Adam Pollard’s DNA has “cowboy” written all over it. Serving as a Marine fit right in with the cowboy mentality and now it’s come full circle—he’s running the Military Rodeo Cowboys Association (MRCA).
Pollard, 54 now, is a Midland, Texas, native who grew up ranching and was inducted in 2021 into the Military Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame. His ancestors roped at a very early rodeo in Pecos, and have a history as colorful as Yellowstone’s Duttons.
Pollard’s great-grandfather got a law degree from Harvard in 1876, after which tuberculosis drove him to Texas. As a surveyor, he laid out the city of Lubbock, later serving as a Pecos County judge while acquiring large amounts of land and cattle. Then oil was discovered in west Texas. Pollard’s grandfather, Clayton Williams, traveled by stagecoach and train to get a Texas A&M degree, and spurred the drilling of the world’s deepest oil well at the time. Adam’s mom, Janet Williams Pollard, authored a book about the family. Her brother, also named Clayton Williams, owned a large cattle ranch near Ft. Stockton where Adam grew up doctoring cattle.
Pollard said that as an aggressive, competitive person, becoming a Marine at 22 made sense. He enlisted and was sent to Camp Pendleton, California, where he met a couple of Marines-turned-roughstock riders in Lynn Mattocks and Sonny Borrelli—then running the MRCA. While at Camp Pendleton, Pollard started competing in roughstock events and chute dogging at military rodeos produced by Cotton Rosser, which then were only for people on active duty. His father offered to buy him a rope horse if he’d stop riding bucking horses.
When a bad landing jumping out of an airplane in 1996 shattered his ankle, Pollard was discharged. He headed back to Midland, where he did start team roping and became a landman. He also developed diabetes that he figures was prompted by the military’s anthrax vaccine.
Midland was a great place to get into heading steers—he met Shot Branham and Jojo Lemond, then-teenager Patrick Smith, and attended a school by Speed Williams and Rich Skelton in their heyday. He still recalls winning a Pro-Am with Kirt Jones.
“I got to rope with guys who had such a high talent level,” Pollard said. “It gives you that courage to throw two coils and see if you can even do it.”
Pollard eventually took about 15 years away from roping to show reining horses. That got boring, he said, and then Al Dunning introduced him to the cowhorse industry.
“I grew up with cows,” said Pollard, who began showing cutting and cow horses. “I understand cows. I’ve been able to meet lots of great people in these roping and cowhorse industries.”
Pollard said his heel horses happen to be mares and are being bred right now, so he’s going back to heading. In the meantime, he had already served as both vice president and president of the Professional Armed Forces Rodeo Association in 2013-15, overseeing the largest added-money payout in PAFRA history.
Adam, who’s married to Christina Pollard, has a daughter named Addison who worked as a professional opera singer and a son, Jackson, who just graduated high school. Like them, the MRCA’s home is in Midland. The group had at one time faltered, but in 2018, Pollard restarted it and began fundraising.
“We’ve had five rodeos so far this year,” said Pollard. “Three were co-sanctioned, and two were our own. We’ve got the World Finals scheduled for Nov. 13–15 in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, and we’re adding more money to it every day.”
The MRCA offers nine events including breakaway and, as a throwback, chute dogging. While Pollard relishes his memories of spurring bareback broncs and turfing steers, he loves team roping.
Pollard is most excited lately about his involvement with a new non-profit providing equine therapy to veterans. Dark Horse Elite welcomes special operations personnel and veterans for programs that address their physical, mental, and emotional well-being. The name is symbolic—dark horses symbolize the power to overcome obstacles and personal transformation.
—TRJ—
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