Stallion Showcase 2024 | Carrying the Torch: Family Continues Butch Webb’s Legacy 

Butch Webb had a passion and vision for equine athletes, building a barrel and racehorse breeding program that drew customers to the ranch near Isabel, South Dakota, where the family hosted the Breeders’ Dynasty sale. His untimely passing in 2021 left a hole in many hearts. 

His legacy lives on in his family and his horses; his daughter Kailee is still running a group of mares on the ranch, and his wife, Stephanie, co-owner of Vista Equine, has a group of mares in Fort Collins, Colorado. 

“Horses were our lives together,” Stephanie said. “My business partner at Vista Equine, Jake Dahl, and I bought Jess Tara from Butch at the 2013 Heritage Place Winter Mixed Sale. Our clients bought so many horses at that sale that our trailers were full going home. Butch knew that and reached out to me trying to help find her a ride north. That got us talking and we were married that November! Our whole life started and we had two perfect kids all because of one gray mare.”  

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Butch Webb’s love of horses probably began the day he was born. Growing up on a ranch in Armstrong County, he experienced the life of a rancher’s child in some of the toughest country South Dakota has to offer.  

Butch attended the Reservation school in Eagle Butte.  

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“He started kindergarten early and being a young, blonde, white kid living five days a week at a tribal school was very difficult,” Stephanie said. “His early childhood was filled with school battles and strict nuns in the dormitories. This would make most kids crumble, but Butch excelled and forged a path for himself.” 

As he got older, he participated in every rodeo event possible. He qualified for the National High School Finals in every roughstock event, and received a rodeo scholarship to Montana State University.  

“Broncs were his passion but he could ride anything you put him on,” Stephanie said. ”Rodeo took him to college on a scholarship and in true Butch fashion he would go to school and rodeo all day, then work all night to support himself and his family.” 

After completing his degree at the University of Wyoming, Butch pursued a career in ag banking, but never got too far from his roots or his love of horses and rodeo. Eventually, he was able to purchase his family’s ranch near Isabel, South Dakota.  

“Butch was a 100% self-made man,” Stephanie said. ”He was incredibly smart and driven. He had a work ethic you don’t often see, and an ability to read people that was almost a gift. All those qualities helped him be the savvy businessman and rancher he was. He was able to amass a ranch in a few decades that would take most people multiple generations. He wasn’t scared to take a calculated risk and that paid off for him.”  

Butch Webb’s children were one of the strongest influences in his life. 

“He wanted better for his kids than what he grew up with, and worked very hard to make that happen,” Kailee said. 

“He made every play day, junior high, high school and college rodeo he could,” said Stephanie. “He spent many, many hours traveling to watch and support all the kids. He loved watching his kids compete and excel and really enjoyed watching our two little ones start to grow up.” 

Webb started raising horses in the early 1990s.  

“When we got married in 2013, we combined our passions for raising horses and it really increased from there,” Stephanie said.  

He built his equine breeding program around race and arena horses.  

“He loved the thrill of the race,” Stephanie said, “and he knew that you’re only competing against the clock with race and barrel horses. He said timed events were the only way to compete on a completely level playing field; with no politics, drama, or human error from a slow flag, missed call, or padded score.” 

Butch had an eye for a horse that was a gift, and he wasn’t scared to look outside the box when it came to breeding his mares.  

“Any new horses had to prove themselves as athletes and have the right build,” Stephanie said. ”We were breeding our elite barrel mares to top racehorses well before many others did. He would see the talent and the mind of a race stallion and take a chance on him in the arena. Many of those worked very well. We had the first Hes Relentless barrel horse ever produced and we were breeding to horses like Valiant Hero and Winners Version before most of the barrel industry had heard of them.”  

Webb started the Breeders’ Dynasty Sale with the idea to open the barrel horse market to yearlings.  

“The sale was his brain child for years,” Stephanie said. “He really wanted to host it at the ranch to showcase our program and give us a place to sell all of the offspring we were producing. We wanted a stronger focus on barrel yearlings rather than holding them for two-year-olds. I was skeptical and drug my feet but he was adamant. I was concerned about the location being so far away from anything but he said, ‘they’ll come.’ He was right.”  

One morning in March over coffee, Butch announced that he wanted to have a sale at the ranch in August. 

“I told him he’d better get started yesterday if that’s what he was doing,” Kailee recalled.  

The family dug in and made the sale a reality. By this time, they had built up a strong broodmare herd and were raising 20 plus colts per year.  

“When we started the Breeders’ Dynasty sale, he put all of his horses in every year,” Kailee said. “Everything was for sale for the right price.” 

The Webb family hosted the Breeders’ Dynasty sale for three years. 

“It was something people asked about and looked forward to,” Stephanie said. ”We were putting good horses in there that anybody could go win with. He was proud of that. It’s something Kailee and I have had to put on hold for now but maybe it will be revived somehow, someday.” 

Kailee said they have looked at ways to bring the sale back so it’s not quite so stressful. 

“To do it right you have to fit these horses, put them on the walker, give them baths, vacuum them, groom them, keep their stalls cleaned,” Kailee said. “Finding help that will show up and work is tough. At the time, we were also running 2,000 head of cattle and putting up hay. It was too much.”  

Kailee says that there are no words to sufficiently describe her father. He invested in his family and in the best genetics he could find to build his breeding program.  

“Vanilas Sudden Fame and Mimis On Firewater were two incredible barrel mares that we bought young and still have,” Stephanie said. ”They were standouts in the barrel futurities and really helped jumpstart our program on a more national level. Famous Wildone would have to be a favorite. He bought her as a young mare and then got to watch Kailee successfully run her all through high school and college. She’s a 2x South Dakota Rodeo Association Barrel Horse of the Year. Race mares would be Kiss My Astica, La Reina Madre, and High Valley Girl. They were all fillies we raised or purchased from some of our favorite programs and ran on the track. All won or placed in stakes races and were kept for our broodmare program. These, along with several others were the core of the program that Kailee and I were so adamant to keep.” 

“Famous Wildone was the horse that showed dad the importance of the dam’s genetics,” Kailee said. “He bought her as a bred four-year-old out of the January Heritage Place sale. My brother-in-law, Tyler broke her after she had her colt, and my sister Dee started her on the barrel pattern. When Dee ended up on bedrest due to complications with her pregnancy, Lainee Shearer ran her a few times. That was June and July of her five-year-old year. In August, dad brought her home, and I started running her.” 

Famous Wildone lived up to her name. 

“I was 12, and I was scared shitless,” Kailee said. “She was fast and she had a lot of personality, her name was very fitting. She was one of those horses that had the guts and try to want to win. I could ride her one handed, she just did it. She didn’t have to be pretty, but she could win.” 

A broken leg from another horse kicking her nearly sidelined the mare but she healed up and Kailee was able to get back to riding her. 

“Dad wrapped her papers in a box and gave her to me for my 16^th birthday,” she said.  

Kailee and Famous Wildone won the rookie in the SDRA and NRCA in 2012 and the all-around in both associations in 2013. She won the year-end in SDRA & NRCA in 2015. She also won the Central Rocky Mountain Region in the barrel racing in 2016 along with Kailee’s Dash for Perks gelding, and filled Kailee’s permit in just two rodeos.  

Webbs started flushing the mare so that she could continue her barrel racing career and produce foals through embryo transfer. Kailee treasures a daughter sired by Dash for Perks that she hopes to futurity on. 

 
“It’s especially meaningful to me because dad bought a Dash for Perks gelding for me to run in college while Famous Wildone was away getting flushed; I won third at the College Finals on him. In this filly dad combined my two best college horses into one,” she said. 

Mimis On Firewater is another great mare that Butch brought into his program. Kailee said that she initially gave her dad a hard time about the gangly palomino but was soon falling in love with her friendly personality. 

“When Dad brought Mimis On Firewater home, she’d follow me around like puppy dog,” Kailee said. “I started calling her Honey because she was so sweet. Dad was pretty picky on barn names, but he let that one go. His dad’s nickname was Honey, and the year we got Honey my grandpa Honey passed away. Ashley Schafer started her on barrels, Jordan Basset won futurities on her, I’ve qualified for the performances at Cheyenne three or four times on her now, and won multiple pro rodeos on her. She’s one of my heart horses, and we flush her almost every year too.”  

At home on the ranch, Kailee is still operating out of Butch’s arena. Some of the mares are in Colorado with Stephanie, but many are on the ranch except for spending time at Vista Equine for foaling and getting bred back.  

Stephanie said that Dash Ta Fame was Butch’s favorite rodeo and ranch horse sire. “He could have arguably had one of the largest group of Dash Ta Fame mares that there ever was at one time.” 

Apollitical Jess was one of Butch Webb’s top favorite racehorses, he would talk about how he’d never seen a horse try so hard after watching him in the trials to the All American. 

Butch liked a strong, balanced horse with a bit of a racier build, something that could cover ground and do it quickly.  

“He wanted a pretty head even if I argued a long-headed racehorse would get you that win by a nose,” Stephanie said. “Butch loved the racetrack and watching those horses run, trial days were actually his favorite. We barely had a vacation that didn’t involve going to a horse sale or going to the track to watch our horses run. Even when he’d surprise me with a trip we’d go to Lone Star or Los Alamitos to watch our horses in finals.” 

Butch had a lot of good friends in the horse world and thought highly of their opinions, yet he always did his own thing.  

“Butch formed his own opinions and there wasn’t anybody that was going to change his mind on anything!” Stephanie said. “As time went on, he developed the kind of horse he liked by breeding for them or purchasing them. He had people and programs he highly respected, particularly MJ Farms owned by our friends Mac and Janis Murray. If you look through our broodmare band a huge percentage of them stem from the mares of MJ Farms.” 

Another breeder whom Butch respected highly was Alan Woodbury.  

“He bought several horses from Alan Woodbury’s program including Vanila Viper, Vanilas Sudden Fame, Magnum and Morning Sun Shine,” Kailee said. “They are a large part of our program. Dad and Woody spent a lot of time discussing horses.” 

Webb was always looking for a new for a new outcross or the next big thing. 

“He was always looking for a stallion to complement what the mare might be lacking,” Kailee said. “He liked to cross his barrel mares on race studs that he thought could cross over and be producers on the track and in the arena. The racehorse world has taken off, and breeding to some of those studs is quite costly, so he was looking for a way to bring some of those genetics to the barrel horse world.” 

Kailee said that although raising horses is something that Butch had done “forever,” she also feels that the breeding program is still in its beginning stages. She and Stephanie are committed to continuing to build on Butch’s legacy. 

“Our studs and many of our mares are still young,” she said. “We have a small number out there and it’s pretty awesome to see colts out of mares that we’ve sold winning.” 

It was excruciating for Stephanie and Kailee to see many of the mares sold after Butch passed away. 

“Sitting there watching them sell was absolute torture: remembering when we bought each one, where she ran, her first foal, why Butch wanted her in the first place, or even remembering giving him a hard time for buying yet another horse. They all had a memory and a tie to him and that was incredibly hard to let go of,” Stephanie said. “But we got it to a core group and that’s what Kailee and I are determined to protect.”  

“We’re going to be damned if his legacy in the horse world is thrown away,” Stephanie said. ”We developed a high-end group of mares, something to be very proud of, and Kailee and I are going to continue the program. Hopefully Kenna, Lakin and Wynston will each find their own niche in the industry if they choose to.”