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Miss Mulhall, Belle of Oklahoma, Lariat Expert
Zack Mulhall's Pretty Daughter, Who Can Ride a Bronco
and Lasso a Steer with any Cowboy in the Territory,
Will Show Eastern Equestriennes a Thing or Two
at the Horse Fair

New York Times, 9 Apr 1905


MISS LUCILLE MULHALL, the most fearless and intrepid horsewoman in the world, will be in New York during the Horse Fair in Madison Square Garden from April 24 to 29. At the invitation of many horsemen and others who are friends of her father, Col. Zack Mulhall, who is lord of some 80,000 acres of the finest ranch land in Oklahoma Territory, Miss Mulhall will show the rresidents of the East how readily a girl can ride a bronco, how easily she can perform all of the cowboy tricks in the saddle, and how skillfully she can throw a lasso and rope a steer that she takes a fancy to catch.

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Lucille Mulhall is unique in her horsemanship. On the vast prairies of the West, where hundreds of thousands of cattle graze, where the cowboy life is strenuous and rough, where one virtually lives in the saddle, except when he dismounts to sleep and eat, and where this glorious open-air life contributes to health, vigor, and an almost total absence of fear, Lucille Mulhall was born. The atmosphere of the ranch is as natural to her as the air she breathes; and long before she reached her teens she could ride the half-tamed broncos as well as the most hardened cowboy could.

Her intense love of horses has made her the wonderful horsewoman that she is. The best of her father's stock was always at her disposal, and as she became older she took long rides over the ranch, following the droves of cattle, practicing with the lasso until she could throw it with unerring accuracy over the big horns of the most refractory steer.

Miss Mulhall, however, was not content with doing these things well. She wanted to do them better, better if possible than the veteran cowboys and cowpunchers that were the trusted foremen of Col. Zack Mulhall's stock. Throwing the lariat was to her the highest form of sport. When the lasso fell over the animal she knew just when to ighten it, just how much rope to reel in as her spirited bronco stopped short in obedience to her word, while she then followed that more difficult operation of tying the fallen steer so that he might not injur himself in endeavoring to kick himself loose from the shackles that bound him.

Lucille Mulhall to-day is only eighteen years old, and yet she has won honors in her distant country that the most intrepid cowboys have longed for years to attain. She is the champion of the great Southwest at roping steers, and her prowess has been acknowledged by a massive thousand-dollar gold medal which was awarded to her at the last Fort Worth cattle convention. At this convention a great rope steering tournament was held which drew the most expert cowboys and riders of the plains from Texas, Indian Territory, Oklahoma, Arizona, New Mexico, and even more distant places. They represented the best men of their class in the world. They had tackled the wildest and most unruly steers, and by their quickness of eyesight and wonderful accuracy in throwing the rope had quelled more than one incipient stampede in a drive of hundreds of miles over the flat lands of the West.

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Against these bornzed and war-scarred veterans of the plains a delicately featured blonde girl appeared. Slight of figure, refined and neat in appearance, attired in a becoming riding habit for hard riding, wearing a picturesque Mexican sombrero, and holding in one hand a lariat of the finest cowhide, Lucille Mulhall came forward to show what an eighteen-year-old girl could do in roping steers. The steers were picked out by lot from an immense herd. Miss Mulhall got two tough ones at the start. The first one, a fierce-looking animal, tossed the rope from his horns as it fell swishing over him. On the second trial Miss Mulhall was more successful, and the steer bowled over in the dust, securely held. It took the eighteen-year-old girl just one minute and forty-five seconds to rope and tie the steer. The next one she did in one minute and eleven seconds, while the third she caught and tied in the remarkably fast time of forty seconds.

This slight girl, who weighs hardly more than 100 pounds, has cuaght and tied her three steers in the splendid time of three minutes and thirty-six seconds. The veteran cowboys did their best to beat it, but their best was several seconds poorer than the girl's record-breaking time. The cowboys and plainsmen who were gathered in large numbers to witness the contest broke forth into tremendous applause when the championship gold medal was awarded to the slight, pale-faced girl, and from that day to this Miss Mulhall has been known far and wide throughout the West as the Queen of the Range.

Miss Mulhall, however, has beaten the time she made in the grand tournament by several seconds. She has frequently roped a steer in from twenty-five to twenty-eight seconds, and her father, one of the wealthiest and best-known cattle kings of the great Southwest, while at the St. Louis Fair last year, in discussing his daughter's prowess before a group of ranch owners, offered to back his assertion for $5,000 that Lucille could rope any steer that might be picked from a herd in twenty-five seconds.

A number of New Yorkers who have enjoyed the hospitality of Col. Mulhall on his splendidly equipped ranch in Oklahoma were in St. Louis while the ranch owner and his daughters were there, for he has two other girls, who are also fearless and intrepid in the saddle. At their earnest solicitation, Col. Mulhall ha sconsented to visit New York at this time. His daughter has promised to appear in Madison Square Garden simply to show what a Western girl can do who has been trained among horses all her life. She will appear, as sportsmen would say, as an amateur, and she will leave most of the Wild West features of ranch life to be exemplified by some of the expert cowboys that will come from Col. Mulhall's ranch.

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It must not be supposed that Miss Mulhall's outlook upon life is centred wholly upon the excitement of steer roping, broncho busting, and long rides over the plains. She has been carefully educated and could probably explain the beauties of Shakespeare and Browning as fully and as correctly as the average Eastern girl who has spent several years at a finishing school. She is a clever musician, and numbers among her wide circle of friends Miss Alice Roosevelt. Lucille Mulhall has been entertained at the White House with her father, who is a warm friend of the President. President Roosevelt has frequently visited the Mulhall ranch. It was when he was a candidate for Vice President that he spent a night at the ranch and heard from the big six-foot, good-natured Colonel how, when Lucille was thirteen years old, he offered to give her all the steers she could rope in a week, and she fairly took his breath away by bringing down three hundred. Still, as he had from 3,000 to 5,000 head of cattle on his ranch at the time, it was not a severe loss, and his pride in his daughter has more than repaid him for the value of the steers.






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