What has 1,000 legs and travels on wheels? How about 250 head of horses on the move from Farmington, UT to Fort Worth, TX?

This past summer, Buffalo Ranch, home of six cutting stallions, began transporting horses to their new home in Fort Worth. The 61-acre breeding and training facility will be in operation by the time the NCHA Futurity begins on November 22, according to Shane Plummer, president of Buffalo Ranch and son of owner S. David Plummer.

“The main reason for the move is that we want to grow,” said Shane Plummer, who noted that the ranch’s six stallions, including TR Dual Rey, Meradas Little Sue, and Laredo Blue, bred 500 mares in 2007, primarily with shipped semen. “We see that being in Fort Worth, the breeding side of our business is going to grow and we will be able to serve our customers better. Especially because some people prefer to breed or pick up semen on site.”

In addition to the stallions and about two dozen broodmares, Buffalo Ranch also maintains a show string of 40 cutting horses, including 2-year-olds in training.

“My father did some research and calculated show expenses in relation to mileage and number of travel days,” Plummer noted. “If we stayed in Utah, it was 14,000 miles and we would be gone 130 days. But if we lived in Fort Worth, it would be 4,800 miles and 52 days.”

David Plummer, who raced and bred Quarter horses in the 1980s, and owned and managed some top Thoroughbred breeding stock in the 1990’s, built the Utah facility in 2002.

“My dad decided he wanted to get into cutting and just have fun with it,” Plummer explained. “But the more we learned about the industry and saw the growth, it began to evolve into a business and happened very quickly from then on.”