R R Rito 707

Lots of bulls have been called great because breeders have responded to publicity which proclaimed them so. But two bulls of the Angus breed stand alone in greatness as determined totally by the achievement of their progeny.

EARL MARSHALL clearly dominated the breed in the teens and twenties as indicated by the extent to which his progeny won the major shows. (RR Rito 707 traces back to Earl Marshall 94 times in twelve generations).

Today the National Angus Sire Evaluation is clearly dominated by RR Rito 707 descendants. Even though there is no paragraph in the NASE summary that even intimates that the above is true, if you rank the sires according to their progeny yearling EPDs and only consider those with maternal values over 100, you will find twenty-nine Rito 707 descendants among the top 100 sires. And if you rank the sires in the summary on maternal value considering only those with yearling EPDs greater than 20 lbs., the Rito 707 descendants number 26. For a bull who oldest progeny would now be 12 years old to be the progenitor of almost one-third of the meaningful top sires of the breed (673 bulls in the summary) can in no way be accidental. It is real. It has commercial meaning.

As indicated in another article in this paper, Prof. Knox of New Mexico said "everyone believes in performance, but not everyone believes in the other man's test." Such is the case in interpretation of these results. RR Rito 707 was not a popular bull in the circles where bulls are commonly called popular or unpopular. Neither he nor more than one or two of his descendants ever hit the tanbark trail and it would have been disastrous for them to have done so. They are generally not built according to "modern" styles. They are not tall enough and carry too much depth and thickness - all part of the proportions of volume cattle, which adds to their winning performance competitions. Rito 707 was almost an accident, which could easily not have happened. Dr. Ray Woodward was scouring the nation looking for prospective ABS stud bulls when he came across this totally different, long bodied, muscular brute of a bull named Rito N Bar. He bought him because he was such a departure from the dumpy trendsetters of the day and because his eye was trained in working with the Miles City experimental performance cattle. At the time you would be of almost questionable intelligence to associate yourself with that style of cattle in either the Hereford or Angus breeds. Nevertheless, Rito N Bar won his progeny test and landed in the ABS stud. He was used widely by Dale Davis and Martin Jorgensen.

As his name implies, RR Rito 707 was born at the Davis' Rolling Rock operation in Montana. He began to amass performance greatness at an early age. He weaned with a 124 ration against 51 contemporaries and was sent to Lloyd Schmitt's Production Indexing Center at Stanford, Montana where he had a gain ratio of 129. PIC was the "test of the day" at that time and bull attracted lots of attention. I was the program speaker prior to that sale though I had to leave before the sale. Anyway, 707 wound up in the ownership of the American Breeders Service, and Pioneer Cattle Company and Jorgensen Bros., at something like $5200.

Pioneer used 707 on the Toreby cows that they bought from Torsten and Edith Lagerstrom-the cowherd that became the genetic nucleus or elite herd for Pioneer. The Lagerstroms had assembled a herd of Earl Marshall cows and had been ruthless in their quest for performance from this herd. The use of Rito 707 on these cows resulted in instant success. I was running the Iowa Beef Improvement Association at the time and was flabbergasted to see virtually a whole page of 1200 pound yearling weight bulls come off the computer. We were more used to 900 pound weights at the time. Jorgensen used 707 two or three years with Pioneer have a one-year lead. Pioneer went directly into a concentrated linebreeding program with 707 as the focal ancestor. Nine years after the bull was born, we bought the heart of the elite herd in their dispersion and there were cows whose pedigree showed Rito 707 as the only grand sire. His progeny can stand linebreeding.

The next chapter of the RR Rito 707 story came to the forefront when ABS commercial progeny test was completed. Again, coincidentally, I was the speaker at the ABS field day at the Leon Miller feedlot at Billings when the progeny groups were introduced on display. The 707 progeny (27 straight Angus weighed over 1100# at 13 months and had a yearling ratio of 111). They were a fabulous set of finished steers. No other progeny group ratioed above 100. Two of the sires whose progeny were in the test went on to be "name" bulls though their records make no effort to be evident in the sire summary. One of them later brought $50,000 for one-third interest. The 707 progeny had beat his 130# per head at a year. It is interesting to note that whereas Rito 707's pedigree leaves most pedigree students rather cold, his ancestors enjoyed about 5 generations of Henke breeding unexposed to other than local popularity. Those with whom I've talked said the Henke herd was known for big, productive Angus. The rest of the story is legend.

Rito 707 amassed a progeny record, prior to AHIR becoming popular, which included 1049 progeny with a weaning ration of 105; 624 yearling progeny with a 106 ratio; 313 daughters in 31 herds with a 1179 progeny at 103 ratio giving him breeding values of 110-105-112 all with 99% accuracy. By some people's standards, RR Rito 707 was just another bull and "the wrong kind". But by COMMERCIAL cattlemen's normal method of measuring pounds of saleable beef, reflective of growth and maternal values, he had no peers.