North Texas Horse country tours
ride into texas heritage

s the streets of Denton give way to green pastures and white fences, Fred Thompson gazes out the tour bus window. It’s horse country out here and Fred is hoping to recapture his past. He moved to Texas to be closer to his granddaughter, but he is nostalgic about the Michigan farm he grew up on with its draft horses and wagons of weathered wood. While the bus rolls along, the old TV show “Wells Fargo” plays on a flat-screen, cowboys and bad guys skirmishing on some Hollywood set. But Fred is eager to see the real thing – some of the area’s famous Arabians, Quarter Horses and Thoroughbreds. “I’m going back 60 years remembering this stuff. I haven’t been around horses since,” he says. “There’s something aesthetic about horses, some aesthetic beauty that is involved. I like driving through the countryside and just looking at them.”

Horse lovers have long since discovered why Denton County is called Horse Country USA, with an estimated 25,000 horses residing in the county. The horse industry is a multimillion-dollar business for North Texas, involving about 450 breeding and training facilities scattered throughout the region, 300 in Denton County alone. It’s why the Denton Convention and Visitor Bureau (DCVB) partnered with neighboring counties to create The North Texas Horse Country Tours in recent years. The tours occur quarterly, taking visitors to see the real Texas: modern-day cowboys at work with their horses at premier horse ranches.

Today, at the front of the bus, tour guides Allan Watt and Dana Lodge are trading a microphone back and forth, exploring the region’s history with the horse, back to when Wells Fargo stagecoaches crisscrossed the area and bad guys like robber Sam Bass holed up in Denton to hide from the law. Allan, a Wells Fargo Advisors branch manager by profession and a ranch owner by preference, commands attention with his large frame, ostrich skin boots and white cowboy hat. His sidekick Dana, group sales manager for the DCVB, organizes all the tours. Cowboys and Indians, bank robbers and thieves, farmers and ranchers … no matter what story they tell … it’s obvious Texas history, and Denton County, wouldn’t be the same without the horse.

But there’s a modern-day twist to the tour story. Horses used to be raised for work, pulling wagons and herding cattle. Now, most horses are bred for show and racing purposes. About 90 percent of ranches in the area are breeding facilities, producing some of the world’s finest horses. Other area facilities train horses and riders in disciplines such as reining, cow cutting, haltering, and even therapeutic riding. Allan and Dana talk about breeding and artificial insemination, but no one on the tour blushes or bats an eye. It’s one of the reasons visitors sign up for the trip, after all.

DCVB partnered with Fort Worth and other cities to create the first self-guided Horse Country Tour in 2005, earning a grant from the Texas Historical Commission. A few state awards later, Horse Country Tours are now an annual tradition and so diverse that each tour is different than the last. The tours feature different ranches, new information and even new places to eat each time, giving the many return visitors plenty to look forward to. 
In 2008, the DCVB played host to 37 tours traveling across the U.S., luring sightseers from as far as New York and Wyoming as well as Canada and the Netherlands. While the staff customizes itineraries for these private tours, the DCVB also offers four public tours each year. And, of course, the self-guided tour brochure allows visitors to enjoy the scenic drive on their own.

First stop on our tour: Diamond R Ranch, known for its sleek Toskhara Arabians bred to race and compete in halter and reining competitions. Owner Richard Reed, dressed in simple boots, jeans and cowboy hat, emerges from the indoor training arena to greet the tour group as it disembarks. Everyone quickly spreads out to pet young colts as the animals stick their heads out of stalls, peering at the strangers. The Reed ranch gives tour-goers a close-up look at one of the oldest and most revered breeds of horse – the Arabian – as well as a peek into the gritty reality of a working ranch.

Everyone gathers in a semicircle, kicking up dirt, as one of Reed’s trainers gives a demonstration about reining, one of several disciplines taught at the Diamond R. In reining competitions, riders guide their horses through spins and stops. No one is shy about asking questions here. They talk about haltering (a competition based on a horse’s appearance) and cutting (which involves a horse separating a single cow from the herd), both disciplines that harken back to when horses were used for working cattle and hunting.

Centered between the Chisholm Trail and the historic Shawnee Trail, the Denton area’s sandy loam soil and lush grasses have attracted horse lovers for over 150 years. “People from places like New York still think Texas has cowboys,” says Dana. “They come here and get to see the real thing, cowboys making their living off the equine industry. They see cowboys still working horses every day.”

Like Lexington, Kentucky, a stop for many horseracing aficionados, Denton has its own famed Kentucky Derby winners. Valor Farm, northeast of Denton, is the only ranch west of the Mississippi to produce two Derby winners, including Alysheba in 1987, the bay colt that went on to become the top money-earner of its day. Visitors to Valor see the luxury hotel of breeding facilities, specialized and super clean, almost sterile – a necessity for breeding world-class Thoroughbreds that win weekly at the track. Five stallions breed mares at the farm, commanding thousands of dollars in fees.

The contrast between Valor and Diamond R highlights the diversity of the tours. “We’re constantly adding new ranches,” says Dana. “We have many return visitors and that’s why we try to select different ranches. Nowhere else has the diversity of breeds and disciplines represented at our ranches.” For instance, Green Valley Ranch specializes in Quarter Horses and reining, Fossil Gate Farms raises Paint Halter horses, and the Flower Mound Equestrian Center specializes in Hunter Jumpers and Dressage. Tourists can even visit Riding Unlimited in Ponder, just west of Denton; it provides a safe therapeutic riding environment for physically, mentally and emotionally disabled individuals. Riding Unlimited is a North American Riding for the Handicapped Association (NARHA) accredited center.
Wells Fargo Advisors got involved with the horse tours in 2009. For Allan, a self-described “horse person” who trained horses for 15 years professionally and raised Buffalo, Longhorn and Watusi cattle, it was a natural choice. After 50 years in the horse business, he set out to find an event to give back to the community. With the help of his company, he now brings tourists onto his ranch. 

At the end of today’s tour, about 40 people are milling around Allan’s horse ranch as a live band plays country classics. A Western-style banquet with buffalo chili, smoked brisket and homemade Dutch oven baked cornbread is being served from the back of an authentic 1890s John Deere chuck wagon. Tourists sitting on hay bales pass along fresh baked brownies. “We just wanted them to enjoy something that was different. Something you don’t get in a restaurant, something with a theme,” says Allan, clearly enjoying himself.
Though many of the visitors, like Fred, aren’t horse people at all, Allan seems impressed at the questions during the Quarter Horse demonstration at his ranch. Fred, standing by an open arena at Allan’s ranch, admits that he studied up on terminology before taking the tour. (“I forgot what a steed was,” he says.) “Listening to the commentary helped me understand and remember things a little better. You feel like you learn something about it,” Fred says. “You have a relative and you say ‘Hey this is prime horse country.’ West of the Mississippi you have two horses that won the Kentucky derby. Those facts are interesting to me.”

Allan sees the message behind the Horse Country Tours. “The horse industry has a huge impact on this area, but more than that … it’s the heritage of the horse and the heritage of Western history,” he says. “It’s the roots of this country and certainly of the West. And that’s what gets me excited. It’s to share the chuck wagon, something built in the late 1800s. Our kids are missing out on that kind of stuff. I would hope that this develops into something that’s a real educational situation, where people will come to know some pretty unique heritage.”

by Jimmy Alford