The rodeo community lost one of its senior stock contractors on Wednesday with the death of Harvey Northcott.
The 73-year-old Caroline horseman, highly respected among those who raise bucking horses and bulls, died in the Red Deer hospital after a six-month battle with cancer.
“He was an icon in the rodeo business in Canada for many years, a man of his word, very honest and fair; he’ll be missed no question about it,” said Keith Marrington, the Calgary Stampede’s senior rodeo manager.
Northcott ran his outfit of 160 horses and 70 bulls on 1,600 acres of land four miles north of Caroline and supplied stock to about 15 rodeos a year.
During a span of 10 years in the late 1980s and early ’90s, he assembled one of the strongest pen of bucking bulls ever put together.
Six of them won Canadian championships – Panda in 1985, Copenhagen Payment in 1988 and 1989, Redip in 1992, Trick or Treat in 1994 and 1995, Kodiak in 1996 and Short Fuse in 1997.
Another, Convoy, won the title in 1979 and Funky Chicken captured the award in 2002.
But, the cornerstone of his bucking herd was the stallion Wyatt Earp, the Canadian and National Finals Rodeo champion in 1997 and 1998. His bloodlines are highly prominent through many of today’s bucking horse herds.
The stud was the sire of the Stampede’s six-time world and Canadian champion Grated Coconut and will be inducted into Canada’s pro rodeo hall of fame next month.
There was a proposal this summer to add the proud Northcott himself to the list of inductees, but he and the family, aware of his poor health, refused to accept the honor for obvious reasons.
But, there will be a time in the not too distant future when the hall will remember him and fellow stock contractors Stan Weatherly, who died earlier this summer, and the late Verne Franklin.
All three took bucking stock to the first Canadian Finals Rodeo at Edmonton in 1974. A representative of the National Finals Rodeo in the U.S., attended that CFR looking to bolster the stock lineup for the NFR.
He convinced Northcott, Weatherly and Franklin to bring their horses and bulls to the world championships, then at Oklahoma City, in 1975.
Northcott, who rode bareback horses and bulls and bulldogged steers in the 1950s and ’60s, winning championships in the Foothills Cowboys’ Association, was known as a cowboy’s cowboy.
“Not all stock contractors were competing cowboys and that’s not the end of the world by any means,” said High River horseman Wayne Vold. “But those who were could talk the cowboy language a little better.
“And Harvey could definitely talk, understand and interpret the cowboy language.”
Often with humorous results!
Northcott was looking for a well traveled, well versed rodeo announcer one day and put a call into Randy Corley, who does about 40 rodeos a year out of the U.S. northwest.
“How much would you need?” Northcott asked.
“It would be (X) amount of dollars and an airplane (meaning a return ticket),” Corley responded.
“Well,” huffed Northcott, “you must have a lot of planes.”
The superstar of his Caroline herd is now the bay gelding Get Smart that Vold describes as “arguably one of the best horses on the planet.”
The eight-year-old son of Wyatt Earp was named the top saddle bronc at last year’s CFR and this summer’s Calgary Stampede and is in the running for bronc of the year.
Northcott was in the press box last month when Nebraska’s Cort Scheer covered the outlaw at Strathmore for 89.5 points, the highest score of the year in Canada.
“That’s an awesome horse, son of a gun,” the 24-year-old whistled. “That’s the best I’ve been on this year. In fact, he’s the best horse I’ve seen all year long.” (read more)
On The Rodeo Road 