Cool Mountains, Fast Horses, a Kid and a Bear

Cool Mountains, Fast Horses, a Kid and a Bear

It’s only 70 miles or so from Roswell to Ruidoso, but the difference in terrain is striking.  Roswell is on the short grass prairie while Ruidoso is in the mountains.  Our main reason for coming here is to enjoy Quarter Horse Racing at Ruidoso Downs, the only place in North America that has separate tracks for quarter horses and for thoroughbreds.  In case you don’t know, quarter horses are actually whole horses, not just one fourth of a horse.  They are the staple mount of cowboys and ranchers and the name comes from the fact that they can run very fast for a quarter of a mile.


We discover that Ruidoso Downs is not just the name of the track, but also the name of a town separate from the village of Ruidoso where we’re staying.  (Isn’t it amazing what you learn from my blog?)  We’re able to get tickets for the Jockey Club, which gets us seats right at the finish line, with food and beverage brought right to our seats.  The quarter horse races are over in a flash (only 300 or 400 yards) but many of the 10 races are for thoroughbreds and are longer, and we spend an enjoyable afternoon watching the races and enjoying the mountain scenery around the track.


But there’s more.  The highway through this area is known as “Billy the Kid Trail” and we spend a day following it and learning more about young Mr. McCarty.  This is Lincoln County, and we visit the town of Lincoln where in the 1880s a war broke out as a result of a fight between the owners of two mercantile stores in town.  “The House” had been opened by Irish immigrants and the owners, Lawrence Murphy and James Dolan, enjoyed a monopoly and controlled the town’s administration.

Enter a young Englishman, John Tunstall, who opens his own store on the other side of the street a few blocks down.  It’s not long before Mr.Tunstall is shot and killed by a posse.  He’s guilty of nothing but opening a store.  His followers, including Billy the Kid, decide to seek justice for him, and not in a peaceful way.  The town gets to the point where it’s not safe even to cross the street in broad daylight.  Despite this, the only person who’s every charged as a result of the wars is young Billy.  He does get away but is caught and brought to the town jail after being sentenced to hang.


The Tunstall store still looks much as it did in the 19^th Century and I enjoy investigating every artifact while Vicky learns more of the story from a docent.  The other store (The House) which was forced to close, became the county courthouse and is also open to visitors.  It’s here where The Kid was confined, and we learn the story of his escape, killing two deputies as he left.  We even see a hole in the stairwell wall supposedly made by one of his bullets.


Despite the violence of the past, this is now a very tranquil and beautiful mountain valley and we enjoy the drive.  Also on this loop is the town of Capitan, famous as the home of Smokey the Bear.  In case you don’t know the story, in 1946 the National Park Service, worried about forest fires, invented a mascot – a friendly bear named Smokey.  He was just that – a creation of an advertising firm.  A couple of years later, firefighters working on a blaze in the Capitan mountains came across a small bear cub, badly burned, clinging to a tree.  They rescued him, originally naming him “Hotfoot”.  Vets were able to cure him and he was eventually transferred to the National Zoo in Washington DC where he became the “real” Smokey the Bear.  He was taken to schools across the country and became quite a celebrity.  When he died, his remains were returned to Capitan and he’s buried on the grounds of a small museum that thells his story, and that of his counterparts in other countries, animals who symbolize fire safety.


We only have a couple of nights in Ruidoso, but it’s definitely another place we want to return to.