R.A. Brown

R. A. Brown Sr. was among the influential men and women who started AQHA.

The Brown family has been in the cattle business since 1895.  Brown’s father, R. H. Brown, started buying land around Throckmorton, Texas, in the early 1900s.  The family raised Hereford cattle and R. A. took over management of the ranch in the late 1920s.

Brown attended the 1940 organizational meeting for AQHA in Fort Worth, Texas, and was elected to the first board of directors.  He served as a director for 20 years and served on the AQHA Executive Committee in the 1940s.

Quarter-type horses have been part of the R. A. Brown ranch since the 1920s.  After graduating from the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (now Texas A&M), Brown returned to Throckmorton and started breeding his “crossbred mares” to leased Waggoner stallion Yellow Wolf.  The ranch’s first foundation herd sire was a son of Yellow Wolf called Skeet.  Over the years, Brown used Eddie, Black Hancock and Blue Gold, with the goal of breeding horses with good conformation, cow sense and athletic ability.

In 1998, the R. A. Brown Ranch won the AQHA Best Remuda Award.  The ranch had incorporated Peppy San Badger, Doc O’Lena, Doc Bar Leo and Zan Parr Bar into its herd’s bloodlines.  The ranch’s horses have also won top honors at ranch rodeos and champion titles in events ranging from halter to steer roping.

Brown died in 1965, and was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 1988.

Biography updated as of March 1988.