Taking The Reins

By: Megan Silver, Denair, California

As the morning sun rises, shining light across the town of Haskell, Oklahoma, two mares stand with their ears pricked forward, anticipating the arrival of their owner.

Bundled up against the weather, a lone figure makes her way toward the barn to start the day’s work and care for her horses.

Almost every morning since 1994, Elizabeth Logan has cared for her horses, which she said are her biggest passion in life. The 92-year-old’s love for horses stems from her late husband, George W. Logan, a man she said lived for the animals.

“My husband always, from a baby, loved horses,” Logan said. “We raised them together. He picked them, and I showed them.”

Elizabeth Logan’s age does not prevent her from spending a majority of her time working outside with her horses.

Photo by Megan Silveira

Despite the champion buckles and ribbons now adorning her home, Logan said she was not always as comfortable around horses as she is today.

She said she was introduced to agriculture when she married George W. and they invested in their first stallion in 1961. Only after George W.’s openheart surgery in 1995, however, did Logan’s passion for the animals ignite, she said.

“He was supposed to stay inside but had a barn full of studs,” she said.

Logan said it became her job to handle the everyday chores associated with the ownership of the large animals. In the time spent cleaning stalls and feeding, Logan said she became accustomed to being around horses. After developing a special bond with Scotty’s Nurse, the only filly in her husband’s barn, Logan said she became determined to try her hand at showing.

“I came in one night and told my husband I was going to show Scotty’s Nurse,” Logan said. “I was 68 years old, and I told him I was going to make her High Point Palomino. And I did.”

Logan said Scotty’s Nurse activated her addiction to showing, and she now proudly claims a long list of achievements with several horses. From titles at several world shows to champion horses in multiple breed associations, Logan made her mark on the show industry.

Since George W.’s death in 2011, Logan said she has scaled back their operation. Logan continued to breed horses for as long as possible but said goodbye to the show ring in 2015 and made the difficult decision to host a dispersal sale in 2017, she said.

While she might have sold the show horses, nowadays Logan is trying her hand at breeding racehorses. Logan said her veterinarian and friend, Jay Ross, “just kept talking racehorses” after her husband passed until one day, she said she took the bait.

Her first horse, Batter Up, did well on the track, and Logan said she once again found herself back in the horse industry. Her original gelding won four races, and Ross easily convinced her to add a few horses to the herd, she said. Logan now has three horses in training and two mares at home.

Elizabeth Logan shares a special bond with her mare, Chicken.

Photo by Megan Silveira

She said she enjoys watching her horses run and recently her first colt with a racing bloodline was born. Even with the excitement of having a new colt, Logan said her age has become a real concern.

“Age is just a number, but it’s a high number,” Logan said. “I feel real fortunate that I’ve still got the ranch, and I am able to live by myself. I feel blessed.”

Logan has called her property home since 1970, when she and George W. purchased the 320-acre ranch. With no children to carry on the legacy, Logan said she and her husband always wondered what would happen to their property after they were both gone.

Their answer came in 1983, when George W. found their 6-month-old champion Palomino mare down in her stall. After receiving no answers regarding the mare’s health from local veterinarians, Logan said she and her husband traveled to Stillwater, Oklahoma, to take their horse, Bandy, to the Oklahoma State University Center for Veterinary Health Sciences.

“When we left her up there, we left her as a dead horse,” Logan said.

Both Logan and her husband were shocked, she said, when CVHS staff identified the problem and helped the horse. Logan said Bandy was double positive for hyperkalemic periodic paralysis disease, an inherited muscular genetic disease the equine industry was not familiar with at the time.

Throughout Bandy’s life, Logan said, OSU helped care for the horse. With the veterinary advice from OSU, she said Bandy proceeded to raise several champion offspring and win several world titles.

Through this experience, Logan and her husband decided to donate their estate, including their ranch, to the OSU Foundation to use for research after Logan’s passing.

Keith Owens, associate vice president of the Oklahoma Agricultural Experiment Station, said Logan’s property will be an amazing location for students to learn.

“Students in agriculture need to leave the classroom behind and work in larger pastures,” Owens said. “It’s different than working in the laboratory or feed lot. So, having the types of grasses that grow in eastern Oklahoma and being able to graze them in different management scenarios and systems is great.”

Owens said with the facilities on the property, a potential for equine research exists, as well. Whether the foundation uses the land for pasture or equine research, Owens said OSU will benefit from receiving the Logan property.

The research planned for the Logan property will reach individuals outside the boundaries of the OSU campus, said Thomas Coon, vice president of agricultural programs at OSU.

“It’s a place where we can learn,” Coon said. “Sometimes it is our undergraduate students, sometimes it is our graduate students and faculty who are learning. Sometimes, it’s even extension educators who are learning.”

Beyond the donation, Coon said he values the personal connection Logan has made with the Cowboy family. He said the Logans witnessed the love OSU students and faculty have for the land around them, which helped the pair make their decision.

“Someone who gives a gift like this becomes one of those key people who have contributed to the building of this institution,” Coon said. “They are giving of themselves in a very concrete way in order to make sure that the big idea behind this place continues.”

In addition to donating the property, Logan said she and George W. started a scholarship fund for students preparing to enter OSU’s veterinary program.

“OSU was so good to us,” she said. “We just decided that maybe we could help somebody who wanted an education or wanted to better themselves.”

While Logan said others might have thought she and her husband were crazy for their decision to donate all the land, she said she could not be happier to leave everything to charity.

Awards from years in the show ring adorn Elizabeth Logan’s home in Haskell, Oklahoma.

Photo by Megan Silveira

Until the time comes for the property to be passed to the next set of caring hands, however, Logan said she plans to continue taking the reins and making the most of her time. She said she will spend the rest of her life doing the one thing she believed her husband lived for — raising horses.

“I’d love to go back a few years,” she said, “but you just got to pretend like you’re going to live forever.”