Interview with H. T. Derickson, October 27, 2006

SMITH: Okay, test, test, test, , turn this down just a little bit. Okay, this is Kim Smith, with the University of Kentucky Oral History Project on the Kentucky horse industry, and today I am interviewing H. T. Derickson, at his home, well, I guess you live here, at Van Bert Farms in Stanton, Kentucky and it is October 27th, and let's begin. Let's start with you t--telling me your, your full name, and when and where you were born.

DERICKSON: My name is H. T. Derickson the third. I was born here at Van Bert Farms in--Stanton Kentucky and I am seventy-one years old, and I've lived here all my life, and my father, my mother --my mother both 00:01:00tended this farm prior to me.

SMITH: Now prior to them, did their parents own the farm, I know there's five generations have been run--

DERICKSON: This--farm has been passed down through several generations- -my great-great-grandfather, who I learned about from my mother was owner of this farm and--it all came down through him. Now, I don't know any farther back other than know that there are people in our family cemetery that go back to the early eighteen hundreds and I, I don't know--I should have checked it out but I don't know all the relationship in there, other than they have the same name, some of the--does as my great-grandfather which was John W. Williams, and--so 00:02:00it's been passed down through several generations.

SMITH: Okay now, you--your parents own the farm, now what were their names?

DERICKSON: Herbert and Vandetta Derickson.

SMITH: Okay, now was --

DERICKSON: And he went by H. T. Derickson, Jr. He had the same name as I have.

SMITH: Okay, so your name's Herbert?

DERICKSON: Yes.

SMITH: Oh okay. Huh, now did he have siblings that also own part of the farm, or was he the only person who owned it?

DERICKSON: It came through my mother.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: And--she--this was part of her inheritance, it came from her mother and--it was a rather large farm in the beginning, around probably seven hundred acres, and--over the years, some of it had been sold off and, and--been kind of consolidated to the area that we live 00:03:00at right now, and--then--there were five siblings in my family and--it was divided among those, and it, since then I've been able to acquire- -my son-in-law, I have the whole farm back, so--we now own--all of that except one little portion my sister still owns.

SMITH: Okay. I hate to test your memory of your family genealogy, but let's see if we can get some of this down. What was your mother's maiden name?

DERICKSON: Her maid--maiden name was Landers.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: My grandmother, who was a Williams, that's where it comes down through --

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: --married a Landers and--my mother's maiden name was Landers.

SMITH: Okay. Now, d--where did the name Van Bert come from--for the farm?

DERICKSON: Well, a lot of people think we're Dutch or something because 00:04:00a lot of people think my name is Van Bert, but the na--name actually comes from, my mother's first name was Vandetta, and my daddy's name was Herbert, and they took the first three letters of her name and the last four of his and made Van Bert out of it.

SMITH: Okay, so they named the farm, your parents --

DERICKSON: They named the farm --

SMITH: --named the farm.

DERICKSON: --but it was my own, prior to that it was the Williams Farm, but--they gave it--that name several years ago.

SMITH: Okay, so, this farm came down through your mother, and --

DERICKSON: Correct.

SMITH: --and your mother and father ran the farm --

DERICKSON: Yeah.

SMITH: --by themselves at that--point.

DERICKSON: They, they ran the farm--yes. My daddy was a farmer. He was also--when he died in 1962, he was state senator in Kentucky --

SMITH: Oh!

DERICKSON: And--at his death, he had two years left in his term and 00:05:00through a special election they elected my mother as state senator and she served the remaining two terms --two years of his term. She was one of the earlier, if not the earliest state senators that was a female.

SMITH: That's right, absolutely, and, and her name Dericks--at that time she was Derickson.

DERICKSON: Vandetta Derickson.

SMITH: Vandetta Derickson.

DERICKSON: Yes.

SMITH: Okay now, how did they get involved in politics?

DERICKSON: Well we live in a rather small community and--my dad was always interested in politics, it goes back through his dad. His dad was--sheriff and county judge of the county, and--at that time--dad said he stayed away from home a lot because being a sheriff and having to travel on horseback and stuff that it required him to be in different parts of the county at different times and, and all and then he later on was judge of the county, county judge, and my dad had 00:06:00always been interested in politics and, so--he ran and was elected in 1960 to the state senate.

SMITH: How long did he serve?

DERICKSON: Two years.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: And then he had a--massive heart attack and died.

SMITH: How old was he at that time?

DERICKSON: He was fifty-six.

SMITH: Oh, kind of young.

DERICKSON: Yeah.

SMITH: Now, how did he combine farming with his ----------(??)?

DERICKSON: My dad was a pretty good size farmer in this area, yeah, he tended--about a hundred, a hundred-fifty acres of corn and--then raised tobacco and of course hay. He kept somewhere between sixty and eighty brood cows and, and also had a hog operation.

SMITH: Oh!

DERICKSON: He--we had a twenty--stall firing house that would hold twenty sows and then we had finishing floors that would hold up to 00:07:00a hundred-fifty--hogs but farming changed a lot, as we all know-- specially as far as the livestock production. For instance, there used to be a lot of hogs in this country but--I heard you say earlier that you work for the University of Kentucky, and one time we had a field day here and--at that time my dad was died and I had continued on the farming operations and actually had ran a lot a ground and farming pretty big and finishing hogs out and they said at that time it cost about eighteen cents to raise a pound of pork (clears throat) and I was getting sixteen cents for them and I--could figure well enough to know that I wasn't making any money raising hogs.

SMITH: That's right.

DERICKSON: So--and consequently there are no hog operations in this country now, as far as--in this county especially, and not many--except 00:08:00for the--corporations, most of your hog producers have just--quit and, and it's kind of like I say, 'time change things.' I've seen that leave, now I've seen the tobacco leave, and of course corn has not been very profitable for several years, and when I was growing up as a young man, I always wanted to be a farmer and--my dad always encouraged me to go another direction, he said "there is no money in farming," and I found him to be--pretty much on the--right way, because it was so hard, and I, I thought with hard work and dedication and already having farm it, it would be okay, but I found out that I had to do something different, and --

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: --so--in 1965 I built this barn that we're sitting in right 00:09:00now and--started an operation, it was a lot smaller then what it is now, boarding and training horses and --

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: --at that time, the Tennessee Walking Horse was the most popular --breed of gaited horsed in our country or this part of the country, and so I got involved with them.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: My father was--always a horse lover and I have pictures of him--riding horses, and I was raised with them. He worked mules and horses and we always kept a few good riding horses, and--I don't remember the first horse I ever rode, but--he was always interested in a good smooth gaited riding horse, and at that time they weren't registered. We just called them saddle horses.

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: And--so when the Tennessee Walking Horse breed--started being 00:10:00registered in '35, they started gaining nora--notoriety through the south and, and I b--I brought the first registered Tennessee Walking Horse stallion into our county and I started --and then later on I built the barn that we are now in and started a training facility for Tennessee Walkers.

SMITH: Now what made you think that this was a switch that would help make money for the farm?

DERICKSON: Well, like I said, I always liked horses, and my dad like horses and--we had--sent a horse or two out for training--just to try to have a better horse, and when--it come to the point that you couldn't find a trainer--to work a horse for you, because--they were 00:11:00full up, and there wasn't that many of 'em around that I decided that it might be a profitable thing to enter into. And to help supplement the farm income and--so I hired a--trainer from a well established training--facility in Morehead, Kentucky, and --

SMITH: Who was that?

DERICKSON: Claude Brown was the name of the stable and he was the first amateur rider to ever win--world championship open --he won in amateur and then also won the open championship on a horse called Major Wilson, and this gentleman by the name of Eddie Martin was a young trainer working at his facility and so after I built my stable, I hired Eddie Martin to come here and, and work for me and that's the 00:12:00way I got started. Then--with my experience and the fact that trainers come and went so often, I decided that what I couldn't do myself, we probably wouldn't do, but it, because it was almost impossible to keep a--trainer for a very long period, because trainers were very much in demand and someone had offered them a better deal, or something in their family would happen or whatever, so I started just doing it all myself with what help I could get from my family and I raised a large family, I've got five children, and they're all involved in the horse business, even today, to one degree or another, and--I have--two sons that are trainers, I have three grandsons that are trainers, and I have one granddaughter that is a trainer.

SMITH: Oh my!

DERICKSON: So it, it kind is a horsy family (Smith laughs) and, and 00:13:00believe it or not, a lot of this is born in you, the love, or whatever you have for horses. It's--not something most time is taught. I was just telling--somebody that--my grandson, some of them ha--have loved them since they've been big enough to even look at pictures and when they were little and couldn't even talk, they liked to look at horse pictures and--so consequently, if you love something that you do, which I've always loved the horse, it, it's easier to be successful. We went through several lean years--and--maybe I'm talking more than I ought to be a talking, but --

SMITH: No, not at all.

DERICKSON: --after--I had a successful year at the inter --at the World Championship Tennessee Walking Horse show, I won five blue ribbons down there that year and, and it was a --

SMITH: When was that?

DERICKSON: at, and it was on the fiftieth year of their anniversary which I think was in--huh, gosh, I w--I, it, it was in the late eighties, 00:14:00and--I dec--I decided then that--I would start switching to the Mountain Horse breed because, by accident in a way, I became acquainted with the Mountain Horses through the founder of them, Sam Tuttle who-- lives about twelve miles --or did live about twelve miles from here, and he and my dad were friends and--before the horses were ever registered or anything, why he'd came here and had bred a mare for my dad which he had the offspring of that when he died, and I was playing with this breed of horse but they weren't registered until '88 and--I guess it 00:15:00was --maybe it was eighty-s--eighty-six, I guess it was.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: And--but--I, I, I swapped a horse trailer, an old horse trailer for a yearling registered, one of the first registered--foals, stallion, and started working him and he won quite regularly, so people started to bringing horses to me and wanted them, me to work them and that's how I got into the--Mountain Horse breed.

SMITH: Now, when you started with this horse, what kind of shows were there for a Mountain Horse, what kind --

DERICKSON: Well, it was king of hard--because--when you just start up a show--any organization puts on a show likes to think they can--raise a little money from it, because most time it's put on by the Lion's Club or one of the ladies societies or whatever and that's kind of a 00:16:00fund raiser for them, so it's hard to get new breeds or new classes for horses established in those shows. So in the beginning it started out like--if you will put two horses into your show, two classes for Mountain Horses in your show, we will attend them and, and maybe we can get you some sponsors for them and whatever, and I know when we spread them into Ohio, my son-in-law--and I went up there and talked to the show manager of one of the larger shows and we told him if they would--put these classes in, that we would guarantee them so many horses, if not, we'd pay the interest for the difference, and--we never had to pay any money because--we just let people know that the shows were available and they attended them and, and so then the show manager saw that--it was profitable for them to put them in, and so we went in through other breeds, mostly Tennessee Walkers.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: And--that Tennessee Walking Horse people were gracious enough to give us classes in their show. As it grew, we started having some of our own shows and basically most of the shows we attend anymore are not multi breed shows, but I, personally right now think that there was a mistake made, because, if you have multiple breed shows, you have different groups of people representing different breeds that are there also and it gives you a, a better opportunity to expose this horse to more people.

SMITH: Right, right.

DERICKSON: And I, I felt like that we probably made a mistake by going just straight Mountain Horse shows where we should--and we're starting, 'matter of fact is a, an organization called Master Walking Horse Association has requested that--the United Mountain Horse Organization- 00:18:00-affiliate some shows with them in conjunction this year where that they would have so many classes of Walking Horses and flat shod Walking Horses and so many classes of Mountain Horses.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: And --

SMITH: I'm going to, a little later on I'm going to pull you back to your childhood and, and the development of the farm, but --

DERICKSON: All right.

SMITH: --let's go ahead and, and keep talking about the Mountain Horses. So when you first started with this, about what time period was that about, what year did you get your first horse?

DERICKSON: Huh, they s--they--started having--I think the first show in--'88, if my memory corrects m--is correct. And--when they started having that first show, then, it wasn't long until they started having classes at our local fair at the show here at Stanton, and--I, I presume that was probably in, in about '90 and--this was the first time 00:19:00that I had actually seen classes devoted only to the Mountain Horse, and I--watched those because I was involved in the Walking Horses at the same show, and--so--like I said, right after that I swapped for this yearling stud colt, his name was Rebel Rock and--I started showing him probably in--about '90, and or--maybe--'91 --I can't remember co-- just exactly.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: But--I got pretty heavily involved in them then and then I was--fortunate enough to win the Grand Championship in '95.

SMITH: Okay, how quickly did you acquire additional Mountain Horses once 00:20:00you, once you started down that?

DERICKSON: Well it was a slow growing process. Mountain Horses at that time were really gaining class and popularity and there were very few of them, and I, I could see a market developing there and--I've always wanted to pride myself in the fact that I was willing to make change, if I thought it would definitely better my operation, and, as these horses came in to my stable for peop--other people, I saw, the more I worked with them, the easier they were to work with than any horse that I'd ever worked with. They were very docile, very gentle and, and natural in, in their way of going and they're very personable horse, very, very personable horse, love people and--so I, the prices that they were demanding at that time were more than the Tennessee Walking 00:21:00Horses were, so we have kind of like the way they say our society is going today, we have the rich and we have the poor and the middle class is--going downhill. Well, that's the way the Tennessee Walking Horse was doing, we had the--high priced horse, and then the middle class that wasn't worth much, and then you had your bottom end, which you're always going to have that, but the middle ground for these horses was exceptionally good because--there were so few of them that demand was so great, so----we got into what you call breeder's market, where as people wanted to raise these horses, and so I told my son-in-law which came in partners with me about fifteen years ago, I said --

SMITH: That's Larry?

DERICKSON: Larry, yeah. I said, "We--I'd like to have fifty head of broodmares" and I said, "and I'd like to have it to wherever when a man came to my stable, and he says I want this particular type of horse, I 00:22:00could--have one, whether it be a weanling, a yearling, to a broodmare, to a pleasure horse, or a show horse, mare, gelding, or stud". And I said, "You know, I feel like that will be good," he said, "How long do you think this will last, the price of these horses?" And at that time I said, "Five years is my prediction," because I felt like it possible that--we would catch up with supply and demand by then, but because of the popularity of them they just kept a going, so that was extended for probably another four or five years, and the markets change and you got to be willing to change with it and right now the good riding horse is, has gotten higher and but, the, the breeders market is not as great as it once was.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: But --

SMITH: So what would be an, an average price for a, a good horse, not for breeding but for showing?

DERICKSON: For showing?

SMITH: Mm-mm.

DERICKSON: Well I can, I can give you some figures you know what, and--I guess probably--about as high priced horses we've sold--for showing as, has run up close to fifty-thousand dollars, and--but, and, and then for trail or pleasure, probably about a higher price for one we sold brought in about twelve to fifteen thousand dollars.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: Although I did sell one--in August that--for like seventeen- five that he, he was a showier type horse, but the man bought him just for trail riding.

SMITH: Okay. Okay, now I, how, I, when I talked to your grandson, Derick the last time I was here, and I believe he said the, the farm makes most of its money from the breeding, is that correct?

DERICKSON: Well--we have several stallions here that--we stand as ty--as 00:24:00stud and--we have several broodmares and--we, we, we like to think that we're not pinned up into one certain little group like for instance, we raise a foal, and if we don't sell him as a weanling we keep him as a yearling, if we don't sell him as a yearling, we keep until he is two years old, and then, if we don't sell him by then, we break him out, and when I say break him out I mean we teach him to--go trails, or go show, which ever way he is most adaptable to, and consequently--we will either sell that individual or put it back into our broodmare herd.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: And--we have been pretty fortunate and--and because we are able to--do that. Not all stables or whatever have the privilege of going through all phases and that was my goal, was to be able to supply 00:25:00whatever need that--a perspective buyer or owner wanted.

SMITH: So, you have a breeding operation, you train and you board. Do you only board the horses that you train, or do you have --

DERICKSON: Basically. We don't have room. We have ninety stalls about here, about ninety stalls, and we keep pretty well full, and therefore it don't give us much room for boarding horses for other people. We do board a few, specially some of our customers, we will board horses for them, if it--in the pasture is not too much problem, but if they want --require them kept up, we are limited in the amount that we can keep.

SMITH: Okay. Now you're certainly well regarded as a trainer and you were telling me that originally you hired a trainer and eventually took that over on your own. You basically taught yourself, learned from watching others?

DERICKSON: Well, my dad taught me a whole lot when I was growing up (clears throat) and my first experience in showing horses I guess I 00:26:00was twelve years old and I won the best boy or girl rider at the county fair for like four years in a row, and, but I, there was a lot that I didn't know. I knew how to ride, but to get certain horses to perform certain ways was things that I had to learn, and, I, I hired different trainers up through seventy-three or seventy-four, and that was when I decided that--what I couldn't do myself I wouldn't, it wouldn't get done and--so--I don't --I've got trainers now that work for me, but I also have raised --like I said, I got three grandsons and one son that works here, and I'm, and--two grandsons and a son have never worked anywhere else, and so I brought them up learning, but I did learn 00:27:00from--the --from the other trainers I had here and the --before that, plus--with what I, my dad had taught me and what that--I picked up on my own, that's the way I started. I'm in the process, believe it or not, (both laugh) I'm still learning all the time, and I, I had, I, I've always, my wife says, if I am not watching a video, I'm--attending a clinic somewhere or--talking, reading about ma--, in the magazines about different training methods, I, I relate this to you because I've always thought it was pretty interesting, I had --one a customer several years ago, when I walked in the tack shop and, and--we was looking through the tack shop and I saw this book on reining and I said, I buy --I bought the book, and the customer said--"are you fixing to start training reining horses?" I said, "no, but" I said, "I thought maybe there might be some things in there that I might be able to learn 00:28:00that I could apply to the horses that I am training."

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: And I found that over the years, that I don't care what breed of horse you come from, a horse is a horse, and there're some basics they go with all of them.

SMITH: Sure.

DERICKSON: And--the more I understand about a horse, the more intrigued I become with them, and I can tell you this, I'm learning from them all the time, and reading a horse is a secret in training anyway as knowing when and where and how much to ask and so that's the knowledge that, that's hard to explain.

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: I just did a clinic, my grandson and I did in Oregon, and our clinics, and I've conducted clinics for probably twenty, twenty-five years over the United States and Canada, and--my clinics most time are run a little different than--most of the--people. I ask people to bring their horses with them that I use in the clinic and, and the 00:29:00spectator can learn by watching what we do with the horse. We ask the rider to--the owner of the horse to ride it first and then I put my grandson in the class, my son and s--up on the horse and, and--I'll see if it's the horse or the rider.

SMITH: Ah!

DERICKSON: And--it becomes quite obvious, in most cases, where the problem lays, and--most of the time it's with the rider (Smith laughs). I know this clinic that we just did in m--in Oregon was more obvious than about anyone I've ever had because they had some nice horses but- -it's like--I'm rambling a little bit, but it's like--I told a lady out there, she said, "Well I thought these Mountain Horses were naturally gaited and all you had to do was get up there and ride them!" (Smith laughs). I said, "Well," I said, "it's kind a like a stick shift automobile," I said, "if you depress the clutch and let off the gas, 00:30:00you can shift the gear, put it normally and," I said, "then you start accelerating and easing your clutch out and everything works smoothly, but" I said, "if you've never driven a stick shift automobile," I said, "even though you know how to drive a car," I said, "you're going to be a killing the engine, you're going be a jerking and a jumping and all," and I said, "that's the same thing with these horses," I said, "They do the ability but you have to have the ability to apply it in a way that they understand and, and they will." So, you know, I'd, I, at, at, I just, that's a new illustration that I use but I thought it was a pretty good one and, and there is a lot of things, it's just like--I, I said, you know, "You get in an airplane and the guy tells you every button to push and this, that and the other, and this plane will fly!" But, I said, "It's kind of hard to do that," or, if you get in a, in a race car and they say "well this car, car is qualify, is able to 00:31:00qualify at a hundred-and eighty-five mile an hour on this track," and I said, "Even though you can drive," I said, "you'll be lucky that to get a hundred and twenty-five out of it without spinning out and wrecking in cur, curve."

SMITH: That's right, that's right.

DERICKSON: So I said, "There is a whole lot in, in, in hands of the rider--whether this horse performs or not, even though it's bred and capable of doing whatever you ask it to do, as far as the gait is concerned."

SMITH: Yeah. You can't expect it to, to go smoothly the first time out, with an inexperienced rider.

DERICKSON: I, I tell my people, I said, "You let me train your horse for a while, I'll learn the buttons and then I'll turn around explain them to you, and you come in here and you ride this horse under our supervision and we'll tell you whatever," and I said, "you will have a lot better horse." Some people just send their horses here and they want us to train them up and then when they take them home, they expect them to perform. I've read --

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: --and listened to people say, "Well, when I bought this horse, it was doing thus and so, but now it's not doing that anymore. What happened?" Well, we all are trainers, whether we admit it or 00:32:00not, some of us train in the wrong direction and we've got to be smart enough to know when we're going the wrong way.

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: And--that, you know, we, we have those difference in opinions and politics we know that, and --

SMITH: That's right.

DERICKSON: --and I'm not getting into (laughs) politics but-- (Smith laughs) but, but some people think we're going the wrong way in a lot of pol --

SMITH: That's right, that's right.

DERICKSON: --political things, and so, you know, you got to be smart enough, if you are going in the wrong way to change course and, and whatever and I, and I, like I said, I never wanted to be set in my ways, in, in the point that I didn't think I can improve.

SMITH: Now I, I've been reading about you, different articles on the internet. You've also trained trainers. Now, do they just come here and work with you and, and learn from working with you as --

DERICKSON: Well, I venture to say probably over half of the prominent trainers that, that's come along different years have worked here at this stable at one time or the other, and some of them have came in 00:33:00at, as young as--fifteen to eighteen years old--and some of them as old as--fifty or better. And they worked here for a period of time and, and a lot of them--and I knew it, were already training but they were wanting to broaden their knowledge, which I think anyone should, and if I have the op--had the opportunity to, which I did because I hired some trainers that worked for me in the early years --

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: --to learn from them, I did, and I, I feel real good. I am the person that will share my methods with anyone, I, I don't try to keep secrets. My wife used to get mad at me at those clinics, she said, "You tell all the things you know," and said "they're smart enough to know things on their own and now they'll come back and be smarter than you are!" (Smith laughs) I said, "Well, you know, it don't really bother me," but--it--I'd, I do --and have done a lot of clinics 00:34:00all over the--all United States and, and I try to share all my secrets if there were any, which I don't have any, with anybody that I am working with.

SMITH: Were you doing that with the Tennessee Walking Horses? Were you doing --

DERICKSON: I, I did do clinics with the Tennessee Walking Horses and most of my, all of my clinics they, they can--it was about pleasure Tennessee Walking Horses, flat shod Tennessee Walking Horses. My-- forte, I think, is being in the skills that--I can make a horse operate through legage(??) and the range and--that is something that you have to feel. No artificial training devices, we don't use any artificial training devices here at all. In earlier years, we did use some, not anymore, not in the last twenty-five years, we d--everything we teach a horse is through our ability, our legs and our hands.

SMITH: Mm.

DERICKSON: No--heavy shoes on our breeding horses, only kind of shoes we are allowed to use on these horses are keg shoes like you'd use on any quarter horse or any other trail horse, and that's one thing excites the John Doe public as so much that we can make a performance horse out of a flat shod, light shod horse, because this horse's ability and not all of them will do it, and ninety per cent of them probably don't but- -we make a lot of trail pleasure horses and those are athletic enough to get up and use their legs some and--and be a little more showier maybe than a, a trail horse, but those are the ones that we show in the ring. But our breed has--developed four different categories.

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: And so, that pretty well encompasses all of--the ways a horse goes, and we, or even integrating a canter into our breed which in 00:36:00early years there was a lot of myths about horses and--gaited horses and, and--we've had a lot of differences in opinions from some of our people in our associations about the canter, but we always felt it was a--something that was natural for the horse and now some of our classes are starting to have canter classes in them and--but I was reading what, funny, in a magazine here the last three or four days in a trail rider magazine the one I was reading in it and--it was listing some myths about horses, the gaited horses and now that was one of them --

SMITH: Oh!

DERICKSON: --about how the canter would ruin the gait and of course, a controlled canter or lope is a whole different than running a horse into it, so that was with my argument, it was always, if we have 00:37:00control and a horse is cued and responds on command, then the canter is no problem for him at all.

SMITH: Mm. Now when you started with the Mountain Horses, what were the numbers like, at that point?

DERICKSON: Well, best I can remember, and, and, and I wasn't involved- -in the first meetings they had, I was involved in Tennessee Walking Horses mostly then, but I think forty some was all that they could find that were direct descendants or they thought was direct descendants of the horse called Tobe, and Tobe was the sire that they used to determine the breed.

SMITH: Was that Sam Tuttle's horse?

DERICKSON: Sam Tuttle's horse. He--they w--there were some tales and some truths and, and all but the best that they could figure out 00:38:00that--his grand sire or something came in here from the Rocky Mountains going back to Virginia and he was swapped for some revisions and as a baby and, and he was in that community of Spout Springs in Estill County, near Irvine and that Sam --I knew Sam, Sam was a school teacher in Estill County and he was no dummy and he--developed this breed and he, he lived in early years he did some line breeding and, and some may have called it inbreeding or whatever, but of course, we all know that there had to be some out cross in there --

SMITH: Sure.

DERICKSON: --and most of that out cross comes from other gaited breech also, you know, and --

SMITH: Like the Saddlebred or --

DERICKSON: Like the American Saddlebred --

SMITH: --the Tennessee --

DERICKSON: --you know, people kind of look at you funny when you tell 00:39:00that, that this horse has a lot of American Saddlebred in it, but the way I can explain this is the American Saddlebred was used in the Civil War for a lot of things, but over the years they bred the American Saddlebred to be a horse for show ring and they bred a lot of hyperness and------------(??) into the horse that--the Mountain Horse --mountain people didn't do.

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: They bred it the other direction, they bred it more for--a dual purpose horse for working and riding and this that and the other, but if you look at the markers which Doctor Gus Cochran has at the University of Kentucky, and he has presented it to us over the years, they have a lot of the American Saddlebred in them, but it's not the same type that we see in the show ring --

SMITH: Sure.

DERICKSON: --in most instance, we, we get some throwbacks or whatever you want to call it that lean more in that direction, but--you know, most any breed, if you'll read the history on them, there are a diversity of, of a lot of other different --

SMITH: Sure, absolutely.

DERICKSON: --and I have no problem with saying this horse is a hodge- podge or a duke's mixture or whatever you want to call of other breeds, and I, because I think the breeders in early years did an excellent job of preserving the type of horse that we now have.

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: And so--I don't have any desire to change it into--some other type of horse, but I always have a desire to try to make this offspring better than his sire or dam was --

SMITH: Sure.

DERICKSON: --in the crossing.

SMITH: In terms of what, what's considered the best characteristics--

DERICKSON: Considering the --

SMITH: --the gait and the --

DERICKSON: --I think the, if we talk about the breed--Mountain Horses, that the strong assets that they bring to the table is temperament, smoothness of gait, and sturdiness. This horse has a stronger bone 00:41:00than most of the, of the other breeds, and a lot of reasons goes behind this were from accident. These horses, when I was a child, they weren't worth much, because they weren't registered and all, and nobody knew about them away from this area, hardly. And consequently, when you don't have a horse that's worth much money, you don't spend large vet bills on them --

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: --and you do not take hand care of them like you would a Thoroughbred or something that's worth--no telling what, because the fact--you get more in it than what it's worth, and so, consequently, the sturdiest and the hardiest and the best were all that survived.

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: And it was kind of like I know blacksmiths and all were amazed at the foot that this horse has which is always a problem about any horse, how sturdy this foot was and how strong it was, and--I 00:42:00contribute a lot of that to the fact that they weren't pampered and they run out, and when you put these horses will be like any other breed in my opinion somewhere around the road, they'll get weaker because we are letting more of the weak survive.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: But it, it, it's just the strong and the best was what we had to start with.

SMITH: Right. So, the registry started in about '86 for, for the Mountain Horse.

DERICKSON: The, the, there are, the Rocky Mountain registry started in '86 and I think Kentucky Mountain in '88 or, or the Mountain Pleasure along about the same time and, then of course the United Mountain Horse Organization --

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: --came into affect in about '99 or 2000.

SMITH: Two-thousand, yeah.

DERICKSON: (clears throat) And, hopefully, their, their purpose was to 00:43:00try to have more uniformity within the different breeds because a lot of the same horses were registered in all of them --

SMITH: Yeah, right.

DERICKSON: --because they were eligible to be.

SMITH: Yeah, that's what Derick was explaining to me.

DERICKSON: And so they, they hope to--try to unite it all and, and like for instance--we called, at one show, we will be a Kentucky Mountain show and they will call the gait by a certain name, and actually it's the same gait that you do at another Mountain Horse show, but it'd be called under a different name --

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: --because the rules were a little bit different.

SMITH: That's right.

DERICKSON: And then for instance, the--maybe the length of the bit may be half inch difference from one breed and the other, or the--length of the toe allowed, there's just some little variations in there, that-- The United Mountain Horse Organization thought it'd be well if we could all show under, which their, their association does let them show the 00:44:00United Mountain Horse Association let any of th--of the major breeds of Mountain Horses show --

SMITH: Show them.

DERICKSON: --with their show.

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: They compete against each other.

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: And which other shows do not.

SMITH: Okay. The--your daughter--Vanessa, was talking to me earlier about some of the early shows that she went on with, with you. Now, in terms of getting the Mountain Horse to be more recognized and more popular, you were doing a lot of shows, is that part of your--the way you operated or --

DERICKSON: Well--yes. We'd, we're still doing it--'matter of fact-- Vera, and Larry, my son-in-law, they're fixing to go to Springfield, Massachusetts and they're taking--two or three horses up there and they're meeting with a, a gentleman that--had met us at a-- demonstration at the Royal Winter Fair, in Toronto, Canada, that lives 00:45:00in Vermont, and they're putting on a--breed exhibition and, and, and all at Springfield, Massachusetts, and so they're meeting him there and he is bringing some of those horses there, and they're taking some from here and they will be set up there and trying to acquaint more people with this breed. Now we went for about ten years to the Royal Winter Fair in--in Massachusetts --I mean in--Toronto, and really acquainted the north with a lot of these horses which, which helped us a lot. It was a kind of a fluky deal in a way, the way it's all came about, but I was doing a clinic in--in--Canada, and one of the ladies in the clinic, and it was a Walking Horse clinic, and I was doing it, and she said, "I understand you're got some Mountain Horses," I said, "Yes, I do." She said, "Tell me a little bit about them." So I started telling her 00:46:00about them and she said, "You know, I am on the board at Royal Winter Fair," and she says, "they're always looking for new breeds of horses and stuff to have their own exhibition," and she said, "Would it be possible that you might bring horses up there and do some exhibitions and stuff," because they have what they call walking ring which different breeds come in all day long and show--their characteristics and, and tell about them. And I said, "Well, yeah!" And so, to make a long story sh--short, through a Walking Horse lady and all like that, I got introduced to the Royal Winter Fair, and we gradually worked our way up, up there, from the back row to the front row on stallion row and then we got to get so we could be in the big ring on exhibition, and we took some of our better horses up there and we did that for like ten years and finally we just got tired but it was a very profitable 00:47:00thing, as far as the organization of Mountain Horses was concerned, it brought a lot of attention to them and they're lo--getting, getting to be a lot more up in Canada, and, and, like I say, this gentleman from Vermont and different places but there weren't any up east hardly at all, northeast, and so, now they have their own Canadian club up there and, and, and like I say, the breed fairs, we also had a drill team that we formed here and--they consist of six men and six women and we perform as far west as Kansas, and as far north as Springfield, Massachusetts, and--and a lo--O--Ohio and Indiana, Tennessee and areas in between, I mean we, we--and that twelve-person drill team would go there and perform and it was totally supported by the drill team itself. We did fund raisers and, and put on horse shows and stuff, in order to 00:48:00get the finances to do it with, it wasn't--but it was very, very good, and--so, they just recently did their last one in--Lexington, Virginia, at the horse center up there and just came back from there about two or three weeks ago. And I guess that was the first one I failed to attend. Me and my wife, we've kind of got out of it the last year or two, somewhat. Let some of the younger ones step up. I le--I led the drill team from it's inception 'til about two years ago.

SMITH: Who leads it now?

DERICKSON: Sh--Robert Lawson.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: A friend of mine, a fellow trainer, good man.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: And--yeah, he leads it now.

SMITH: Now, I was reading in the paper where they--they were, someone was estimating at UK that the Mountain Horse outnumbers any other breed in Kentucky now, that they are doing their horses' count.

DERICKSON: Is that right?

SMITH: And that that was one of their, something they had heard that the Mountain Horses had grown so what are the numbers today--that you think? I know that we, we will know more when they do the count.

DERICKSON: I'm not, I'm not real sure what the numbers are. I think the Kentucky Mountain Horse Association they boast that they got somewhere around eighteen thousand horses and I think the--Rocky Mountain Association got somewhere around four --twelve, fourteen thousand, and--the Mountain Pleasure, which is--a real good organization and, as far as they got some real top horses, but they closed their books real early and they haven't been as active as some of the others have and I don't think that they've got probably three thousand or something that way, maybe my --I may be wrong in that because I'm not real sure, but--some of those horses, like I said, are also the same horse that --

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: --but, but--they, they have grown tremendously and now we have the new registry--of the American Mountain Gait Horse which is-- supposedly the way this registry works, they document any horse that's registered in the other three organizations and they are listed on that horse's papers that he is registered --

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: --Kentucky Mountain, Rocky Mountain, or whatever, and then- -they issue him that documentation so they ha--we have that registered now--and they are blood registry of, of, if the parent is--registered in--in the other associations and they do, most of all organizations, some of them don't, do DNA, some of them do blood. But--that's the way that you can get into it.

SMITH: What would you des--how do you describe what your goals were for 00:51:00the Mountain Horse--in Kentucky, you know, as, as a breed as well as, as the owner of the farm? What were you hoping to achieve?

DERICKSON: Well--I don't want to impose limits on what this horse can do. I think this horse is athletic enough that he can--do about anything any other horse can do. He may not be bred to jump a six-foot fence, but he can jump.

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: He may not win a race but he can run, and--so he can do about anything the other horses can do, but my real selling point in this horse, is temperament, smoothness of gait, and--we h--do have a temperament in this horse, and I can take you out in the pasture and show you. They'll come to you, they love you, I mean they love to 00:52:00be around people, they won't leave you alone hardly, that, they'll be in your hip pocket if you're out working on a fence somewhere, the next thing you know they are right up all around you (clears throat). But--and people like that, and they are a rugged horse, easy keepers. I know and I am not talking about other breeds or anything, but I have some Tennessee Walkers still here. You can feed them the same amount and--the Mountain Horse stays fat and the walker looks poor.

SMITH: Yeah. (laughs)

DERICKSON: And it's that way whether it'd be a Thoroughbred or an American Saddlebred or whatever, they're hardy, real hardy. I want to preserve those characteristics because I think that if you can offer them John Doe public a pleasure horse that's hardy, strong, even tempered, good natured, with a smooth gait, they're, you are offering them something that they can't get in some of the other breeds. For instance, you know, any, any of your--trotting horses--don't give that 00:53:00smooth ride that you get with the four beat gait and there are other breeds of horses that have four beat gait, I mean a lot of them.

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: But when you start talking about strength, personality, I don't know of any other breed that comes up with them. They're just very hardy and they have wonderful personalities and those are characteristics that I don't want to change in this horse, and I don't want to artificially enhance this horse's way of going by any artificial means as such as heavy shoes or anything that would alter him. I want him to be what he is. I know what this horse is. If when I--go to buy a horse like this, I know what I see is what I'm getting, as far as capability, that horse gaiting, because there is 00:54:00nothing artificial has been done to it--so when I get him home, I know if I ride him the way that, that the horse should be ridden, that he is going to perform for me, I don't have to guess.

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: I want to keep that horse as natural as possible in his gait, in his--and disposition and all that's ----------(??) born in him.

SMITH: Mm-mm. Now you've mentioned earlier when we were talking that the danger as the breed continues in popularity that some of those things may not be sustained. How would you--how do you--see protecting those characteristics?

DERICKSON: Well--as you know we have what they call the Horse Protection Act. It's no secret, it's --

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: --out there. The Horse Protection Act is supposedly to keep people from mistreating horses, that's what protection is. Okay. 00:55:00When I first got involved--in this breed, I told some of the people that had, had started and from ground one --from day one with it, and I'll, I said, "Now you have to protect this horse and I --" and they said, "What do you mean?" I said, "well, in other breeds of horses, over the years, they have let artificial means creep into their training programs to the point that--that's the reason we got the Horse Protection Act now, I mean, it's, it, because --" "Oh! There is nothing like that would go on in our breed." I said, [taps on the table] "People are people." I said, "What you need to do now, is to have a program to where that you don't allow this to happen, and I said, so they, they listened to me. I brought them here and, and I explained what to look for and this, that and the other, I have been in the horse 00:56:00business, like I said, since 1965, so I have seen a lot of things come and go. I was here before the Horse Protection Act was. And --I said, "these are things that you need to be aware of." So they started their own inspection program.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: And they tried to use blacksmith or a veterinarian or whatever in the early years, all right!

SMITH: When would have been? You said the early years.

DERICKSON: Huh probably in the early nineties.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: So they started that program and they were getting some-- flack from exhibitors, "Well who is he, or who is she, to be able to tell me that my horse is not eligible, is he a veterinarian or is he been trained in this field?" --

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: --or whatever. So they saw that they was going to have to do something different and so they have adopted one of the--programs that the federal government sponsors and use their what they call designated 00:57:00qualified person who has, took courses--in inspection of horses and they also had, in early years had veterinarians and--so they are backed up now by the federal government in their inspections as well as these people have been trained so that they don't have that feedback from exhibitors saying who is he, or who is she? We have never, ever had a problem within this breed.

SMITH: Oh, excellent.

DERICKSON: But we got it quick on the beginning and I know that we are human beings and I know what human beings are. I mean we read about child abuse cases --

SMITH: Oh yeah!

DERICKSON: --all the time and so what makes you think there are people out there that abuse children they wouldn't abuse a horse.

SMITH: That's right.

DERICKSON: But, but the whole point was that we never let it get started and we want to keep it rigged like that. They want to keep this breed 00:58:00to where he is natural and--like I said, you don't have to worry about anything and by having like cops on the highway, we control our speed a whole lot better than we would if we just post the speed limit up there --

SMITH: That's right.

DERICKSON: --and never have --

SMITH: That's right

DERICKSON: --any cops out there.

SMITH: How do you see this breed's importance to Kentucky's horse industry?

DERICKSON: I feel like, like I said, we have a horse that the only reason he is not --and this is my opinion, the most popular trail riding pleasure horse that they are is because he's unknown in a lot part of the country, lots of parts of the country.

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: And what I say can do for Kentucky, because this is where it originated and where the concentration of them is, there's probably half of them in the United States are in Kentucky.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: And most of them being in around east central Kentucky. I 00:59:00see it as a great future, as soon as we can get the word out more which I individually, and I am not being the only one, have really tried to - ---------(??), I know we've, the, the United Mountain Horse Organization set up a, a--work with a group in Texas and they formed a club down there like two years ago, and now they got like ninety members, and it's in an area around Fort Worth, Dallas, in that area there where this club is. [loud birds-chirping sound] But now they're starting to branch out and they have members in Arkansas and, and Oklahoma, and different places, you know, and--this club has --that's the bird --

SMITH: I think we got a pretty upset bird.

DERICKSON: Yeah.

SMITH: We may have to do something about them because they're going to interfere with the sound here.

DERICKSON: I can move them out of here.

SMITH: Okay. What? Do you want to take a break and, and do that and then come back to it?

DERICKSON: Yeah, yeah, I can do that.

SMITH: You're doing okay? Let me turn this off here and put it on pause.

[Pause in recording.]

SMITH: All right, let's see if I can do this again. Let's hope that I 01:00:00did that right. This is when I wish I had my husband with me because I am not that good at the sound. Okay, since we did have a little bit of distraction (Smith laughs) when you were talking about the importance of the Mountain Horse to Kentucky, would you mind talking about that again, because I know that's, that I think that's a pretty important part. I didn't realize that Mountain Horse--that over half of the Mountain Horses were here in Kentucky.

DERICKSON: Yeah, well--it probably--going to be less in the future because we are getting, breeding esta--established outside the state of Kentucky, but, they are getting a brood stock from Kentucky mostly, which helps us, and by doing --I have been doing the clinic in wa--in Washington and Oregon area for the last three or four years and I have 01:01:00seen the stock improve tremendously out there, as far as the quality of, that they are getting, and because some of them have elected to come here and only buy top stock and consequently in their breeding programs, it's starting--to show up, and, but--this, this breed--can-- it, it's grown excessively fast and--it can be a big--value to people in this part of the country, because like I said earlier on the tape, it --we've lost a lot of our--ability, like most of the farms in eastern Kentucky all have a little tobacco base now --

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: --as their cash crop, and--if you go up there now, you hardly see any tobacco --

SMITH: That's right.

DERICKSON: --being raised, and--because the, even though there's still a lot of ma--a lot of tobacco raised, the farmers in the Bluegrass have 01:02:00got a lot bigger that do raise tobacco, and the little man in eastern Kentucky and all, he, he pretty much quit. So this gives him an avenue to raise a few horses which this country is very adaptable to them--and then that gives them a little cash crop that they could raise a colt or two or, or at most of eastern Kentucky people can ride too, to a degree because they were brought up riding horses --

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: --you know, and so that gives them an opportunity to sell some pleasure horses that go out of here to wherever; now I know we just sold two horses yesterday going to Vermont and--we sell them they go all over the United States, and now we have them in foreign countries too, we got some in Germany and France and, and--and different countries.

SMITH: About how many do you sell in a year's time?

DERICKSON: And here--how many horses do we sell?

SMITH: Mm-mm, and what would you consider a good year, or a good number?

DERICKSON: I, I would say we'd sell, here we probably sell forty, fifty horses a year, maybe more. I know back earlier, one year, we had like thirty foals at that time, this been a few years ago, when a man came in here from Wisconsin and he was saying how much you want for this one, and how much you want for that one, and I'm talking weanlings that are still on their mamas and some of them no more than two-weeks old, and--finally my son-in-law said to him, he said, "Why don't you let me just price you the whole thing." He was going into business in breeding in, in Wisconsin, and so he said, "Well, what will you take for them?" and my son-in-law figured and he said, "I'll have to average them all out and here is what I'll take for them." And to make a long story 01:04:00short he got together and bought 'em, and, and so, and then a year bef- -not this year but last year, we sold twenty-five head of broodmares that went to Montana, and--so--in one time, to one breeding ranch. So they are those out there that, that want to get into this business, you know, come in here and buy--several horses at a time, but--it is, it is a great asset to Kentucky, because when they're spending those dollars here, as we all know, then I'm going to take those dollars and I'm going to spend them here too.

SMITH: That's right.

DERICKSON: And so it, it really helps. My dad always made a statement; he said "shop as close to home as you can because you've got a chance of gettin' that money back."

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: And I al--I always thought about that, you know, so if we can have money spent in Kentucky, we have a chance of keeping it here you know, and--but it, it, it is a good thing for this farmer out there 01:05:00that's got a small place and he don't know what to do with but he's got room to keep four or five head of horses --

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: --or whatever you know, and--it really has been a plus. It's helped me a lot, I know that much, as far, my wife said, "This is one of the first times we was ever at the bus station when the bus come by, usually we'd be at the train station." (both laugh) But--we were already established here in the horse business, when this breed--come on the scene and--or ----------(??) and that gives a little leg up and that's the reason I have been very willing to help other people learn more about the breed and to learn more about actually the training of them and, and whatever.

SMITH: Now what part of, of your work do you enjoy the most?

DERICKSON: Well, that's a good question. I, I've used this illustration a few times. I, I never could figure out why anyone want to be a school 01:06:00teacher. I, I was a little brat and I got up part of my teens and I aggravated the teachers to death, and, and I thought when I th--why would anyone want to subject themselves to that type of, of treatment from the little snotty nose students and--I, I never could figure that out, and after I got up grown and I started training horses and I would see that horse develop, then I've come to appreciate my school teacher.

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: Because I knew, even though I might not been that student, that when they, the teacher had a student progressing and they see that they can teach and that, and that student is advancing under their-- tutoring, then, it gives them a satisfaction that's hard to explain, I imagine, because that's what horses do for me. I, what, what's really 01:07:00exhilarating to me is to see a horse that I'm working with progress and see him advance and then, even if I don't ride him--in a show or wherever, to see my rider do well on that horse in competition, or on a trail. I mean, you know, it, it's, it's gratifying to me, if I ride a horse out there on a trail and we come to a p--a place on the trail and the guy in front me 's horse won't cross the water, or he won't cross a log, or he is scared of something in front of him, and I can take my horse and go up there and lead the way.

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: I mean, you know, it's kind of like--showing off in a way (Smith laughs), but it's also, it's ability that had developed that in most cases, you know, of, of teaching the horse. And so the gratification of seeing the horse advance I guess would be the short answer to your question--in what I see in horses. And I, and I --I really get, I got these grandchildren here and stuff, and I really 01:08:00enjoy watching them progress and learn, and see--we have a unique situation here that probably they don't have a lot of places, because I am able now to hold on to my trainers mostly. We have some turnovers but, but the family it, it's easier, and than also I have different ones are better in some fields and others are better in another field and so sometimes we just swap horses and this horse is having a problem here and this trainer is better at that, you know, we swap them, and a lot of stables don't have that privilege to do that you know.

SMITH: Now, who trains here, you do and Derick, and who else is a trainer here?

DERICKSON: Okay, to start out with my son Jamie, he is--thirty-eight years old. He trains here. My oldest grandson, who is thirty years 01:09:00old, trains here. My next grandson who is Derick that you talked with, just had a birthday, he is twenty-eight, and he trains here, my youngest grandson, twenty, trains here.

SMITH: Oh my!

DERICKSON: Then I have--a boy that graduated from high school with my youngest grandson that kept hanging around here and so finally we put him to work and, and he had a, he could ride but he never had any training experience, and he is listening really well, very intelligent boy and he likes it and he is trains here now, and then I have a gentleman that my wife taught riding lessons to, my wife is a riding instructor and--she's done well, she taught lessons to him when he was like nine years old and now he is in his early thirties and--he left and came back to work for me about nine (laughs) years ago and--has 01:10:00been working here ever since, and I have him. So, I--I've got, and then my oldest grandson's girl friend, he--she always loved horses and I --and actually, her mother would bring her over here in the summer when she was like fifteen years old and she worked here and a good rider, worked here some and then when--she and him started dating, she wanted a job here and so she's been training horses all her life and so she works here now. So I've got one lady trainer and the re--and the rest of them are--are all boys or men.

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: I call them boys because two of them are under twenty-one (both laugh) only twenty.

SMITH: I was amazed at how accomplished Derick was at, at such a young age in the ----------(??).

DERICKSON: Derick, he's had more experience than anyone of the trainers I have, because Derick, like I said, he stayed with me from the time he was--a little boy, all the way through and he just had a very, he's 01:11:00very intelligent he got a fascination for horses that is unbelievable, very competitive, very competitive, I mean he, and he, and he uses his head in thinking about different methods and this, that, and the other and it's--it blows people's mind, of course I guess you work together all your life, you think the same way, but whenever people would ask us what would be the matter with their horse or what they could do to help them, and we're at these clinics, he and I both almost tell him identical, the same thing you know, and so when I put him up on a horse, I know how he can ride and it's very easy for me to say do this, do that, and to see the horse respond, because he knows what I'm talking about --

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: --and he knows how to ride, so--makes him --

SMITH: Now you said that--I know Derick's father was a sheriff and he said he also worked on a farm, did he work on the farm here?

DERICKSON: Yes, he did, my, he was the tenant on my sister's farm who 01:12:00now belongs to my son-in-law and daughter.

SMITH: To Larry, okay, to Larry.

DERICKSON: To Larry, yeah, and--he w--had a farm accident with the tractor, a tractor farm accident out here and--and killed him, and- -Derick was like I said about nine years old at the time and--he was with me at a horse show in Tennessee and, and--we just stay, he just always been here and, and, and after school, he is like, I got a older boy that trains Tennessee Walkers in Tennessee, I have another son that trains also but he is not here, he stayed with me until he was thirty- two years old and then he went, he wanted to, expand in Tennessee is the heart of where the Walking Horses are --

SMITH: That's right, that's right.

DERICKSON: --and so he went there, and--but he is the only one's ever left, but anyway--it's--Derick is a--smart individual and--very talented in what he does, and he's had more experience, and --

SMITH: It seems like he is natural with the horses.

DERICKSON: He is a natural.

SMITH: Now, his mother, Vera, did she always work on the farm? I know she and Larry are --

DERICKSON: No-no, when, when--when her husband was killed, the sheriff, she was working as a deputy in the office and--so then she was elected to fill out the remainder of his term --

SMITH: Oh, okay!

DERICKSON: --which was like two years. And she stayed in that sheriff's office than and--well actually she worked out on the road too and serving summons and warrants and first one thing and another, but --

SMITH: Oh my!

DERICKSON: --she was sheriff there for a couple of years.

SMITH: The last name then was Tipton, right?

DERICKSON: Tipton, yeah.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: And then Larry, my son-in-law, he was a state police and his wife took cancer and died and so her husband he got killed and that's how that come about and, but--her youngest son was only like two years 01:14:00old at the time her husband got killed and --

SMITH: Oh that's tough!

DERICKSON: --so, he practically raised him, which is the one that trains here now but--it's--she is, she did that and then she tried her hand at running a restaurant for a while, very good cook and this and that and the other, but when Larry--I saw Larry interest in the farm operation why he had already bought my sister's farm here, which joins, and--to make a long story short, we just kind of lumped it together and, and been running it that way for the last fifteen years.

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: But--she came to work then and worked in the farm. We had a, we had a tack business that sold tack and stuff and, and that was our first--mention now my wife she works some in the office and Vera works in the office and, and--actually but all my family is involved in one way or another (Smith laughs).

SMITH: It does seem that way. Let's go back to your family and the farm, and okay you were telling how the farm came down through your mother and now how did she and your father meet, and was he a farmer in the area, or?

DERICKSON: Okay. I--my father only lived about, raised about a m--a mile from here and--he was raised on a farm and had horses, always, and like I said, his dad was a sheriff and then county judge here, and --

SMITH: What was his name, what was your grand --

DERICKSON: --it, and my --

SMITH: --grandfather.

DERICKSON: --grandfather? His name was Henry.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: Henry Tilford Derickson; and so--his mother died when he was like--four years old and so, he, he, he grew up the hard way, his daddy 01:16:00was gone a lot and then he stayed with his--kin folks and whatever like they used to do when people --

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: --had problems, they, the family took care of them, and--but anyway--he met my mother who lived here on this farm and--they--they were married and stayed married until his death, and --

SMITH: So, did he come to the farm once they were married?

DERICKSON: He came to the farm, and then--and ran the farm until he died.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: And but in the meantime he had bought part of his old home place which also joins this farm.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: And so--he brought that into this farm, it all, it all joins.

SMITH: It's about how many acres was the farm when you were young?

DERICKSON: Well, originally, like I said, it was about six, seven hundred acres and then it sold some of it off to make our airport over here where the airport is and, and some other areas and then--he added that into it there too, but--he was a pretty prosperous farmer but he'd already determined that farming was be--going on a downhill slide, I mean as far as being able to make money farming.

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: Because it was, seems like if--one thing was up, the other was down and it, it was almost an impossibility; and I look back on my life and look at the farmers that were classified as a better farmers in the community and this, that and the other, and I've also looked at some young people, younger generation, next generation down that have tried to farm and all I, and it's almost an impossibility to make a living farming unless you have another job somewhere else to support 01:18:00him; I mean, I, about everyone I knew went out of business, or they got them a job being a mail carrier or doing something other than farming.

SMITH: Now, was your father mostly full time farmer or then he got into --

DERICKSON: He was mostly full time farmer, yes he was.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: And back in the f--early fifties he made some money farming you know, but then it was, it started going in the other direction you know.

SMITH: Now you had --there are five of you in your family? You have four siblings?

DERICKSON: I have five kids and I'm, I am one of five kids.

SMITH: Could you tell me all their names?

DERICKSON: Well my o--oldest sister's name is Loline and--my next sister is Nancy who died about a year ago, exactly, and then--I'm third in line, I'm seventy-one, and then I have--another sister that--like 01:19:00s--sixty-four and I have one brother who just fifty, he is a --well actually fift--he will be fifty-one in December, he is twenty years younger than I am.

SMITH: Yeah!

DERICKSON: And my mom was forty-six when he was born.

SMITH: Oh!

DERICKSON: And she thought she was (laughs) --

SMITH: (laughs) Beyond --

DERICKSON: --wasn't going to have any more kids.

SMITH: That's right, that's right. Mm. Now did--all the kids work on the farm?

DERICKSON: My youngest brother--he grew up here on the farm, but he went into other things and--then a few years ago, he come back and he, he--went to school, got his education and taught school for awhile and- -actually those little snotty nose kids I was talk about they drove him up the wall (Smith laughs) and to the point he didn't want to do that anymore, so he came back and he said, you know, you tried to get me interested in this years ago, he said "I'd like to --" --and he could ride because he grew up here on the farm --

SMITH: Now what was his name again?

DERICKSON: --teach me! His name is Henry.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: He is named after my g--my grandpa.

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: And--so--he worked here a couple of years--and--with the knowledge he had and what I was able to teach him and all, now he trains horses in Texas.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: So I (laughs) have a brother that trains horses in Texas too.

SMITH: Now, when you were a, a child working on the farm, what were some of the chores that you di--you had to do? Do you remember what you were responsible?

DERICKSON: Oh yeah! (Smith laughs) I remember them! The first chore I remember doing I had to fill the wood box up every night (laughs) that's for the fire, wha--and wo--cook stove stuff, but anyway--as I grew up, my dad taught me to drive a tractor real early in life and a team of mules and I stayed on that tractor before I got out of school, when I came in, in the evening and--because we, we did raise several acres of corn and--and all, and hay, and whatever, and so, at a very 01:21:00early age, I was on the farm tractor driving that on most days and then of course assisting with all the operation of the--from wringing hogs to--you know, making steers out of bulls and I did all those things, vaccinations and, and whatever, just general farm work, basically.

SMITH: Now you had --you worked--pretty much you, you were either in school or you're at the farm working, is that --

DERICKSON: Yes. I had, I, I took a brief time in my life, when I first got married I was farming when I got married and--my dad was paying me fifteen dollars a week and when I got married, I told him, I said, "Dad," --I, I have been married to my wife for fifty-one years now. I was twenty, she was seventeen when we got married.

SMITH: Oh!

DERICKSON: And I said, "I can't live on twenty-five --on fifteen dollars a week." So he raised my pay to twenty-five.

SMITH: Oh!

DERICKSON: And--I, I stayed there another year, I just couldn't see I 01:22:00could make it and I left and went to Middletown, Ohio and worked in ARMCO Steel for a couple of years up there, and--then--I came back to--Kentucky and--got a job with the--forest service and I went back to farming. I did it on my own. I rented ground and, and, and did farming, and raising tobacco and --

SMITH: Is that in Powell County?

DERICKSON: In Powell County, and all, and I did that until he died. And then he died and my--I took over the family farm and ran it then --

SMITH: You said --

DERICKSON: --for several years.

SMITH: --the farm was divided among the children and then you purchased some of that back?

DERICKSON: Yes!

SMITH: Is that how it worked?

DERICKSON: Huh-huh.

SMITH: Okay, okay.

DERICKSON: I'll tell you this real quick because it might help somebody down the road sometime or another. My mother was a pretty unique individual in a lot of ways, and I have a sister that's a lawyer and- 01:23:00-so--she said, she was tired of being responsible, she wanted to enjoy life, she wanted to travel some and this, that, and another and she was going to buy this farm up and so--she wasn't sure how to do it exactly and make everybody happy, which I know that's hard to do, you know.

SMITH: Yes it is!

DERICKSON: But there's five of us kids now. So we had, we divid--my sister she--divided it up in five pieces and knowingly that all five pieces were not equal but we had a private auction and--you had equity, you weren't ruled out because--the fact that you didn't have money to bid on another piece of property. So you could bid on two of them, if you wanted to.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: So you had equity. So when we got through bidding, we added up, everyone had a piece that they said, and everyone had an 01:24:00opportunity to bid on that piece too, and some of us did. I owned two pieces for a while and then somebody bid, bid me. We got through, we added them all up, the dollars. And the party that had the least amount that didn't average out, for instance if there was a ten dollars and it didn't average out to ten dollars--they only had eight dollars invested in their property, which I have been using ----------(??).

SMITH: Yeah, I understand.

DERICKSON: --funny figure, but anyway, the person that had a piece of property that he give twelve dollars for, he would have to turn around and give two dollars left to the person that had eight dollars --

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: --to make them up to the average of ten dollars. And so it all averaged out. We averaged out what all those brought and bought everybody up with cash to the level mean, which I was the one that bought the biggest part of (laughs).

SMITH: (laughs) I was going to say, yeah.

DERICKSON: But I had to pay a bunch to the others, you understand, but-- it all averaged out and we've never had a word over it, since or before.

SMITH: Oh, that's fortunate.

DERICKSON: And I, and I, that's what I thought was so unique about it --

SMITH: Yes.

DERICKSON: --was the fact that nobody has ever said, "Well, I didn't think done this right, or didn't think they had done that right, everybody had the same privilege, nobody ever had a cross word and I thought that was pretty unique.

SMITH: Yeah, I do too.

DERICKSON: I, I know that's what your interview (laughs) is about.

SMITH: No!

DERICKSON: But. (laughs)

SMITH: Well, actually it is! We, we want to understand the --

DERICKSON: But I think --

SMITH: --the people.

DERICKSON: --that was a pretty unique way to do it and I had never heard it done that way, but it all worked that way and --

SMITH: No, I, neither, and I, I've heard some, some pretty horror stories when there're--a lot of siblings and particularly land involved in it. Your mother--you said that after your father died she took his seat in the Senate.

DERICKSON: Right.

SMITH: Now had she just worked on the farm --

DERICKSON: My mother was --

SMITH: --most of her life?

DERICKSON: I don't reckon she ever--worked outside the home any other than she was a volunteer worker at the hospital and--she was--you know, head of the Red Cross, March of Dimes here for awhile, and stuff like that, she'd do things like that. But she was a homemaker that I was 01:26:00raised up in the old school, you probably won't like this, but a man worked outside and the woman --

SMITH: Sure.

DERICKSON: --worked in the house. She cooked the meals, she--cleaned the house, she done--and, and my wife--right to today, she holds it against my mother because she never taught me to do nothing in the house. (Smith laughs) I wasn't expected to do nothing in the house!

SMITH: I understand.

DERICKSON: But I got up and went to the fields with my dad.

SMITH: That's right.

DERICKSON: Just --and the girls that was in my family, they helped my mother--

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: --as they come along. But--it's a whole, whole different era then than they are right now.

SMITH: Oh, absolutely.

DERICKSON: And --

SMITH: Now, did she stay on the farm? Did she keep the house--right here?

DERICKSON: My mom stayed right here on the farm and later years, that was part of the deal, we'd take care of her, and which we did, in later years she lived with my sister right here on the part of the farm, and when she got, you know, disabled, or whatever, she lived to seventy- nine years old, and she would've had a birthday in about two months--to be eighty.

SMITH: Oh my!

DERICKSON: And--but--she lived a very--very good life, never was sick any hardly and just took cancer in her last year and died just like, like it's the way it hit her --she never wanted to go through a lot of (snorts) problems in her life, as far as physical problem.

SMITH: Well, that's a blessing.

DERICKSON: And--but--I'll say this--and, you didn't ask me this either, but she brought her family up in church and she was a good Christian lady , and--I see it, passed right on down to my grandchildren and stuff. It still--affects of her life and the way she lived.

SMITH: I, I could imagine that's--obvious in the fact that this is a family operation and a family operation that seems to work very well, that you have certain values related to that. Now your wife, we, how did you meet her?

DERICKSON: My wife (clears throat) she lived about a mile and a half 01:28:00from here.

SMITH: And what is her name, I'm sorry?

DERICKSON: Her name is Wilda, W-i-l-d-a. And she had a twin sister named Hilda and I, I, I started to, I was about eighteen and I started noticing her and she was about fifteen and I knew her from the time that--she was a little bitty girl. Her being a twin, she was a little bit of a--oddity, you know --

SMITH: Sure!

DERICKSON: --in that sense that you don't see them all the time, specially in a small community like we live in. And she came to our church a few times, her and her family did, and then she moved from that ara --area--where she came to our church to--Stanton. Her daddy was the iceman. He delivered ice to the houses before they had electricity and --

SMITH: Sure.

DERICKSON: --them had iceboxes and stuff like that, and he'd go to Winchester and he'd get ice and he also r--ran railroad trucks, he always was a trucker. He had trucks, he had ice truck, dump truck, and 01:29:00stuff like that. But anyway, they lived about a mile and a half from here. Well--when I was a little kid, we had what we called a party line. We had one, had one of the first phones. My daddy ran the own, his own line, you had to do it yourself, if you got the phone service in, up through the field on--from town, up to our house and we was one of the few people that had a telephone. Well they lived down--about a m--like I say a mile straight through there and they were on the same line we was, they had about the same (laughs) everybody else was on the same line (Smith laughs). So anyway--I knew her, knew of her, but--like I said, I'd ride my s--my mode of transportation going to town was --there was an old county road that went down --by my place to town that had never, at that time, been fenced off or anything, even though they'd built the new road over, on the hi--where the highway is now, and I would ride my horse down through town and sometimes go down there and see her. Well her twin sister would ride with me, but she 01:30:00wouldn't, she was scared of a horse.

SMITH: Oh!

DERICKSON: And, so--she--married --she and I married why--it was kind of a family thing, everybody rode horses and she said, "she dread to see Sunday come, because everybody was expected to ride a horse--because we just, we just it for fun, you know, ride around, pleasure riding this, that --but anyway she was a real good sport about it and--she learned to ride, and she became an excellent rider, and now she is, teaches riding, has, she's won probably, I know more championship, had more students that won championships in the, in the world shows and championships than anybody else. She wins about --her riders win about every equitation--class that presented out there. I don't care if it's eleven and under to twelve seventeen, or adult. I know we went to--a big celebration, and--and one of her former riders that had won 01:31:00for her at the, at the world championship celebration in Shelbyville, Tennessee, which is supposed to be the largest horse show in the world, whatever, they huh, the adult rider that was one of her former students won this year, and then her--her--my g--her granddaughter, one of my granddaughters was second, they had first and second. And then--we go to our--our world show and she wins, her rider wins eleven and under and her rider wins twelve seventeen, and her rider, former student again, that's an adult, won in the adult class.

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: And then it, just practically every show we go to she is --

SMITH: Oh!

DERICKSON: --she is pretty dominant in that field --

SMITH: So how long has she been --

DERICKSON: --she does a real good job--

SMITH: --teaching?

DERICKSON: --teaching equitation. Ma'am?

SMITH: How long has been teaching riding?

DERICKSON: Well, it--I taught riding at the University of Morehead back in the--late seventies, and for a while kind of help, help supplement like my income, like a half a day able to go would do that, and--she 01:32:00would go with me some and there was a, one Helen Crabtree's ex student there by the name of Liz G--or--Liz--(whispers) what was her name? Well, I can't even think now. Anyway, she--was a world champion equitation rider under Helen Crabtree and she was working with them American Saddlebreeds and--and all, and I was working with the Walking Horses, and I had students and she had students, and--she--would--watch her some, and then she got Helen Crabtree's books and she started reading and studying and--just started to put it into action and--and- -she--attributes a whole lot of it to Helen Crabtree's --she attended seminars that Helen Crabtree give. You, you're aware, you know who --

SMITH: Yes!

DERICKSON: --Helen Crabtree is?

SMITH: I am actually reading her book right now, it's --

DERICKSON: My wife has--read a lot more than once in that book, and --

SMITH: I'm sure!

DERICKSON: --it's very, very good. But --

SMITH: Is she still teaching?

DERICKSON: --Mc, McBride was the 's name, Liz McBride.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: She was --she is in her book by the way.

SMITH: Yes.

DERICKSON: And--she was the world champion equitation rider and, like I said, my wife attended her seminar and read her book and just started incorporating that, and at that time, equitation wasn't much in the Walking Horse industry. So, she brought a whole lot into it from the American Saddlebred --

SMITH: Sure.

DERICKSON: --aspect of, and had to kind of modify it to make it work, but again, we got a jump start on it you know --

SMITH: That's right.

DERICKSON: --and make it good because we kind of got in on the ground floor --she did, and she just progressed over the years and, and I don't --

SMITH: So when, when did she start teaching------------(??)?

DERICKSON: About--I'm trying to think--her first world grand champion equitation rider was probably about '86.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: She started teaching, maybe three or four years before that.

SMITH: Does she still teach?

DERICKSON: Still teaches some --yeah, yeah, still teaches some --she- -doesn't teach as much as--she could, but, she's sixty-eight years old and--but--her, her eleven and under I saw it in the local paper this week it showed where the eleven and under had won at the, at the international, at the Rocky Mountain Show at the horse park.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: Just recently, and--of course her twelve seventeen rider won too, but it wa'n't in the local paper, the reason that this one was in the local paper is because that was a local girl.

SMITH: ----------(??) right, that's right. So, you got married, you st--working the farm, eventually. Now tell me about your children, you have five children, is that right?

DERICKSON: Five kids. Yeah, well--I started out in--horse business, horse farming is not a very profitable business in, in the beginning 01:35:00for sure, and ho--farming wasn't very good and I was trying to make a living at farming and--I needed all the help I could get. Then I built this barn in '65 and--I started incorporating some, I guess child labor. (laughs)

SMITH: It's okay!

DERICKSON: Because they had chores and, so you know, but apparently I didn't do it too bad because most all of them stayed in it, I mean --

SMITH: It sounds like it.

DERICKSON: --they must have liked it a little bit, but it was a, it was a deal, I raised five kids on the show circuit and--I r--knock on wood I never had hardly any trouble with any of them but it was like a little reunion for them, they enjoyed going to the show and being with the friends that they'd met from somewhere else in another show and, and, and it worked out really, really good, and we --

SMITH: Now, they were involved in showing horses --

DERICKSON: --we took all of them --

SMITH: --as well.

DERICKSON: --with us all the time. At the time, my boy was about the only one that was showing much because I didn't have the money and--to 01:36:00own the horses and consequently, multiple customers, if they had one that the trainer wasn't showing, they showed themselves and, and my kids didn't get to show as much. I got them all pony and they got showing in, in, just the rider contest. My--Vanessa, she--was very much of a, kind of a--a tough little gal, and--and my --her brother who is Herbert, was two years younger than she was. He had a pony and--they got to enter --we had what we called scoop shovel races and, and then look back on it, it was dangerous but they like it and anyway we saw it somewhere on television or something and, so we had a riding club here and there and so we had these pony scoop shovel races, and what they would do, they would sit a barrel up at an arena and--you had 01:37:00to go around the ring, like two times and they would cross back over to the finish line first to win, and we had one pulling and, and one- -riding the scoop with the rope, and, and those scoops --the reason I said it was kind of dangerous to look at, if you didn't hug the inside with the horse's scoop on that can, it's just like water skis on the ends, it would swing out --

SMITH: Whoa!

DERICKSON: --toward the rail, you know. Well, she is pretty tough little gal, I had a bunch of--ho ---cows at that time and it was in the summer time and so they would go down in the lower end of the field and the pony would run fast coming back toward the house, and so, my boy, like I said, he was two years younger than she was, he was riding the pony, she was riding the scoop and so he comes up through there and the cows had been up in there and she starts hitting those piles with that scoop and of course you know what she looked like.

SMITH: Oh no!

DERICKSON: Well, my--wife had a, an uncle and aunt that'd come in from 01:38:00Florida and she was telling them about riding the scoop and my daughter went up there and took her bath and cleaned all up and all and of course she is very mad at, at the son for doing it.

SMITH: Oh yeah!

DERICKSON: And he, he t--my wife saying "Go down there and show them how you can ride that scoop!" She says, "I'm not doing it," said, "he run me through them cow piles!" And he said, "No, I won't do that no more." He is about eight and she is about ten, you know, and so, finally he talks her into it and of course he runs to them again you know, but --

SMITH: Oh, of course.

DERICKSON: (laughs) --but anyway we went to the fair and there were about half a dozen of them in that scoop show race, and she went around the last turn, this little pony had, pretty fast, they, she was in the lead and s--and a--she let the shovel roll with her and she rolled with it, and I mean it's like just roll over and over, you know, two or three times, she held on, and she went across the line first and won 01:39:00it, and that was always a big highlight, but anyway they, they all did eventually ride and show, every one of the them, and--they still do to a degree, everyone of them.

SMITH: And now so all of them are still in this area, except for one, is that right, that's moved --

DERICKSON: Yeah, he's got, I got my one boy that's in--he is down in Shelbyville, Tennessee --

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: --and he train--he's got his own training stable down there, trains horses down there.

SMITH: Oh.

DERICKSON: Yeah.

SMITH: It is a--an amazing family. Well, you have a lot to tell, I may, I may want to --

DERICKSON: Yeah, I'm big mouth person.

SMITH: No! No, this is wonderful. We may want to go ahead and try to finish up for today but I may like to keep the door to come back and talk to you again --

DERICKSON: I know you're interested in the economical impact and I told you a lot of --

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: --personal stories, but (snorts) it has made the difference in this farm, I can say that. Because whenever these horses got 01:40:00popular, they --we started having a lot more sales, and a lot more business coming from outside, and I feel like it, again I can't re- iterate it enough, how strongly I feel about this can be the number one trail riding horse in America, because of the, of its qualities, and I feel like, if we could just get this message out and get people on these horses which that's what we do a lot of breed fairs and stuff and it, and, and that, I think has a lot to do with how fast this breed is growing, I mean it's growing really, really fast considering no longer than it's been --

SMITH: Yeah, absolutely.

DERICKSON: --established as breed.

SMITH: We're talking from '86 --

DERICKSON: Yeah!

SMITH: --to, to now.

DERICKSON: And I, I, I think this, if it, anybody--listens or, or reads about the work that you've done will inspire some people, I think everything we can do--to bring attention to this horse.

SMITH: There are a lot of --I mean I've read of a lot of different farms now that have you know, the Mountain Horse. At this point they are able to sustain a, an economic benefit doing this, I mean they're not losing money.

DERICKSON: I don't know why you would lose money at this time. I, I --

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: --I am--unless it's just poor management or whatever, you know, you can make expensive issue out of your car by taking it to the garage every time you hear a little tick --

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: --in it somewhere

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: --or something like that and there's people can, you know, go overboard on their expenses in, where it'd be from housing or feeding or whatever, you know.

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: And--but now, if you manage it right, I don't know why that anyone would be losing money on this horse at this time, and--I, we are not talking about race horses compared to these horses or anything, because we know that that's a whole new game, or a different game out 01:42:00there.

SMITH: Sure.

DERICKSON: I can never feel like I can afford to be in the race horse business but if I read their statis--statistics most time they say, eighty percent--or ninety-eight percent of the people lose money on horses, race horses, and, and, or ninety percent of them lose money on horses, eight percent break even, and two percent make money. That's not too good odds for me and I'm --stats that I've read, I don't, I didn't make them up.

SMITH: Sure.

DERICKSON: But, but, in this breed, you know, they probably just the opposite, they probably ten percent lose money on these horses and the rest of them --

SMITH: That's excellent.

DERICKSON: --even break even or make money, and that, and, and it's done well for me, done well for me. I, I, I've really--it's been a great asset for me, but I realize, just like for instance I'm telling you, there's certain aspects that's not as popular in the breed as it once was and you have to kind of go the other direction (sneezes).

SMITH: Mm-mm, mm-mm. When I spoke with Derick, of course he is, he 01:43:00talked a lot about just the way of life, of being on a farm for a young person that--this was a choice because of o--it represented a way of life that he wanted for himself and for his family as I assume that you have some of the same feelings about working on a farm, it's hard work!

DERICKSON: If you're looking for a li--easier life, you don't want this, but it's a gratifying life. I said one time, in my --and I was, I'll give this, I don't want to paint a rosy picture of what's out there, because we went through some lean years.

SMITH: Sure.

DERICKSON: Lean years that I told my wife, I would have made more money pumping gas at the gas station than I made doing this, but I stayed with it and rode that hump out and I'll --than it came back to me, because I was there, like my wife said when it all started to --

SMITH: Coming together.

DERICKSON: --materialize, you know. But--if you're getting into it for just a leisure life, and I'll d--I'll give this point of advice to 01:44:00anyone. Don't build the barn and try to hire it all done, you're going to go broke, because number one is, I've never seen hardly anybody that can hire a trainer and then stay with him for year after year after year and so you're constantly changing your clientele--along with your methods because different trainers have different ways and they get along with different class better than others and they don't like this horse because that guy messed it all up and so --

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: --you go through all that, but anyway I don't --I've seen several people that made their money doing something else, try to get into this, and--and at a larger scale. Now, if you want to raise you a few pets out there and something to ride, trail ride --

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: --and stuff that's fine, but to go into it commercially, I, I don't, I don't, I don't recommend it unless you're willing to put the 01:45:00time in yourself.

SMITH: Yourself, okay. I w--when I was here last time, Larry was telling me about just the problems of farming in this area, I know a lot of your horses have, are left out in the fields, right, or in pastures, is that right?

DERICKSON: Our horses are--basically right out year round.

SMITH: Okay. He was telling me about a few years ago there was a flood that caused --you lost several horses, do you--can you tell me about that?

DERICKSON: Well I can tell you briefly about it, I've lived on this river all my life, and, and know it pretty well. And generally--ten or twelve hours minimum, it takes from the time it starts raining to raise the river to flood stage, and--at this particular flood we had, it poured from the mouth of this river to the head of it, and--it was started at seven thirty at night and by nine thirty, it was starting to get up in the fields and a lot of that wasn't coming from the river, a lot of it was coming from run off out of the hills.

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: We live in a, we live kind in a little--u-shaped bowl here, the valley is not too wide, maybe at the widest a couple of miles and-- it comes off from them hills and I got a sister lives over there in the, in the hills and she said the ravine running down behind her house, there was a wall four-foot high of water came off that hill, I mean it was just coming down in gushes and so it's dark, pouring the rain, we can't see good, we are out there trying to get them horses out of the fields before it gets too high, and we get--a large portion of them out, but then I had, over on the back side, when we got over there, it's like one-thirty in the morning, and I s--and I am in a tractor, got lights and they are shining out look like a big lake and you, and you can't see nothing.

SMITH: Oh dear.

DERICKSON: You can't see where the road is, you can't see, everything is covered. I say well we, we'll, we will get them in the morning at first thing. So I knew and normally you'd have that length of time 01:47:00before you knew anything was really in, in grave danger.

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: Why the next morning, I mean it was up over their backs, and those horses, and it was daylight before we could see, you know, we was there early.

SMITH: Yeah!

DERICKSON: But we couldn't see, and then we tried to get them out and then they, they would--start out and the current would catch them sweep them into fences or whatever you know, it was pretty --

SMITH: Oh, that's awful.

DERICKSON: --pretty horrible thing. So I lost a lot of horses and nine calves and a cow and about I think it was up about sixteen head of mar---of colts--or, and mares.

SMITH: Now this wasn't that long ago, was it? A few --

DERICKSON: No, it was about three years ago, I guess.

SMITH: Is that the worse natural disaster you can remember?

DERICKSON: The worse one --

SMITH: --at the farm?

DERICKSON: --I have ever had. I, I never lost any before. I lived here all my life, NEVER lost any before.

SMITH: Oh, how hard that must have been!

DERICKSON: And--we was always able to get them out. I mean you know, you understand, well it's been raining right smart, the water is 01:48:00starting to come up, we better get out and get them up.

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: But--this one--this was coming at seven-thirty at night and I know it was the day before Memorial Day, or the night before Memorial Day. Memorial Day we was out here doing all that, so I'll never forget what day it was, but it was--you know, the river can be mean sometimes I guess, you know, and it, it really a--good area, but now I am paranoid.

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: I thought I knew it, see? I thought I knew it!

SMITH: That's right (Smith laughs).

DERICKSON: Now, if it rains a little bit I (laughs), I am out there getting them up; but it's not really that much trouble to get them up, it, it, is, it's just the fact that--it came at that time of night, by the time we got out there, we start nine-thirty, we saw it was getting up, in a couple of hours, I mean it was coming up fast. See, a creek will raise and fall pretty quickly.

SMITH: Mm-mm, yeah.

DERICKSON: But this is a river, although it's a small river but it takes 01:49:00a while for it to raise, because it can hold a whole lot of water --

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: you know, in it's river, but --

SMITH: Not with that much.

DERICKSON: Not that much, uh-uh, not that quick! You know, it was just like a cloud burst. And you see it, like for instance they had that, all that flooding in Nicholasville where the girls got washed out --

SMITH: Oh! That was terrible!

DERICKSON: --in the storm drain, this, that and another, you don't expect this kind of stuff, you know.

SMITH: No, no.

DERICKSON: We didn't get all of that rain. It got up a little here but we didn't get all that rain, and in Louisville and other areas, you know, it's -- that's what it did here at that particular time, it just --

SMITH: Just hit here.

DERICKSON: --come out, cloud burst, you know, and I have seen the water that high before, but not in that short a period of time, you know.

SMITH: Mm, mm, that would be hard, very hard, --

DERICKSON: I stood up there in my yard and watched horses floating down that river and that, and that was a, that was a --heartbreaking thing you know, it was heartbreaking.

SMITH: Oh, I can only imagine that! Well, I'm glad that that's--not normal --

DERICKSON: That's not normal.

SMITH: --that that kind of risk is not something that you have.

DERICKSON: Never lost one before, or since (laughs).

SMITH: Well now, you're not near, you're not at the end of your career, it doesn't seem to be, by any means, but, but you have had a lot of years in the industry, as you look back on it, what do you feel most proud of what you've accomplished?

DERICKSON: Well, like I told you a while ago, we had several lean years and--I--thought, you know, I should have been somewhere else, and I, I have, I have told this before, I never made a lot of money, but I was blessed in richness by the way my family grew up.

SMITH: Yeah. You've said--You have a lot of family working this farm. How many other people does it take to operate, have an, an operation like this?

DERICKSON: Well it depends on the season, kind of, and, and--how many horses we are actually working but I, I'd say we run somewhere between fifteen and twenty-five.

SMITH: That's considered a large operation?

DERICKSON: Well, it is in this county.

SMITH: Okay (Smith laughs).

DERICKSON: It's a pretty small outfit up here, but you know what? There is a lot of people live in this county that don't even know this farm is back here, hardly enough.

SMITH: Really?

DERICKSON: Yeah, yeah. It's a--you know, you think of a neighbor we got a--we in this county, we got a creosoting plant down here, we have a brick plant here, and the people know about employment and this that and the other of those places, but they don't realize this kind of operation in going on in, in here, you know, it's kinda different.

SMITH: Do you think it's unusual that you have--well I imagine it's unusual that you have this number of your family involved in farming, but it's, it's --

DERICKSON: Oh I think it's very unusual. It's a, it, again I go back to m--I think a lot of it came down through my mom, but we have strong family ties, it's like, for instance you know--areas are, areas are different in the way they look at things. My wife came out of a family 01:52:00of five kids and they didn't believe in divorce and--I came out of a family of five kids and we didn't believe in it either. And, like I said, I have been married fifty-one years and, and my sister--they stayed married until her husband died, two of them did, one of them is still living, but I mean they all stayed married. It's kind of like you know, it's not saying that we never have any problems.

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: But the point is, you know, you, you just don't have the mentality, well if it don't work out I'll get a divorce.

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: And, and, and I think that it's like--we're fair with each other and--we don't, every time we have a disagreement we just don't cut each other off.

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: There is nobody in my family don't speak to the other one.

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: There is none in --I mean we have big families too!

SMITH: Yes! Absolutely!

DERICKSON: But, but we all get along, and--you know, we don't always 01:53:00approve what the other one does but we never get to that point that we ever, and I think that is--has been good --you know, it's like--my wife has worked with me about all my life. We go everything, do everything together. She's my buddy, you know.

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: And--I think that a lot of people told us, I know I had customers would make comments, you and your wife stay together too much, that's not healthy.

SMITH: Oh!

DERICKSON: --it can't, it cannot be, but--and--you know, it's worked for us.

SMITH: That's right.

DERICKSON: That's all I can say.

SMITH: and it seems to have worked well for your kids, so.

DERICKSON: My oldest boy is he lives in Tennessee and he is like-- forty-seven, I guess, forty-six and--he's got--four kids and he got two daughters they are in the second year of school and--in TSU down there, 01:54:00they're twins, twin granddaughters and, and he got two little boys but you know, they--have never caused him any trouble but they are a family that works together, they show horses, they go to church together, I mean you know, they do things.

SMITH: Yeah. Yeah! That makes a difference, it truly does.

DERICKSON: That--if I were to give advice to anybody, it, is, like I say, you p--you put Christ in the center of life and then you're fair with each other and it works, and it works.

SMITH: Mm-mm, mm-mm. Well I think the, your farm is a testament to that. Well there's some questions that--other questions I could talk to you about today or I could come back later, one thing we haven't really talked about in any detail are, is, is the showing of horses. I think I have a little bit of time left, if you want to do that now.

DERICKSON: Fine.

SMITH: Okay. Did you have--yeah I know it's close.

DERICKSON: That's all right.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: I did, you said a little time I was going to look and see what time it was, go ahead.

SMITH: All right, well let's just go about another fifteen minutes and then we'll --

DERICKSON: All right.

SMITH: --we will call it quits here. I know from talking with Derick, how important the competition and the showing is to him. Now --

DERICKSON: Yeah. He eats that up.

SMITH: Yes, he seems to love that.

DERICKSON: (laughs) He does.

SMITH: But now you've been showing most of your --

DERICKSON: Oh yeah.

SMITH: --career with horses. How important is that to the success of a farm?

DERICKSON: Well, I have been a competitive fellow all my life and--I used to--run coon dogs, hounds in competition now.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: And, and I went--to the world championship hunts whether it be in Iowa or Illinois, or wherever it was! And--I, I, I--kind of worked my horses on the same principle as--I did my dogs. I, I'm, I 01:56:00am a copycat. I look at success and I try to emulate it as much as possible for--for instance you know, if --it don't matter what you tell me about how good your dog is, or your horse is, you show me, and then, if I like it, then I'll, then I'll take your word for it then and then, if I like what --and I tell people when I am doing a clinic, pick out a feature that you like about a horse and I said, then you look at how the horse is made and how it's constructed, and then, when you go to select your next horse you look for that feature or that structure in that horse. And that's the same way with, with what wins. I, I go - -it's not always what I like, although most time it is but I've learned 01:57:00to like what the judges like, I guess.

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: But it--it, it's what will win.

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: I, I've been fooled, what we call barn blind a few times, you know, I'd like a horse and he goes to show and he doesn't do any good. I have to reassess that. So, in order to be competitive, I've got to present to the judge what they like, and of course judges are different, and this that and the other, and over the years you learn some of the judges and some of the things they like. One of the traits that I always felt like that I was good at, was analyzing what a judge was looking for before the show went too far, you know, it may, I go up, if I'm not showing up on the rail, I'm watching.

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: And what kind of horse is he picking? What kind of horse suits him? Then I try to make the rest of my horses as close to that 01:58:00as possible.

SMITH: Pretty smart!

DERICKSON: I had a guy tell me one time I, he came to my wife and he is complaining then and he says, "I'll tell you one thing, that judge is out there," he said, we was at the world show, at the championship he said, "those, they're, they're picking--horses they don't even know what they're doing." She said, "Yeah," said, "H. T. said that they weren't his kind of judges, but" says "he is trying to make his horses go as much in this show as he can like that."

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: And, and he said, "Well, I'll tell you one thing," he said, "I like my horses the way are I ain't changing for no judge." Well, I wound up doing pretty good and he didn't do very good.

SMITH: That's right.

DERICKSON: So, so, my, my, my--strong suit, I guess you might say, is walking up there and watching seeing what's going on, but I also do that in my training here. As a general, I try to train the direction that I think the horse will of course do the best; it's not exactly what I think always, although I, like I say, I have learned to like the 01:59:00same type that most of the judges like.

SMITH: Sure, sure.

DERICKSON: And, but--there, there is a, there is a - you know, I, I went through an era with my grandson Derick who is very talented individual and he was complaining with his back hurting all the time, and--I said, I was riding one of this horses out here one day, and I said, "Derick," I said, "you got your horse looking pretty good from somebody setting on the ground watching, but" I said, "believe me there is a smoother gait there, no wonder your back is hurting, the horse is not exactly timed right." I said, "He may fool the judge somewhere and all, and you may be able to sit the horse well enough that it looks good, but" I said, "it's not right." And as soon as I got this message through to him and he found out different you know, and he started changing and he went right on and done well.

SMITH: Mm-mm.

DERICKSON: Another little story I can tell you about that, I --my youngest grandson he, he wanted to start training horses like he'd been riding around the, since he was a kid, but he hadn't been, he got to act like other teenagers doing first one thing and another, so he come back fifteen years old, he was wanting to make some money.

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: He wanted to work. So I gave him some horses and he'd --two or three horses to work after school and he come there and he said one day, he said, "Pap," he said, "you're going to have to help me with this horse," he said, "it's killing me!" I said, "What's the matter?" He said, "It's jarring me to death!" I said, "S.T.," I said --that's what I call him. I said, "There is a gait there that don't do that." I said, "You've got to find that gait," and I said, "I'll tell you what I know, but then you got to work for that." I said, "I," say, "I know that horse, I know that he can do it." And he did, and two or three days later he had him going and from that time on he never had any trouble. He, he had, he had to learn it, you know --

SMITH: That's right.

DERICKSON: I could tell him but he had to learn it.

SMITH: That's right, that's right.

DERICKSON: But--I get to rambling, but --

SMITH: No-no, that's fine! But--you, yourself, in terms of showing horses, did you have a favorite horse that you ever showed?

DERICKSON: Well --

SMITH: Or that you did particularly well with?

DERICKSON: In--I showed a lot of flat shod--Walking Horses and--I guess 02:01:00probably the winningness horse I had, was a horse called 'Aces Fargo' and--he, I could put about any one on him that could ride and tell them what to do and--he would win for them, but he was a horse that--the average John Doe person probably wouldn't want, because if you didn't ride him down before you went to the show, he'd jump out from under you.

SMITH: Oh.

DERICKSON: He was that type of horse, but he was a show horse, and, and he was--and he could perform, he could do the gait, and --

SMITH: Now was he your horse, or was he someone else's?

DERICKSON: Well, he belonged to me and then I sold him to my sister and sh--and--and showed her for him for several years and won practically everything I went. Then I had in the, in the--Rocky Mountain Horses or Mountain Horses, I had a horse called 'Broken Bone Sampson' that I was able to take all the way through and win the International with at--at 02:02:00the Horse Park, and--he was a nice horse, real nice horse. We've had--several good horses since then and this that and another, most of the riding in competition--I let Derick do most of it anymore--I, I train a horse or two for my wife and myself just to fool around with, but I don't take --sometimes I'll help the boys out on a horse they are having difficulty with and ride it for them for awhile you know, but I am not showing as much as I once did ----------(??).

SMITH: By showing the horses, I would assume you would increase the reputation of the farm which would bring more--business to the farm?

DERICKSON: It's like doing those--clinics?

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: They, I can tell you, hey, I got a horse at home that will beat any horse in that ring out there. Oh, is that right? Yeah, I do. I, that stuff goes in one ear and out the other to me.

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: You know I may go look at it and, and, and if he is wanting to sell it or something like that and evaluate it myself, but to really, you kind of got to be like the people in Missouri, you really got to see it, you know, to believe it, and I--I've heard all that stuff from the time I was, like I say, in competition with coon hounds and--that my dog at home, he doesn't have that coon treed, but, you know, when you bring old Joe out there and put him in there with the others --

SMITH: You don't.

DERICKSON: --you --what it is you, your horse is good to you because he is the best at what you send.

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: --but when you go to the horse show and put him in there, then like in Derick's--case for instance, he is considered the top trainer. He gets horses and people only want him to train their horse because they recognize him as being the top trainer. They'll send them to him from all over the United States. I mean you know, and, and you don't earn that reputation overnight.

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: I've been in this business since '65. There are people that buy horses off us, that guy called in here yesterday. His friend had 02:04:00bought three horses off us, he lives in North Carolina. He lives down next to Myrtle Beach with a friend, he called here and we had one on the internet--to sell, and he said, "I'm going to take that horse!" La- -and Larry got to talking to him and he said, "I don't believe you want that horse," He says, "Yeah," he said, "I'm going to buy it!" He said --and he knew I was going to Myrtle Beach that ----------(??) ride down there and he said, "Can he bring him down there for him?" Larry said, "I don't really want --believe he wants this horse, he is a great horse but he got a little problem, and he, he want to be a little spooky- -sometimes--from your touching him on his back end, or something like that, and I'm afraid he might, might hurt --" Anyway, to make a long story short, he was willing to buy that horse, just because his friend had bought three horses off of us and had been perfectly satisfied with him, this that and other.

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: And you earn that reputation, not overnight.

SMITH: Right.

DERICKSON: You know, it takes a while and so we sell --I sold a lady in, in Montana a three year old horse just back in the summer for twenty thousand dollars. She'd never laid eyes on him. When she came in and she looked at him the first time, I said, "Well, is he what you thought he would be?" She said, "Every bit of it!"

SMITH: Yeah.

DERICKSON: I like that stuff you know!

SMITH: Yeah, sure!

DERICKSON: And that's the way you build your reputation though.

SMITH: Absolutely!

DERICKSON: And--so, anyway --

SMITH: Yeah, and I think that's probably what's leading the success of the Mountain Horse, as you've been saying. Well, I think that's probably lunch time, I think your family is ----------(??) --

DERICKSON: I'll be glad to take you to lunch.

SMITH: Oh well,

DERICKSON: I'd like to take you to lunch.

SMITH: Well thank you, I would enjoy that.

DERICKSON: And --

SMITH: I was going to try to talk to your daughter Vanessa too today, if I got a chance.

DERICKSON: Well, I don't know whether she is home or not, I, I'll, I'll see if she is there. Let me, let me call her.

SMITH: Okay.

DERICKSON: She might come up and have lunch with us or anything I don't know.

SMITH: Okay, let me stop this and thanks for, thank you so much for your time.

DERICKSON: You --

[End of interview.]