The young stockman was from New South Wales. His parents managed a sheep-and-cattle station in the Riverina region. On the station, the 22-year-old had learned horsemanship. He had learned how to move around rank horses. Now, he was on his way to Queensland to break some five-year-olds. These were the kind of horses that could do a day’s work when they got out of the round pen.
The young man took a break at a feedlot about 100 miles from his home. His family did some business with the owner, so he stopped to visit. The owner had a horse operation and as the stockman looked around for someone, he was impressed by the American-style horse barn full of box stalls. An arena was at the other end of the barn and as he walked towards it, he heard noise coming from a nearby round pen. The sides of the round pen were lined with rubber, so he had to climb up to see what was going on inside.
“Here’s this cutting horse down in front of this cow, just squatting on the ground,” remembers John Burgun. “I said, ‘Holy dooley, what is this?’”
The station that John was from covered 18,000 acres of flat Australian plains. The number of livestock was in the thousands and varied from season to season. The large company that owned it handled every facet of
