than a thousand applications a week, but fewer than 5% of these ever become a Guinness World Records title. Lazy J’s Bluegrass, the steer that stars in the Guinness records and video, measured 117.25 inches tip-to-tip in winning the Trophy Steer class of the 2014 Horn Showcase, and that is the measurement that will go into the Guinness records. “Bluegrass won the last two years at the Horn Showcase,” said Sedlacek, “and he won me six bronzes. We won Tip-toTip and Composite the past two years with him.” By J L McBrides Pride and out of J L Amanda’s Valentine, the nine-year-old steer was bred by Lynn Mosdell of Kanab, Utah. His record-holding horn growth is no accident – Diego’s Hot Shot appears three times in his third generation and Diego’s Hot Shot also sired Starlight, the long-time record
son of Top Hand and picked him up this past weekend. Darol has been one of my mentors. He was one who would always respond to my emails back when I was 15 years old, and he has been a big influence in where I am today. He and Dale Hunt are the guys I would give a lot of credit for helping me in the right direction, always taking the time out of their day if I needed to ask a question or anything like that.” “We sell Longhorns in each of the tiers of cattle – last year we sold one of our really good bulls to Mike Bowman – he bought Sniper from us. He was one of our high-dollar bulls. Some people buy from us to butcher for meat – that is one avenue, but we don’t sell many to go that way. Some go to rodeos for roping stock. I sell a lot of bulls that go to commercial breeders that are breeding for ropers or breeding their Angus heifers. I’ve got a big clientele that comes back and buys a lot of bulls from me. With all the stardom that Lazy J’s Bluegrass has given the ranch, I’ve been selling
Joe Sedlacek and Lazy J’s Bluegrass being filmed for footage on Guiness Book Youtube Channel.
holder for horn length in a Longhorn cow. Joseph Sedlacek and his wife, Stephanie are the parents of Ava, 9, Noah, 6, and Weston, 3. Raising cattle is Sedlacek’s only occupation. “I used to do other things,” he said, “but then it was always kind of in the way when I was working for somebody else. If you have a sale, you’ve got to get off on Friday, and it was sometimes a problem. Longhorns was what I always wanted to do, so all I do is raise Longhorns now.” They maintain a herd of about 130 head of registered Longhorns. “The grass is really good in Kansas,” he said, “it doesn’t take as many acres to raise them up here.” “We had our house in town and bought our acreage six years ago. A couple of years later we finally got our house built and moved out to live on the acreage. We built a big house because nearly every weekend we have somebody come by to look at cattle or we have Longhorn friends staying with us, so it works really well.” Word of mouth and Facebook had been Sedlacek’s main modes of advertising until about a month previous, when his new website, built by Hired Hand, went online. “I kept putting off doing it, but it was well worth the money. My first month, I had about nine thousand hits, and that’s a lot of people looking at your website. I’m very pleased with it. I’ve already sold everything in my sale pen twice, so what I have in there is the third group in a month.” “I sell a lot of cattle – I sell about 200 animals a year. I’m buying and selling, going all over the country. I put about 60,000 miles a year on my truck, doing all Longhorn stuff. No trip is an empty trailer – we usually have something going or coming. It’s got to pay its way.” “I just got back from Darol Dickinson’s place in Ohio last week. My Top Hand bull came from him, and I purchased a
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Joe & Stephanie Sedlacek with their bronzes at the 2014 TLBAA Horn Showcase
a lot of calves for trophy steer prospects. People come and see him and buy a couple to raise for trophy steers.” “My core herd really doesn’t change a lot, but I do a lot where I take in trade and stuff like that – that’s fun. It helps somebody out that doesn’t have money to buy a cow, and I don’t always have money to buy a cow that I want. The trading thing works really well for us.” “My wife and I bought this piece of land and built our new house, and that’s where we raise our Longhorns. You can see it in that video of Bluegrass – that’s the lane that goes up to our house, and you can see our house a couple of times in the video.” “That’s what I always wanted – I always wanted big steers and I always wanted them right up on the lane so I could see them every day.” And with nearly ten feet of horn on that Guinness recordholder, Bluegrass will add a lot to that scene. Editors Note: At time of press, Lazy J’s Bluegrass added two Horn Showcase bronzes this weekend. He has won 8 bronzes in three years and never been beat in any categories. Congrats to the Sedlacek family. Texas Longhorn Trails