I heard an oldtime cowboy swappin' off some drawlin' talk
About them nags men used to ride, who didn't like to walk.
He spoke of them as hosses, so I up and asked him way
He didn't call them horses. Well, a gleam come in his eye,
And here is what he told me—be it right or be it wrong—
Some salty information that I'd like to pass along:
"You go out to the race track or some modern ridin' school,
And what you'll find 'em ridin' there is horses, as a rule.
You'll see 'em wrapped in blankets when they raise a little sweat,
And bedded in warm stables so they won't git cold or wet.
Their saddle is a postage stamp; they're combed and curried slick:
Their riders bobble up an' down like monkeys on a stick.
Them purty tricks are horses, son, but that there ain't the word
We used to call them shaggies that we rode behind the herd.
They might not be so purty, but they stayed outdoors at night.
They maybe weighed 900 pounds—all guts an' dynamite.
They took you where you had to go an' always brought you back,
Without no fancy rations that you purchase in a sack.
They loped all day on nothin' but your two hands full of grass.
On a Stetson full of water they could climb a mountain pass.
They swum you through the rivers an' they plowed you through the sand—
You an' your heavy saddle, an' they learned to understand
Which end of the cows the tail was on, till all you had to do
Was set up in the saddle while they did the cow work, too!
Sometimes they sorter dodged your rope, sometimes they bucked you high,
But they was sure the apple of the oldtime cowhands eye!
These stable-pampered critters may be horses sure enough,
But them ol' cow range hosses, they was born to take it rough.
So that's the way they took it, till they earned a tougher name
Than these here handfed horses, all so delicate an' tame.
So you can have your horses, with their hifalutin' gloss—
I'll take four legged rawhide—or in other words, a hoss!"
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