Matlock Rose was buried on Wednesday in Little Elm, Texas, the North Texas town where he was born 84 years ago. The championship trophies and buckles of those who attended the funeral service would have given Midas a rush, and most of their owners owe more than a tip of the hat to Rose.
At the service, Frank Merrill, president of the American Quarter Horse Association, who as a young man apprenticed with Rose, said that every segment of the Quarter Horse industry has felt the influence of the legendary horseman. Bubba Cascio, trainer of the great race champion and sire Dash For Cash, recalled an AQHA show that he attended where Rose showed the champion stallion, mare, and gelding; won the get of sire class, the junior cutting, and the roping; then claimed the open cutting that night.
“I saw something that none of you will ever see,” said Cascio, Rose’s closest friend for 60 years. “It will never happen again.”
Rose made his first mark in the history books with a reserve world championship cutting title on Jessie James in 1951. Although at one time or another he dominated all of halter, as well as Western performance classes, his main love was cutting. He won the NCHA world championship in 1966 on Stardust Desire; in 1967 on Peppy San; in 1975 on Peppy’s Desire; in 1977 and 1979 on Peponita; and was ACHA world champion on Deans Lucky Rose in 1991. He also won the 1969 NCHA Futurity on Cee Bars Joan, one of his many limited age event championships.
But Rose also wrote performance pedigrees with indelible ink. It was on his advice that G.B. Howell purchased Peppy Belle, the dam of Peppy San. “Mr. Howell gave $1,600 for Peppy Belle,” remembered Rose. “She was bred to some horse in Wyoming and we gave that colt away and bred her to Leo San.”
When Howell dispersed his cutting horses in 1963, wealthy Canadian C.N. “Chunky” Woodward purchased Peppy San and enlisted Rose as an advisor and trainer. When he asked Rose to buy some mares to breed to Peppy San, Rose came up with a bargain – Royal Smart at $800.
“She was a little bitty mare, but a nice kind of mare,” said Rose. “Later Shorty (Freeman) leased her and bred her to Doc O’Lena and that’s where they got Smart Little Lena.”
At Rose’s funeral, Bubba Cascio pointed out that Saint Peter might not know what to expect when Rose arrives at the Pearly Gates. “The first time Saint Peter calls everybody to dinner, I can just imagine Matlock telling them to go on without him, that he wants to finish riding old Jessie James,” said Cascio. “He’s got Stardust Desire and Peponita tied to the fence and if he can hear me, and I know he can, I want to ask him if he’d find Royal Jazzy and start tuning her for me.”