I purchased Ready Go in 1977 at the American Polled Congress , in Lousiville, KY, for a then record price of $5200. He was bred in the Martin Nold herd ( Weston), Gettysburg, SD and I purchased him from Bill Marston, from Minnesota. Bill later moved to SD and raised some pretty good Angus cattle on the ranch his wife was raised on. Bill was killed in a car accident several years ago now.
Ready Go x was a deep cherry red color, and homozygous polled. He was quite moderate in frame at the time, but still weighed over 2400-2450, even when being used hard. He was one of the first bulls I ever saw that always came in from pasture in better shape than when he went out. He was quite unique as he would breed a cow once and never look at her again. He just about drove me crazy, as there would be cows in heat, and he would be at the far end of the pasture in the shade. I had to learn that he knew what he was doing and that was a big reason that he maintained his condition so well. Ready Go had great feet, however, he was often criticized for having too much set to his rear legs... and he did. He was the bull that proved to me that this was not a problem that would ever result in him having to be shipped to market. He was still being used in Colorado at 14 years of age, the last time I heard of him. He had lots of volume, and was thick. His daughters were excellent brood cows. He could put a great udder on the poorest uddered cow's daughters. I never saw a poor uddered or poor milking Ready Go daughter. We followed Ready Go with Highfield Irish Mist that we imported from Ireland, and Waukaru Cinnabar, who was the reserve World Champion bull. The Ready Go daughters made these bulls job very easy, as they always had great calves.
Before we had any calves from Ready Go we had sold almost $10,000 of semen in Canada and the US. A South African breeder toured many herds in the US and Canada, and he selected Ready Go as the bull he would use in his herd. We shipped 500 straws of semen to South Africa and it was a real adventure getting the money out of that country. South Africa had a law at the time that only allowed a citizen to take $2000 out of the country at any time. The buyer got around this by having his wife take $2000 out when she was travelling to New Zealand. A mistress from England sent another $2000 after she visited him in South Afirca, and yet another girl friend in San Fransisco, sent another $2000. Over a period of just over 12 months, we finally got paid the balance owing, most of which was brought out of the country by people that were visiting him in South Africa.
We also sold another 800 straws to Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay, and a semen company was supposed to be handling this for us. They delivered the semen but never got paid for it, and came home with nothing. They did not charge us for collecting this semen and agreed to collect the bull free of charge for us. Ready Go was an amazing semen producer, and for many years, he was used as a benchmark at the stud, to compare other bulls semen quality too. He had large well formed testicles and his sons did as well.
Even though it has been 32 years since I purchased Ready Go, I still sell semen every year from him. He is a calving ease sire, and some breeders still breed their heifers to him every year. Several of his calves have been shown in recent years, and have been quite competitive. If you go back into many of the best Western Canadian Shorthorn bloodlines, you usually find Ready Go some place, and sometimes many times. Many of Alta Cedar's winning cattle have Ready Go back several generations and sometimes there are 5 or 6 crosses of him. Saskvalley Pioneer 126P goes back 7 times to Ready Go, most of it is back 6 or 7 generations or more now. There are many more cattle with him in the background.
Ready Go was used here for 5 years and a visitor from Colorado was so taken with him on pasture that he offered us $6000 for him as an 8 year old bull. Since we had several hundred doses of semen left we agreed to sell him. A few years later this man dispersed and Ready Go sold to a commercial herd as an 11 year old bull. Th last I heard was that he was still breeding cows at 14 years of age.
