About Doug

The following excerpt was created from Top Riders by Katie Tims, published in Quarter Horse News magazine:

In these days of specialized horses and even more specialized horsemen, it's tough to find hands who succeed across the wide spectrum of cutting, reining and reined cow horse. But there are some talented men and women who do, and of those, Doug Williamson, Bakersfield, California, leads the way.

Where the Idaho, Nevada and Oregon borders meet - that's where Doug Williamson learned to work a cow. In that wide-open Great Basin sagebrush corner, Williamson buckarooed alongside his father, Sylvan. Now 66 years old, Williamson doesn't remember the first time he rode a horse, as memories are seldom formed that early. But he does recall winning a buckle at the age of 8, in the hackamore reining class in Vale, Ore.

When he was 17, the young hand went to work for a ranch in Idaho. Before long he took off on the rodeo road, making a 12-year living roping calves, team roping and riding bareback broncs. In 1974, Williamson returned to Idaho for a training job at the High Horse Arena in Nampa.

He did just about everything, training for and showing in events from halter and pleasure to cow horse and reining. Williamson remained in Idaho until the early 1990s, when Don Haskell offered a job on his Tejon Ranch in Lebec, Calif. While there, Williamson purchased broodmares and yearlings for the operation, and it was one of those young horses, a fuzzy, black yearling, that developed into Mr San Olen - the horse Williamson rode to the 1992 National Reined Cow Horse Association Snaffle Bit Futurity. Ten years later, Williamson rode Doc At Night, a Mr San Olen son, to the 2002 NRCHA Snaffle Bit Futurity Championship.

Counting all his earnings to date, Williamson has right at $700,000 in lifetime show money. Last year, he won $154,084 and was the fourth leading reined cow horse rider for the season. Williamson and his wife, Carol, own and operate a ranch in Bakersfield, Calif., where he's been for 18 years. Together they have 6 children, Denice, Brenda, Brett, Tate, Lauren and Scott and 11 grandchildren.