ROMANTIC CAREER

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 11, Issue 55, 18 July 1947, Page 2

ROMANTIC CAREER

LANCE SKUTHORPE’S LIFE “KING OF THE HOUGH RIDERS” Years ago a solid, well built man in an Australian town was watching his son get ready to I'ide a horse in a roped-off arena. Then as the lad, ten years old and full of fun, clambered onto the glistening back, he chuckled.

The horse reared and snorted when the weight was let on to his back. He pawed the air, came to ground and then deftly slid his head and neck forward, at the same time raising his hindquarters a little. That was the demise of his rider. He was sprawling on the ground one moment, and then the next on the alert for the flying hoofs which were coming too near. '

Then, with a gleam in his eye, the lad mounted the “bronc” again. There was the same spontaneous rush from the horse, the old tricks, but the youthful rider stayed put. The father was pleased, the boy was good. He was learning to grip a mount by the knees, not the hands. Then as the time went past the four minutes’ mark he began to grow angry. Next moment the horse stopped still, and then trotted quietly round the arena. He was tamed and broken. The old man was furious, the boy jubilant, he had conquered his first buckjumper. And so it has been with Lance Skuthorpe, the star of the Wild West show which visited Whakatane recently, ever since that day when his father Lance Skuthorpe, snr., tutored him on the art of “bronc” riding. He has never showed the least fear, but always the most respect and affection for the mount beneath him.

A few years later the younger Lance met up with Johnny Schneider, who was at the time, Cowboy Champion of the world. Schneider was in associate with Pete Knight who in later years was to be killed in a fall from a bronc because it was so many years since he had fallen that he had forgotten the correct method of doing so. Next, with his sister Violet, also recently in Whakatane, and four men he travelled to the United States and gave his first exhibition at Springfield, Illinois. When the American buck jump riders saw his saddle they were amazed. They were sure that he could not possibly ride such an article to’ success. The American saddle was an affair that weighed 601 b., whereas Lance’s was a skimpy outfit that looked to have been “stripped from a rocking horse,” as one of the Americans said. Seen in his tent was a saddle which was won by Lance in Sydney in 1944. It is inscribed “Buck Jumping Championship of Australia.”

He has succeeded in defeating all who have competed against him for the last five years and beside buckjumping he holds the world’s titles in the following competitions: Rope spinning, whip cracking and bulldogging. In the latter, Lance reduced the time taken by a world champion from 51- to 4\ seconds after only five years training. With a team of rough riders, hand picked from the cream of Australian riders he will be touring the United States next year and will give a display at Maddison Square Gardens, New York, while en route.