BRINGING BACK THE BEST
When Bruce Johnson was 11, the spark was lit. That was the year he traveled to South Dakota to spend the summer helping his grandfather on his ranch. The cow-calf operation did a little bit of its work on horseback, and Bruce was hooked. He would return over the next several summers, getting his first horse in the process.
For a boy growing up in Logansport, Indiana, you might think that desire to be a cowboy would die down during the rest of the year. In the Seventies though, the Midwest was a hotbed of the Quarter Horse industry, and there were many top trainers showing horses in every western discipline to fan the flames.
Bruce began showing in western pleasure, halter and reining at the open and Quarter Horse shows. One local cutting horse trainer was Keith Barnett, and Bruce worked for him during the summer of 1981. This was a great chance for Bruce to ride some really well-bred horses.
Bruce enrolled in vet school at Purdue University in Indiana. One summer he did a student internship at an equine practice in Edmond, Oklahoma. While he was there, he began roping calves, which he continued to do when he returned to Indiana. Graduating in 1984, Bruce moved to Oakdale, California,
