62 texashighways.com
H
ere’s something you don’t get to see every day:
a huge stallion working out on a treadmill in a
hydrotherapy tank recessed below the floor of
a barn. This isn’t any old horse, nor is this any
old barn. This is a state-of-the-art facility at
Tom McCutcheon Reining Horses, an 80-acre ranch just north of
Denton in Aubrey. The center breeds, raises, trains, treats, and
sells some of the most elite equine athletes in the world.You don’t have to be the moneyed
owner of an expensive Western-
performance or hunter-jumper horse
to see such magnificent animals in this
exclusive setting. Some of the premier
horse farms and ranches of North Texas
grant inside access to their facilities and
their resident four-legged celebrities. Six
behind-the-scenes public bus tours are
offered each year—three in the spring
and three in the fall—as well as private
group tours by appointment. Winding
through countryside once devoted to
peanut farms, each six-hour bus tour
stops for visits at two of the more than
350 horse farms that collectively stable
roughly 40,000 animals.“A lot of people, even people living
nearby in the Dallas area, might not
realize that North Texas is a true equine
mecca,” says Dana Lodge of the Denton
Convention & Visitors Bureau, which
organizes the tours.
From American quarter horses, thor-
oughbreds, and American paint horses to
Appaloosas, Arabians, and pasos; from
reining and cutting to barrel racing and
track racing, North Texas horse coun-
try is home to a remarkable variety of
breeds and disciplines. This is the horse
epicenter of the Lone Star State, which
is saying something when you consider
that Texas is home to more horses than
any other state in the union.