Jim Caines started life on a small ranch west of Hyattville in the mid-1930s. He got his start in the horse business when he and Tom Mercer (at 12 or 13 years of age) were out in the badlands horseback (bareback) when they ran across a bunch of wild horses. They chased them south and corralled the horses at Mercers with the dairy herd. Tom’s grandpa let the boys each keep one horse, then made them turn the rest out. It was about this time Jim started breaking horses for area ranchers. After earning a teaching degree in college, and marriage to Deanna Doyle, he purchased a farm near Manderson, in the late 1960s where he began raising registered Quarter horses and cattle, while continuing his teaching and coaching career at Manderson and Worland. He then bought his mother and sister’s share of the family ranch at Hyattville and another small ranch near Hyattville, leaving teaching to ranch full time in 1978. Caines Ranch ran about 300 head of mother cows on approximately 22,000 acres of private, state, and BLM land. He is a life member of the AQHA and was recognized for registering horses for 35 years.
Jim Caines
