R. L. Underwood hailed from the great state of Texas. He had a horse, a copper horse, by the name of Golden Chief. He was registered with the then fledgling American Quarter Horse Association as #194. He was sired by The Yellow Stud and out of a unnamed Quarter mare of Copper Bottom breeding. But how do you get back to the East? Well, we need to go back into the history of this great and slowly disappearing family of horses.

Actually, it was Copper Bottom that came from the East, from that also, great state of Pennsylvania, to be exact. He was a golden chestnut bred by Edward Parker of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, back in 1828. The famed, Sam Houston, brought Copper Bottom to Texas. So how did Houston get him? Well, Copper Bottom had been raced and passed around standing at stud until he ended up in New Orleans, Louisiana. Houston had purchased the horse and made arrangements for him to be ridden overland to Galveston, TX. He was subsequently moved to Chambers County and eventually to Hopkins County where he lived until his death in 1860.

One of Copper Bottom's last foals was a stallion named Rock foaled in 1858. Not very much is known about this stallion other than he had sired another stallion known as Rocket in 1879 out of a Rebel mare. This mare was sired by one of two possibilities of the day. One was a Rebel born in 1852 sired by Steel Dust and the other was known as Jim Brown's Rebel also sired by Steel Dust. These two may well have been the same horse, but that is purely speculation. To get back to the tale, Rocket sired a stallion known simply as Buck. Unfortunately, the date of his birth was not recorded but his genealogy was written down.