CUTTER BILL

The Cowboy Mafia, a horse named Cutter Bill, and a roughneck turned Texas millionaire.

The Cutter Bill Western World Extraordinaire boot store in Houston was owned by Rex Cauble and named after his six-time world champion cutting horse, Cutter Bill.  The prominent hat-and-boot emporium near The Galleria was as well known for its backroom bar as its fancy duds.  Beginning shortly after the lunch hour, sales clerks said, “it’s 5 o’clock somewhere”, plying customers with complimentary cocktails to loosen up their wallets.

But Cutter Bill’s wild ride came to a screeching halt when federal agents impounded twelve million dollars of Cauble’s assets and auctioned off everything that was left — including the store’s landmark golden horse. The  flamboyant Cauble, a multi-millionaire rancher and honorary Texas Ranger who sported a 5 1/4-carat diamond ring, was born the son of a cotton farmer, and struck oil as  a 31 year old oilfield roughneck.  He went on to have interests in banking, petroleum, ranching, construction and real estate – and of course, the Cutter Bill stores.

Cauble was convicted in 1982 of operating the so-called ‘Cowboy Mafia’ marijuana smuggling ring, the largest and most bodacious in US history. He had been running a network of Texas and Florida cowboys that used shrimp boats and Cigarette power boats to smuggle about 150,000 pounds of Colombian marijuana into Texas and then trucked it, concealed under bales of alfalfa hay, to four Cauble ranches in North Texas for distribution.  Muscles Foster, former rodeo cowboy and trainer of six-time world champion cutting horse Cutter Bill, Les Fuller the Marlboro man model in the 80’s, and a host of cowboy sidekicks ran the operation.  Dallas meets Miami vice – counter culture cowboys with Brazilian models and boots stuffed with cash.