapse of the early 1980s. Cattle weren’t worth as much,
horses weren’t worth as much, and, for the first time in a lifetime,
land wasn’t worth as much.
If these circumstances weren’t enough to try a person’s mettle,
there was the winter of 1996–97, in which more than 250,000 cattle
perished in North Dakota and South Dakota. It was a season Pat
Cowan’s youngest son, Treg, remembers all too well.
“There came a big snow on Halloween,” he recalls. “From that
point on, the snow never left.
“We winter our cattle on the Missouri River Breaks, where
they have plenty of protection from the elements, so we weren’t
overly concerned. But, that winter was as long and cold as any of
us had ever seen. In addition to our own cattle, we had ‘maintenance cows’ we were taking care of. I used to get up before dawn
every morning and feed. I’d make a big loop and get back home
after dark.
“By the time spring hit, we were pretty worn out. And then,
on April 6 and 7, we got hit with a massive spring blizzard that
dumped three feet of snow on the ground, with 70 mile per
hour winds. This was right in the middle of calving season, and
stockmen throughout the Dakotas lost a lot of cows and newborn
calves. We knew of a lot of horse breeders who lost mares and
foals, as well.
“We never did lose a lot of stock, but we did have to spend
most of the winter buying hay. By the time the cattle were back
on summer pasture, we were staring at a $500,000 feed bill.”
Faced with another potential catastrophe, the Cowans came
up with a game plan.
Renowned ranch
and rodeo sire Sun
Frost was long the
heart and soul of
the Cowan horse
program. The
popular sire passed
away in January
2007, at the age
of 28.
on his own as Cowan Ranch. He started using the TC prefix and
brand on his horses. Myself, Tork and Treg reorganized as Cowan
Brothers LLC, and we kept the PC prefix and T4 brand as ours.
“When the blizzard left us with that huge feed bill, it was up
to myself, Tork and Treg to make it right. We huddled around
the kitchen table one night, just like Dad and us boys used to do,
and we decided to have a horse sale.
“Sun Frost had a few foals that were really making names for
themselves, and we had added a stud named Docs Oaks Sugar
to our stallion battery in 1987. He was a 1983 bay sired by Doc’s
Oak and out of Miss Sugar Bingo.
“With his Doc Bar and Poco Tivio breeding on top, and his
Sugar Bars and Leo Bingo breeding on the bottom, he was Dad’s
kind of horse. His first foals out of the Sun Frost daughters showed
a lot of promise, so we felt we could put together a nice set of
sale horses.”
By the mid-1990s, Sun Frost was, indeed, one of the North
Country’s most celebrated sires. Thanks to horses like French
Flash Hawk and Frenchmans Guy, the stallion’s reputation as a
performance-horse sire was secure.
French Flash Hawk, “Bozo”, a 1987 sorrel gelding by Sun Frost
out of Casey’s Charm, was smack dab in the middle of a storied
barrel-racing career that would see him carry Kristie Peterson to
four Women’s Professional Rodeo Association world championships, five AQHA/WPRA barrel-racing horse of the year titles,
and earnings in excess of $1.3 million.
Frenchmans Guy, a 1987 palomino three-quarter brother to
Bozo, was also a top performer and promising young sire. He
would go on to become 2001’s top barrel futurity sire, the number
two sire for all ages and divisions in 2005 and 2006, and the sire
of earners of more than $1.8 million.
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The Cowan Brothers Quarter Horse Production Sale was held
at Hart Ranch Arena in Rapid City, South Dakota, on October
18, 1997. Among the top offerings was a complete set of Sun
Frost sons and daughters, including PC Frenchmans Hayday, a
1995 palomino stallion by Sun Frost and out of Casey’s Charm.
A full brother to Bozo, “Hayday” sold for a sale-topping $65,000
to Mel Potter of Marana, Arizona.
“ ‘Hayday’ was without a doubt the biggest draw of the sale,”
Tigh Cowan says. “Mel was another one of Dad’s friends from his
rodeo days, and had leased some of his Driftwood-bred mares
to us in the past. He turned Hayday into a top PRCA performer
with more than $230,000 in earnings, and he’s also been a great
outcross sire for Mel’s line-bred breeding program.
“The sale wound up being a good one. It grossed more than
$385,000 and that went a long way toward digging us out of
the hole the previous winter had put us in.”
The Beat Goes On
As the decade of the 1990s gave way to the new millennium,
Cowan Brothers LLC grew and prospered. Expanding on their
father’s Angus-cross herd and cattle-management business,
the brothers switched the focus to yearlings and developed
a database management business to better track individual
weight gains.
On the horse front, Pat Cowan had added the likes of Tuff
Time Peppy, by Peppy San Badger, and Boon Dox John, by
Boon Bar, to the stallion battery before he died. Cash Native, a
AAA son of Dash For Cash, was incorporated in the program
in 1995.
Lone Drifter, a 1980 dun stallion by Driftwood Ike and out
of Moore Yen SI 95 by Yendis SI 95, was leased from Mel Potter
for several breeding seasons, contributing several top sons and
daughters to the mix.
And, finally, a full set of Sun Frost, Boon Dox John and Lone
Drifter sons—PC Gunner Wood, PC Sun Wood, PC Laughing
Sundust, PC Reddy Frost, PC Dox Cajun and PC Redwood
Ike—began to shine as junior sires.
From 1997 through 2003, Cowan production sales achieved
the dual goals of keeping the program in the public eye and
getting horses into the hands of people who would campaign
them.
Keeping pace with the cattle and horses, the Cowan clan
was rapidly expanding, as well.
Generation Next
Tigh and Jill Cowan and their six children reside on the home
place south of Highmore.
Tork and Melissa (O’Neill) Cowan and their three children
currently call Melissa’s native Australia home, while Treg and
Renee (Knox) Cowan currently manage a separate ranching
operation in the Highmore area.
The four Cowan girls have all married and left home, but
have stayed in the state.
The Cowan operation has proven to be a generational
phenomenon. Dating back to the late 1880s, each generation
of the family has had the luxury of being able to fall back on
previous generations’ knowledge of cattle and horses. And,
as evidenced by the current crop of Cowans, the same holds
true as far as rodeo is concerned.
“It’s been fun watching our kids grow up and rodeo,” Tigh
Cowan says. “They’re going about it the same way we did,
breaking and training their own horses. They have had some
The Sun Frost legacy lives on in the Cowans’ stallion battery
and broodmare band, which feature the famous stallion’s get
and grandget.
DARRELL DODDS
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DARRELL DODDS
For generations, members of the Cowan family have been raised to work hard and play harder. After the day’s cattle work is
done, some of the Cowans try their best Young Riders imitation. From the left, they are Hayden Cowan, Kevin Rogness, Patrick
Cowan, Guy St. John and Grady O’Bryan.
help from Scot and Jodie O’Bray of Belvidere, South Dakota,
who start a lot of our horses under saddle and train them
to become good performance horses, but most of the kids’
experience comes from the school of hard knocks.
“From our family, Patrick, Breelyn, Hayden and Logan are
hard at it. Pat competes in saddle bronc, bulldogging, heading
and heeling, and calf roping. Bree competes in barrel racing,
pole bending, breakaway roping, ribbon roping and, when
someone is short a partner, team roping. Hayden competes in
team roping and bulldogging, and Logan competes in barrel
racing, pole bending and breakaway roping.”
She might be younger than her rodeoing cousins, but Tregg
and Renee Cowan’s daughter, Sydney, has served notice that
she intends to become a serious arena competitor, as well.
“At the Kadoka rodeo last July,” Tregg says, “Sydney and
her 5-year-old gelding PC Red Seeker collected their first
barrel-racing paycheck. Their lifetime earnings are resting
right at $15.36, but we’ve got all the confidence in the world
that amount is going to grow.”
DARRELL DODDS
Sunrise . . . Sunset
PC Dox Boondito, a 2003 double-bred Sun Frost descendant, is
part of a T4 Quarter Horses stallion battery that will ensure that
the golden palomino stallion’s legacy lives on.
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Dating back to when Pat Cowan was in his prime, recognition
of his accomplishments began to surface.
In 1982, he was the recipient of the Heartland Saddle given each
year by the Heartland Committee in recognition of an individual
who influences the lives of youth through 4-H and rodeo. In 1990,
five years after his death, he was named to the South Dakota Hall
of Fame in the field of agriculture.
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As for Sun Frost, he more than justified
Pat Cowan’s faith in him by becoming
one of the Quarter Horse breed’s alltime leading arena performance sires.
To date, he is the sire of the earners of
more $2.2 million and the grandsire of
the earners of more than $3.25 million in
barrel racing, roping, cutting and reining.
What’s more, his get have excelled at
every level of competition—4-H, high
school, college, AQHA and pro rodeo.
Sun Frost died on January 22, 2007,
having just officially turned 28. The
Cowan family had long prepared itself
for his death, but it was still a bitter pill
to swallow.
“Sun Frost was one of the few living,
breathing connections we had with Dad,”
Tigh says. “He was Dad’s horse from the
get-go, and that was the way we always
thought of him.
“With both of them gone, it’s like the
final chapter to the story.”
Behind the Brand
The passing of Sun Frost might well have
signaled the end to one chapter of the
Cowan family story, but it did not signal
the end of the book. With one generation of family gone and the second and
third generations either in their prime
or just starting to shine, the saga will
continue.
For as long as Pat Cowan was in
charge, the family holdings were known
as the Cowan Land & Cattle Company.
After Pat’s death, his sons took over the
management of the operation—first as
Cowan Brothers LLC and then as Cowan
Brothers LLC/T4 Quarter Horses.
The T4 brand itself dates back to the
early 1970s. Conventional wisdom has
it that Pat’s wife, Elayne, suggested the
brand, and that it stood for the first letter
of first name of her four sons. Unconventional rumor has it that, from the
days of Pat Cowan right down to the
family’s current crop of up-and-coming
rodeo stars, what the “T” really stands
for is “tough.”
Frank Holmes is a Western
Horseman contributing editor.
Send comments on this story to
[email protected].
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