Norman Bruce, 80, Rutledge, Ga., breeder of champion cutting horses and inductee into the NCHA Members Hall of Fame, as well as the NCHA Non-Pro Hall of Fame, passed away on Sunday, November 29, 2015.
Before he owned cutting horses, Bruce breed and showed AQHA halter and performance horses. In 1970, he earned his first check riding in an NCHA event and never looked back. In 1973, he purchased Doc’s Haida, a 1969 daughter of Doc Bar.
Doc’s Haida carried Bruce as a Top 10 NCHA World Championship contender in 1974, 1976 and 1977. When he retired her and bred her to Peppy San Badger, he got Haidas Little Pep, who became the 1986 NCHA Open World Champion and a top sire. Bruce’s other stallions included Docs Sugs Brudder; Docs Sugs Brudder’s son Squeak Toy; and the Haidas Little Pep son Haidas Magic.
Bruce was influential in the cutting horse world as a supporter and past president of the Southeast’s Area 18 Cutting Horse Association. He also served as president of the Augusta Futurity and as an NCHA Executive Committee member.
“You try to do for your (area) association what is good for NCHA,” Bruce told me in 1995, reflecting on the founding principles for Area 18 put forth by his longtime friend and associate Roger Odum, who died in 1994. “I think that is the true secret to the success of Area 18. It’s been done for everybody. Roger was a very special person. He didn’t work for anything personally, he worked for everybody. I loved him like a brother. And I’ll miss him until the day I die.”
Services are pending at Wages Funeral Home, Snellville, Georgia.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the NYCHA or CIA through the NCHA Foundation, 260 Bailey Ave., Fort Worth, TX 76107.