JOE DUTTON of Junction,
Texas is not a typical cow
boy. The Texas A&M
senior leads the polo team
and competes in more than
30 rodeos during the
school year. Except for
being hit in the teeth with a
polo mallet and breaking
several bones bronc riding,
he says it is great sport no
matter which saddle he is
on at the time.
Joe Dutton, all-purpose cowboy
Joe Dutton is a do-it-all cowboy.
From bruising bronc riding at the Intercollegiate
Rodeo Championships in Montana to stylish
horsemanship on the lush grounds of the Houston
Polo Club, he rides them all. If he wasn’t real, you
would think someone had made him up.
A 22-year-old bundle of muscle and horse sense,
Dutton is a polo playing, bust’em up, hard-nosed
cowboy from Junction. He hits the rodeo circuit 30
times a year and leads a championship-bound polo
team at Texas A&M University.
Dutton said he does not have any problem with
the different saddles he has to use, one a skimpy
English saddle and the other a conventional West
ern saddle.
“If you can ride, you can ride,” he said succintly.
“You don’t ride the saddle, you ride the horse.”
It does make a difference to Sketter, Dutton’s
horse. One day Sketter is out chasing a calf; the
next day he is out running among a whirl of polo
mallets.
“It took a little time to train Sketter when to stop
and when not to,” said Dutton. “I’ve been using him
for roping, so when you lean up on him he’s sup
posed to stop for the calf. Well, when you’re playing
polo, you lean up, lay out, lay over, anything to hit
the ball. It took him a little time to learn which game
he was playing. In the meantime, I spent a lot of time
in the dirt.”
Dutton is an agricultural economics major at
Texas A&M. He will participate in about 30 rodeos in
Texas and Louisiana this year and about 14 polo
matches, some at the most exclusive polo clubs in
the nation.
Rodeo is a tough sport, but polo has not been
exactly kind to him either. Last fall he was struck in
the face with a polo mallet, breaking his nose and
loosening his front teeth. Thereafter, he wore a hel
met with a wire protective cage in front.
Dutton said the injuries hurt, but were nothing
compared to the injuries he sustained in 1974 when
he crashed through a fence after being tossed off by
a bucking bronc. He broke one arm and both collar
bones, and tore ligaments in his left arm.
Still, Dutton says he looks on both of his pastimes
as “just sports while going to school.
“I rodeo most of the time and play polo when I
have the time,” he said. “Both of them take a lot of
time from school. I guess that’s why my grades
aren’t better. Last spring I was only on campus two
weekends out of the whole semester. It takes a lot
out of you, but I guess that’s why I came to A&M. It’s
a good ag school, a little hard, but a good one. One
thing though, they sure give you a chance to do
other things while you’re in school.”
After he graduates next spring, the cowboy wants
to work at a bank and eventually combine both a
ranching career and his business background. To
day, though, he is getting back into shape. He’s not
exactly as spry as the colts he rode out on the Texas
plains near Alpine when he was three years old.
In the last two years he has had surgery on both
knees for torn cartilage. One knee he hurt while calf
roping, the other while doing a backward handspr
ing in a gymnastics class at Texas A&M. But both
knees are stronger now and he is back to saddle
bronc riding, team roping and, of course, playing
polo full time.
Dutton joined the Texas A&M polo team three
years ago when he was a sophomore. That year the
squad was the third best college polo team in the
nation, taking 11 other teams at the Intercollegiate
Polo Championships in Sommers, Conn.
This year the Texas A&M team is head back to
the championships, but this time with a veteran Joe
Dutton leading.
“This team is as good as the one three years ago
— could be better,” he smiled.
With that Joe said he had to go feed Sketter. After
that he was debating whether to go hit some balls at
the polo field or rope some calves.