The National Texas Longhorn Museum

Photo from an original cabinet card picture, taken in Texas about 1899.

Champion is the most written about steer of all time.
His picture appeared on thousands of postcards, indicating his horns were 9 feet 6 inches wide.
If this is true, he would be the known world's record for a Texas Longhorn steer.
It isn't true, so let's have a closer look at the story of Champion.
Here is the known history of Champion as taken from The Longhorns, by J. Frank Dobie.

The story first, and then my comments.

The Story of Champion
From The Longhorns by J. Frank Dobie

The best-known steer in the world was Champion. For more than forty years his likeness on postcards has circulated from Newark to El Paso; it has been published many times in magazines, newspapers, textbooks and trade books, and has served as a model for countless drawings. It has become the standard representation of Longhorn cattle.

In the fall of 1892, Sid Grover bought the steer for my Uncle Jim (J.M.) Dobie, for whom he was working, from Nick Dunn, of Nueces County, in a bunch of two hundred other steers, at twelve dollars around. He was only "a long two," but he had a "six-year-old head." He had been calved on a little Mexican ranch down near the Rio Grande, and was comparatively gentle. He was driven to the Jim Dobie ranch near Lagarto in Live Oak County.

Later he was moved up to the Kentuck Ranch, also in Live Oak County. It was there that I had my only look at him.

I can see him yet: between a pale red and brown in color, mighty-framed but narrow, the ponderous horns, which were reaching maturity by then, weighing his head low when he stood and wobbling it when he walked. They curved outward, not upward. To scratch the root of his tail with a horn-tip, he had but to turn his head slightly. His mother was undoubtedly a plain Mexican (or Texas) cow, but on account of the texture of his hair -- rather finer than the coarse, sunburned hair characteristic of the Texas-Mexican cattle -- it was thought that his sire must have had a considerable amount of Devon blood in him. In his prime he weighed around twelve hundred pounds.

In 1899 Longhorns were becoming historic, and the managers of the so-called International Fair at San Antonio, held in the fall, invited entries of this class of cattle. Only two of the four Longhorns entered were considered worthy of consideration: Champion and another steer belong to George West, also of Live Oak County. They received considerable newspaper attention, but no measurement of Champion's horns seems to have been recorded at the time.

His picture was soon sold, however, on a medallion of enameled tin, advertising a horn spread of over nine feet. The next year the Fair association scattered the picture abroad on another tin medallion bearing the words, "I'll be there. Will you?" Champion was having his hair sprinkled with fish oil -- to keep the flies off -- for higher things, however. New York and Chicago papers in February of 1900 ran articles giving his horn spread as nine feet and seven inches. In July, Will B. Eidson, a South Texas cowboy and for a short while champion roper of the world, took Champion, in the employ of Jim Dobie, to Kansas City for exhibition at the Democratic National Convention. The steer did not attract as much attention as William Jennings Bryan, but receipts were good. Will Eidson had dreams of making "a mint of money" out of Old Champion.

Plans were made to take him to the Paris Exposition, but the French Government objected, fearing "Texas fever." Champion and Will Eidson became vagrants, expenses constantly increasing over receipts. People appeared to have little curiosity about "this pair of horns with a steer hitched to the bottom of them." I have searched in vain for a leaflet giving Champion's history and measurements that was passed out to individuals who paid the admission fee of two-bits.

Along in 1901 Champion was leased to a "very tame Wild West show" operated by C. Z. Green and his wife. About a year later Will Eidson saw him in Davenport, Iowa. "The old steer mooed as if he was mighty glad I had come back," Will Eidson told me. What became of Champion in the end I am unable to say. I have heard that he was "butchered" in Michigan; that he died in Chicago, where his horns were preserved; that he was mounted and placed in a museum in St. Louis; that he passed into the hands of the Miller Brothers' 101 Ranch Wild West Show. Jim Dobie never knew what his end was.

According to Will Eidson, "pole measurements" -- straight across from one horn tip to the other -- gave Champion's spread as eight feet, seven and three-eighths inches, while the circumference of each horn at the base was approximately seventeen and seven-eighths inches. When, in the 1920's, I used to ask Uncle Jim Dobie about the measurements, he would reply, "I am afraid to say." Like the great majority of real cowmen, he disliked the popular exaggeration of so many factors pertaining to range life and was more given to under- than over-statement. Sid Grover and Ed McWhorter both assert that the horns spread "about nine feet."

Yet all human memories are treacherous, and newspaper reports even more so. The steer was shipped north from Beeville. In April, 1900, the Beeville Bee reported a horn spread of seven feet, eight inches. IN June, following, after the steer had walked down the main street on his way to a car that would carry him to Kansas City, the same paper reported a spread of "a little less than six feet straight across," and a length, following the curves of the horns, of seven feet, eight and one-half inches. At the same time, the Beeville Picayune reported a straight-across spread of six feet and three inches.

Despite all conflicting reports, I believe that Champion had the longest horns of any Texas steer outside of legend. Surely they are preserved somewhere. It of historical importance that they be located.

From The Longhorns by J. Frank Dobie

The Truth about Champion's Horns
by Alan Rogers
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Obviously, without measuring the horns physically, we will never know their true width. What we want to learn from the following demonstration is not the actual width but whether or not the horns could have been the massive 9 feet as speculated.

In my 36 years of studying old steer horns, I've discovered from personal measurements that mature steers had poll sections, on an average, of 10-12 inches. (A poll section is the width of the skull between the horns.) Also, in my personal measuring of old mounted heads, I found the width of eye sockets to be reliably consistent, on mature steers, of about 10 1/2 to 11 inches in width. (The base circumference on old Texas steers would have seldom exceeded 13 inches.)

A 16 x 20 enlargement of this closeup photo of Champion was made, which allowed for a more accurate measurement. In centimeters, we measured the approximate width of the poll section at 7 cm. (See measurement A on photo.) An approximate tip-to-tip measurement in centimeters was 45 1/2 cm. (See measurement B on photo.)

Let's allow a poll section of 12 inches and divide that into the tip-to-tip spread. That would be dividing A into B. In doing so, our result is 6 1/2. That is to say, the tip-to-tip spread is 6 1/2 times the poll section or 6 1/2 times 12 inches for a total of 78 inches, which is 6 1/2 feet, tip to tip.

Truthfully, from my formula, we cannot know the exact width of Champion's horns, but there is no question we have ruled out everything close to the exaggerated reports of 9 feet! My measurement of 6 1/2 feet may, in itself, be a little too wide. More than likely, if any of his early day measurements were accurate, those reported in June 1900 by the Beeville Bee stating a little less than 6 feet was probably most accurate.

It has now been certainly established and forever settled that Champion's horns did not exceed 9 feet, although he is deserving of his name as he possessed a championship set of horns.