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IN THE DAYS when the Southdown ram was king of the sheep pastures and the show-ring, Henry Besuden of Vinewood Farm in Clark County, Kentucky, was perhaps the premier breeder and showman of Southdown sheep in the United States. The list of his winnings at major shows would be too long to put down here, but the character of his achievement can be indicated by his success in showing carload lots of fat lambs in the Chicago International Livestock Exposition. Starting in 1946, he sent eighteen carloads to the International, and won the competition twelve times. "I had 'em fat," he says, remembering. "I had 'em good. " Such was the esteem and demand for his stock among fellow breeders that in 1954 he sold a yearling ram for $1200, then a record price for a Southdown.
One would imagine that such accomplishments must have rested on the very best of Bluegrass farmland. But the truth, nearly opposite to that, is much more interesting. "If I'd inherited good land," Henry Besuden says, "I'd probably have been just another Bluegrass farmer."