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Black Hills Stock Show feature: Paul Tierney and a horse named Coffee Jeff

Jan Swan Wood

The 1967 sorrel gelding, Coffee Jeff, stood about 14.3 hands and weighed around 1,100-1,150 pounds. He was a little long-bodied, had a real roman nose and his looks didn’t attract admiring glances in a crowd.

Born on a ranch in western South Dakota, the gelding spent his early years as a ranch horse on Geno and Effie Hunt’s ranch near Dupree, SD. Sired by Albert Lopez’s stallion Ash Creek, a 1955 son of Bar Nothing Spring, and out of Albert’s daughter Effie’s mare, Coffee Queen, a 1958 daughter of Coffee Wagon, Coffee Jeff went back to Bartender and the remount horse Despot (TB) and Little Joe Springer on his top side. His maternal side went back to Lauro (a son of Wimpy) twice, King, Raffles (TB) and a mare called Muneca M twice. Also in his early Quarter Horse pedigree were many unknowns, which was common in the 1960s.

This was a pretty solid using horse pedigree in those days, and Coffee Jeff was all of that, being predominately a circle horse putting on big miles on the Hunt ranch. In 1975, Glenn and Dennis Smebakken, Lemmon, SD, traded for him and then consigned him to the Winter Stock Show Sale as a ranch horse in January 1976.



At the sale that day was a young man named Paul Tierney, who was in the market for a practice horse for calf roping. “It was the first time I’d been to the Stock Show. That was when it was down at the Soule’ Building at the fairgrounds,” says Tierney. “When they led him into the ring, he hooked a stirrup coming in and he bucked across the ring, then quieted down.” Tierney chuckles and continues, “Nobody bid on him because of that and they were asking $450 for him so I bought him. I thought he might make a practice horse.”

The 1967 sorrel gelding, Coffee Jeff, stood about 14.3 hands and weighed around 1,100-1,150 pounds. He was a little long-bodied, had a real roman nose and his looks didn’t attract admiring glances in a crowd.



Born on a ranch in western South Dakota, the gelding spent his early years as a ranch horse on Geno and Effie Hunt’s ranch near Dupree, SD. Sired by Albert Lopez’s stallion Ash Creek, a 1955 son of Bar Nothing Spring, and out of Albert’s daughter Effie’s mare, Coffee Queen, a 1958 daughter of Coffee Wagon, Coffee Jeff went back to Bartender and the remount horse Despot (TB) and Little Joe Springer on his top side. His maternal side went back to Lauro (a son of Wimpy) twice, King, Raffles (TB) and a mare called Muneca M twice. Also in his early Quarter Horse pedigree were many unknowns, which was common in the 1960s.

This was a pretty solid using horse pedigree in those days, and Coffee Jeff was all of that, being predominately a circle horse putting on big miles on the Hunt ranch. In 1975, Glenn and Dennis Smebakken, Lemmon, SD, traded for him and then consigned him to the Winter Stock Show Sale as a ranch horse in January 1976.

At the sale that day was a young man named Paul Tierney, who was in the market for a practice horse for calf roping. “It was the first time I’d been to the Stock Show. That was when it was down at the Soule’ Building at the fairgrounds,” says Tierney. “When they led him into the ring, he hooked a stirrup coming in and he bucked across the ring, then quieted down.” Tierney chuckles and continues, “Nobody bid on him because of that and they were asking $450 for him so I bought him. I thought he might make a practice horse.”

The 1967 sorrel gelding, Coffee Jeff, stood about 14.3 hands and weighed around 1,100-1,150 pounds. He was a little long-bodied, had a real roman nose and his looks didn’t attract admiring glances in a crowd.

Born on a ranch in western South Dakota, the gelding spent his early years as a ranch horse on Geno and Effie Hunt’s ranch near Dupree, SD. Sired by Albert Lopez’s stallion Ash Creek, a 1955 son of Bar Nothing Spring, and out of Albert’s daughter Effie’s mare, Coffee Queen, a 1958 daughter of Coffee Wagon, Coffee Jeff went back to Bartender and the remount horse Despot (TB) and Little Joe Springer on his top side. His maternal side went back to Lauro (a son of Wimpy) twice, King, Raffles (TB) and a mare called Muneca M twice. Also in his early Quarter Horse pedigree were many unknowns, which was common in the 1960s.

This was a pretty solid using horse pedigree in those days, and Coffee Jeff was all of that, being predominately a circle horse putting on big miles on the Hunt ranch. In 1975, Glenn and Dennis Smebakken, Lemmon, SD, traded for him and then consigned him to the Winter Stock Show Sale as a ranch horse in January 1976.

At the sale that day was a young man named Paul Tierney, who was in the market for a practice horse for calf roping. “It was the first time I’d been to the Stock Show. That was when it was down at the Soule’ Building at the fairgrounds,” says Tierney. “When they led him into the ring, he hooked a stirrup coming in and he bucked across the ring, then quieted down.” Tierney chuckles and continues, “Nobody bid on him because of that and they were asking $450 for him so I bought him. I thought he might make a practice horse.”

The 1967 sorrel gelding, Coffee Jeff, stood about 14.3 hands and weighed around 1,100-1,150 pounds. He was a little long-bodied, had a real roman nose and his looks didn’t attract admiring glances in a crowd.

Born on a ranch in western South Dakota, the gelding spent his early years as a ranch horse on Geno and Effie Hunt’s ranch near Dupree, SD. Sired by Albert Lopez’s stallion Ash Creek, a 1955 son of Bar Nothing Spring, and out of Albert’s daughter Effie’s mare, Coffee Queen, a 1958 daughter of Coffee Wagon, Coffee Jeff went back to Bartender and the remount horse Despot (TB) and Little Joe Springer on his top side. His maternal side went back to Lauro (a son of Wimpy) twice, King, Raffles (TB) and a mare called Muneca M twice. Also in his early Quarter Horse pedigree were many unknowns, which was common in the 1960s.

This was a pretty solid using horse pedigree in those days, and Coffee Jeff was all of that, being predominately a circle horse putting on big miles on the Hunt ranch. In 1975, Glenn and Dennis Smebakken, Lemmon, SD, traded for him and then consigned him to the Winter Stock Show Sale as a ranch horse in January 1976.

At the sale that day was a young man named Paul Tierney, who was in the market for a practice horse for calf roping. “It was the first time I’d been to the Stock Show. That was when it was down at the Soule’ Building at the fairgrounds,” says Tierney. “When they led him into the ring, he hooked a stirrup coming in and he bucked across the ring, then quieted down.” Tierney chuckles and continues, “Nobody bid on him because of that and they were asking $450 for him so I bought him. I thought he might make a practice horse.”