“The bronc, ‘a keen-lookin‘ bay wild as a rabbit,’ began bucking as soon as Floyd Bard mounted. It bucked its way up a Sheridan, Wyo. alley by the Bucket of Blood Saloon, then across Main Street and up to the O’Mare grocery store, which had a big glass door.

An accomplished rider, Bard stayed in the saddle even after the horse struck and broke the bridle with a front foot. He figured that if the horse had kicked out the door, it would have cost him $50 to replace—exactly $47.50 more than his fee for riding the horse in the first place.

In the late summer of 1900, Bard had been hired as a wrangler by Montana rancher Grant Dunning, who was buying horses for William and Malcolm Moncreiffe. These brothers, sons of Sir Thomas Moncreiffe of Perthshire, Scotland, owned a ranch about four miles from Big Horn, Wyo. on Little Goose Creek southwest of Sheridan. The Moncreiffe brothers had contracted with the British government to supply thousands of horses for the Boer War, in South Africa.

The Boer War boom was the first of three waves of such military horse sales that ebbed and flowed through Wyoming for more than 30 years. The next two were World War I and the U.S. Army Remount project, which Congress began funding in 1921.”

Source:  Hein, Rebecca. “Horses for War: A Market for Wyoming Stockmen.” WyoHistory.org March 7, 2016.