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Renaissance
COWBOY
Jeffrey Matthews wants to raise and make an Everyman’s
N
horse – that could take you to the Futurity.
Story and photos by Christine Hamilton
not many men have had the variety of lifelong horse
experiences that Jeffrey Matthews has had. The son of Otto and
Joyce Matthews, Jeffrey and his sister, Carroll, and brother, Jim,
were raised on a small row-crop farm in North Carolina where
his grandfather, O.S. Carroll, grew tobacco, corn and soybeans.
“My grandfather also had a tiny grist mill that produced
ground corn and cornmeal and he had a truck route at night,”
Jeffrey recalls. “(Carroll Foods) grew later on to be one of the
larger poultry and swine producers in the country and the
world. I grew up in that business.
“But I was enthralled with the horses. My father died when
I was very young and (my grandfather) supported my sister
and me, showing horses.”
Starting out with ponies, Jeffrey gravitated to American
Quarter Horses, running barrels and poles and finally showing. He showed against and became friends with the likes of
AQHA Senior Director of Shows Alex Ross and AQHA
Professional Horseman Carla Wennberg.
“The only way (my family) could try to get me to study was
to try to keep me away from the barn; that didn’t work,”
Jeffrey adds.
Eventually, Jeffrey showed at circuits up and down the
Atlantic seaboard and at the All American Quarter Horse
Congress. He won the 1974 youth western pleasure world
championship on a mare he trained himself, Two Eyed Sox
(Two Eyed Jack-Do Marie by Do Dash).
At the Florida Gold Coast, he happened to be in the right
place at the right time.
“Tommy Manion was there, and he was the guy then, with
the big rigs and champions, and his assistant quit at the
show,” Jeffrey says. “It was my last year in youth. Out of the
blue, I still don’t know why I asked him for a job, but I did,
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and he was in a bind. So I went on the road with Manion, and
that was not very popular back home.”
Following his passion, Jeffrey learned a lot starting and
riding mostly pleasure horses, western riders and some reiners. After a couple of years, Tommy’s connection with Tony
Amaral, a National Reined Cow Horse Association Hall of
Fame horseman, took Jeffrey to California.
“I’d work for my grandfather back home and go (to Tony’s)
for the summer,” Jeffrey recalls. “Finally, in the late ’70s, I
loaded up and I stayed for several years. My intention was to
live in California and do the reined cow horse, and learn the
bridle and the hackamore.”
Jeffrey learned from watching other NRCHA legends such
as Jimmy Williams, Ronnie Richards, Les Vogt, Benny
Guitron and Bobby Ingersoll, all through their association
with Tony. It was the time of his life.
It ended when Jeffrey’s grandfather died in 1981 and
Jeffrey went home to help his mother run the family business.
Through the years, Jeffrey continued to show in cow horse,
roping and cutting, making several AQHA World
Championship Show appearances. He was the amateur cutting reserve world champion twice, with Shortys Girl in
1998 and Travs Secret in 2004. He owned Teques Jay, 1998
junior heading world champion, and Docs Arcy Sug, world
champion in senior tie-down in 1996 and the senior heeling
reserve in 1995 (with Robbie Schroeder).
He also built a showcase breeding farm in Warsaw, North
Carolina, designed by Stan Gralla. When the family finally
sold the business, Jeffrey once again focused on horses, this
time on cutters.
Now an AQHA 20-year breeder, Jeffrey and his wife, Sheri,
run the breeding operation in North Carolina and have a pri-
Jeffrey started this 2011 blue roan filly
(One Time Pepto-Frecklesareinstyle by
Docs Stylish Oak) as he does all his young
stock: with the skills he learned from West
Coast cow horseman Tony Amaral.
“I can spend the time on them, I can get
them stopping and turning and hooked on a
cow and they are ready to go the trainer,”
says the hands-on non-pro. He adds with a
smile, “This one’s named Sheries Secret;
do you think she’s for sale?”
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Jeffrey teaches all his horses to hobble, using
homemade hobbles made from burlap tobacco
sheets. “With hobbles, I believe you’re teaching a horse how not to get hurt,” he says.
Jeffrey has taken what he has learned from horsemen in
other industries and applied it to his cutting program: He has
borrowed ideas from the Thoroughbred industry in how he
has managed One Time Pepto as a stallion; and he starts his
cutters like a reined cow horseman.
“To this day, I use in my training what I learned from Tony
Amaral and those other reined cow horse guys in California
– taking a lot of time with horses, riding them outside, letting them be horses,” he says.
If you stop by Matthews Cutting Horses in Weatherford on
a warm spring day, you’ll probably find Jeffrey working with
one of his 2s or 3s to ride. It’ll be worth your while just to
stand outside the round pen and listen to him tell stories and
talk about horses, with a North Carolina lilt to his voice.
It took me years to learn and build my horse program. It took me time to gain confidence that what Tony
“With this little mare, the softer we are together, the easier she is going to be to
train,” Jeffrey says. “I could jerk her around and make her look good on a cow, but
then she’d be nervous and stiff and lock-jawed, and I’d have to lope her to get her to
relax and think. I’d rather have her soft and knowing I’m not going to hurt her. It’s all
about giving a horse a signal with your hands; it’s not about using brute force.”
vate training facility in Weatherford, Texas. They also own one
of the industry’s star sires, One Time Pepto, and stand him at
Oswood Stallion Station in Weatherford. Jeffrey has been active
with the National Cutting Horse Association, serving on the
stallion owners committee. The Matthewses spend most of
their time in Texas, and they often visit North Carolina, as well
as Sheri’s parents and her two sons in California.
They raise 15-20 head a year. The crew in North Carolina
foals out the mares, halter-break and wean the babies. In the
fall of their yearling year, the youngsters head to Texas.
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(Amaral) taught me all those years in California directly
relates here. I truly believe, about a cutter or a cow horse or
whatever, you’ve got to go through the fundamentals. There
is no substitute for the basic fundamentals of getting a horse
to open a gate, stand still so you can get on and off, get good
in the face, and so on. And you can’t get it through intimidation because you’ve fought them. You get it because you’ve
taken time with them and let them teach themselves.
Tommy Manion told me when I was working for
him, the mark of a good horseman is to be able to adapt to each
horse. And that’s true. It’s not cookie cutter. And I do see that
(mindset) in a lot of training operations, because they are going
through so many numbers.
To me, that means some may take 10 minutes, some an hour.
If one’s a little fidgety, stop, tie him to the fence and let him relax
and think about it, and come back and ride him again. If you get
in a tussle, leave the horse alone and come back. They settle and
you settle.
They are just like children, they really are: different personalities, different DNA.
The first
thing I want to teach them is to face you at that safe spot in
the middle of the round pen. I used to turn them loose, but
now I like to have control of them because when I stop them,
I want them to face me.
Before we saddle them, we get them where they will stop
and come to you on their own because they know this safe
spot. And if they get a little silly, they go back to work.
I spend a lot of time on the ground work.
I use what we call “tobacco
sheets” from North Carolina, big burlap sheets they wrap the
tobacco in to get it to market. I don’t want to hurt a colt, so
if he pulls and struggles a little, this will stretch and won’t
skin him.
I hobble them to saddle them, unsaddle them, or throw a
blanket on them. It’s a lot of trouble, but it teaches them to
relax and be still. You’ve got to do it day after day until they
get comfortable, and then they’ll just stand. And when you
leave them tied, they’re like an old horse.
I’m convinced that carries through when you ride them. I’ll
get on and off them with the hobbles, and swing a rope.
When I step on and off, I want them to be relaxed and
totally comfortable.
I make my own hobbles.
I was interested in the racehorses, but I really
wanted to learn how they picked horses. Through a
business acquaintance in North Carolina, I got to know
Jimmy Bell, president of Darley America’s Jonabell Farm in
Lexington, Kentucky. They took me under their wing. For
several years, I would go to sales at Keeneland, Saratoga,
Florida, and I’d just go and pick their brains and watch how
they watched them walk.
The Thoroughbred trainers want the horses really stepping
under. They want to see them set their front feet down
straight. If they’re stepping crooked, that’s extra stress on the
knees. If a horse steps short, they don’t want him. I’ve
watched that in the cutting pen. If a horse steps short going
to the herd, a lot of times it can’t really stop.
They wanted horses just like we wanted, but bigger: short
backs, short cannons, strong behind, good head and neck.
They put so much emphasis on conformation. If a horse has a
bad knee, he’s going to be weak running, and they’ll pass it
on. Because of what I learned there, I’ve turned down a lot of
nice horses through the years that weren’t structurally sound.
Young horses will let you know when they’re
ready for cattle. At first, I just want them to follow the
cow. When the cow slows down, they slow down. Just track.
Follow the cow and relax.
All the dancing back and forth in the middle (of the cutting pen) will come in time. You’ve got to first get them
wanting to rate the cow. I just want them to be curious and
track the cow wherever it goes. I want them to like it.
This is a huge tool in teaching one to stop, too. Bobby
Ingersoll told me 30 years ago, “I can’t get a horse to stop
until I get him on a cow.”
I love showing, but not as much as I love riding
these babies. They are so trusting and so soft, when you
start them and spend time on them, one-on-one. There’s noth“That’s what I’m looking for,” Jeffrey says as the filly tracks a cow for the
first time. “If she didn’t have cow, when that cow slowed down, she’d be
looking off over the fence. You can tell where her interest is. I don’t want
to discourage that by pain or spurring, I want her to think this is fun.”
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ing like getting them from the beginning. If they’ve been
started wrong, abused and intimidated, you don’t ever get that
softness and trust back. Intimidated is hard to get over.
Starting out on cattle, I want to get them to think about
slowing down and stopping with the cow, comfortably, not
because someone has caused them pain. They don’t think
about the cow if they are thinking about the rider, and they
can read that cow so much quicker than we can.
At the Cow Palace (in Daly City, California,) they
used to have retirement parties for 20-year-old cow
horses that were still winning, still showing and still sound.
It was black tie with a red carpet to retire those great cow
horses. Those old horsemen took care of those horses.
If we have horses showing in the (NCHA) Futurity in
December, we bring them home, pull their blankets and let
them hair up, pull their shoes, get them vetted and they go
out for at least a month. When we bring them back in the
spring, they’re strong and they’re better.
When you ski, you always fall or get hurt when you are
fatigued; that’s the way these horses are when they get tired.
I wasn’t looking for a stud when I found One Time
Pepto. I was looking for fillies. I go around to all the fitters
before the sale. I’ve known Tom Ryan since I was younger,
and Tom said, “I want to get your opinion on this horse,” and
he got out “One Time.”
He profiled him for me way at the end of the barn, and I
said, “Gosh, that’s a nice horse. Can I see him move in the
round pen?” And he said, “I’ll go get a longe line.” I said,
“No, I want to see him loose.” Tom was fitting him for the
sale, and he didn’t want to risk getting him hurt, but he
finally did it.
I just watched (One Time). He was fresh, of course, trotting
around. He was flat-kneed and so up under himself, and good
with his head and neck. I let him go until he was relaxed and
I stepped in front of him.
CA PPY JACKSON
Jeffrey and Sheri Matthews
To this day, I’ve never seen a horse get as low behind as he
did in front and come back through. I let him go again until
he was relaxed, and again, I stepped in front of him and it was
the same thing. I decided I didn’t want anyone else to see this
so I said, “Thank you.”
I knew in my heart right then I was going to try to buy
this horse.
(Jeffrey purchased One Time in 2002 for a then-record
$380,000.)
I believe the mare is 70 percent of the breeding
game. It’s all about the mare. There are a lot of great stal-
lions, but it’s the good mothers that really make a horse. In a
broodmare, you want it all: The structure and conformation and
the cow – you want it all. I also look at balance and eye appeal,
start at the head and go back. George Tyler once said, “If you
start at the head and don’t like it, the odds are you won’t like
something else.” You need to have the whole picture.
I’m real high on the Shorty Lenas because they’re
gritty. A lot of trainers don’t like them because they take a
lot of riding. But some of the great horses are tough. I was
around when King Fritz was big on the West Coast, and they
were broncy. It took a cowboy to get them, but once you got
them, they were unbelievable.
My first (NCHA) Futurity must have been 20 years ago.
The second year I went, I bought a mare called Shortys Girl
(Shorty Lena-Brettas Girl by Mr Sugar Boy), and she came on
to be a really nice mare. We just lost her this past year, but
we have several of her daughters.
I knew I wanted to manage One Time the best way
I could. I went back to the Thoroughbreds and followed
their model. A mare had to meet our requirements to breed
to him. That was something this industry did not understand
because normally with a popular stallion, they’ll let the public decide (to breed to him or not).
There are good arguments both ways (for and against doing
that). A lot of good mares have never shown, and I knew that
we were going to miss some good mares. But we didn’t want
to breed 300 mares a year. Quality is better than quantity.
I was told once that turning sombody’s mare down is like
telling somebody their child is ugly and dumb, and I understand that. But I was determined to do right by the horse.
And the right mares came. And it worked.
Again, I called Jimmy Bell at Darley, and he said it was time
to open the book (in 2013). I had proven the horse and now it
was time to let the public decide (what to breed to him).
We put our horses in country most people wouldn’t
even think of. This was the second year we’ve leased a place
in Montana, and we go up there for three months in the summer. It was tremendous for these young horses. They learn
where to put their feet, and it helps them mentally.
Most show horse people, if they knew the rocks, the rivers,
the places where we put them, they would say, “You’re going
to ruin that horse.” When we came back, our vet, Dr. Chris
Ray, said he’d never seen these horses this sound. It was a lot
of walk and trot, up and down hills, it wasn’t getting them
tired loping in a circle.
It goes back to my roots in California. Tony would send us
out in the hills on a colt. We’d come back and he’d work
cattle, and you better have the fresh off of the colt or he’d send
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FOR R EST
The crew at Matthews Cutting
Horses LLC, Weatherford, Texas
a 4-year-old or he won’t at all. Having a great 3-year-old is
not everything. But we take a different approach. We are
going to take care of our horses.
I’ve never been married ’til now. I took a little
more training than others. Tony (Amaral) sent me to a
One Time Pepto (Peptoboonsmal-One Time
Soon by Smart Little Lena) and Matt Gaines.
you back to the hills. It was the same with Don Dodge and
Matlock Rose – they rode them out in the hills; they’d rope
one day, or take them to a branding and work cattle. When
it came time to show, they were ready. And they were sound.
In theory, we want our horses to be able to do anything. If they don’t make cutters or reined cow horses, maybe
they’ll make a ranch horse, or trail ride them. I see some
cutting horses so intimidated. You don’t make a horse
through intimidation. You can’t make any kind of a real
horse that way. They’ve got to like their job to do it good,
plain and simple, I don’t care if they are jumping, racing,
cutting, whatever.
If I couldn’t be
hands-on, I wouldn’t be as enthused about it. Because I’m
hands-on, we manage our horses. I learned that from the
Thoroughbreds: Those great horses have a manager to track
medications, workouts, leg issues, everything. I believe that
our job is to manage our horses; the trainer’s job is to train
the horse and show it.
If a horse doesn’t make a 3-year-old, that’s OK, he’ll make
The horse business is a lifestyle.
show in 1979 in Reno to show a cow horse. I saw Sheri there:
She was showing youth. I’m pretty shy, but I asked her out
and we went to a dinner show, and we had a picture made. I
remember driving down the mountain thinking about her,
going home.
Right after that, my grandfather died in North Carolina. I
didn’t want to leave: I wanted to live in California and do the
reined cow horse. I loved it. But I knew I needed to go home.
We had a small family farm; my mother worked in the business, and I was the oldest. I went back home.
Seven years ago, my advertising person in California, Cam
Essick, contacted Sheri because she’s a writer. She said, “I
want you to contact this guy, we’re going to do a brochure on
his stallion and his farm.”
It was (NCHA) Futurity time, so we met in Fort Worth. A
group of us were going to dinner, so I invited her and happened to sit beside her. I just couldn’t quit thinking about
her. We started seeing each other.
We were in Colorado at a friend’s, Tom Bailey of Iron Rose
Ranch, and over two bottles of wine we realized we’d had one
date 27 years earlier! We had not put it together. What are
the odds of that, North Carolina to California, 27 years later?
It’s been the best thing of my life.
Christine Hamilton is an editor of The American Quarter Horse
Journal. To comment, write to [email protected].
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