BRONC RIDING NATION
Photo by Jackie Jensen
Montana bronc rider Jake Costello
winning Miles City Bucking Horse
Sale Match 2017 aboard Burch
Rodeo’s young superstar, Maria
Bartiromo.
MILES CITY BUCKING
HORSE SALE IS COWBOY
AUTHENTIC
THE HISTORY
The stories surrounding the origins of the world-famous
Miles City Bucking Horse sale don’t all quite agree, but
isn’t that the way with the best of cowboy tales?
Visionary Feek Tooke, the father of the born to buck
program and first to intentionally breed horses with the
ability and predisposition to buck, is said to have started
the campaign for an auction that featured buckers. Other
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accounts say sale barn owner, Les Beaux, made a cattle
deal that included several bucking horses and had no
clue how to sell them. However it started back in 1950,
it’s still going strong and one of the best bronc match
destinations and parties in Bronc Riding Nation.
At the confluence of the Tongue and Yellowstone River,
fur trappers and traders camped and swapped. In 1876,
in the wake of Custer’s defeat at the Little Big Horn, the
By Lori O’Harver