Issue date: January 20, 1999
Horses were a big part of the childhood of Woodside councilman, car dealer
By BARBARA WOOD
Joe Putnam may be well-known as the successful owner of a chain of Putnam car dealerships and as a member of Woodside's Town Council, but at heart, well, at heart, Joe Putnam is a cowboy.
It was as a cowboy that Mr. Putnam was recognized last week when the San Mateo County Mounted Patrol gave him its annual Outstanding Horseperson Citizen Award.
Bill Wraith was chairman of the committee that selects the winner of the annual award.
"I just can't think of anybody who deserves that award more than he does," Mr. Wraith said. "He's a superb competitor, but beyond that he helps all of us who are horsepeople to enter competitions if we wish to, and he sponsors a local competition for those of us who don't want to get that serious about it. In addition he contributes to the community. He's in a number of charitable organizations. ... and he's a nationally recognized businessman as well."
Mr. Putnam may well take more pride in his horses than this latest honor, however. He and his 11-year-old stallion, Lenas Award, entered every major cutting horse competition in California last year and the results weren't too shabby.
"He had a great year," Mr. Putnam says of his horse. "He won everything I showed him in all year long."
Award had been trained by well-known horseman Smoky Pritchard when Putnam purchased him two years ago, but since then, as he does with all his horses, Mr. Putnam has trained Award himself.
Mounted on Award in one of his two covered arenas, Mr. Putnam effortlessly signals the horse to back up, stop instantly, whirl in circles and slide to a stop, all moves a working cattle horse needs.
Horses were a big part of Mr. Putnam's childhood. As one of six children brought up on a South Dakota ranch with no electricity or indoor plumbing, his family used draft horses to pull cultivators, hay rakes and combines.
The family members also trained horses, for themselves and others, as well as using them to work cattle.
Mr. Putnam left home, and horses, behind when he went to high school, which was too far away for commuting. In high school he met his future wife, Mary Lou, whom he married when they were both 19. They've been married for 45 years and have six grown children and seven grandchildren.
Mr. Putnam got his start in the car sales business at 25 when he went into partnership with a car dealer. He took over the dealership before selling it to make a move to California.
"I didn't want to live in the Dakotas the rest of my life," he says.
He bought a Burlingame dealership and moved to San Mateo, where the family lived until 1971.
They then bought property on Mountain Home Road in Woodside -- horse property. Soon after, his brother Pat and his employees gave him a horse for Christmas.
As Mr. Putnam expanded the number of dealerships he owned, he began to "ease back" into horses as well. He went back to South Dakota to buy some quarterhorses and began competing.
"I kept getting better and better horses and started competing at higher and higher levels," he says.
In the 1980s, running out of room for more horses, the Putnams bought land off Canada Road at what is now Mission Trail. At first they kept only horses on the property with a caretaker, but in 1991 they built a home there. Mrs. Putnam decided that since her husband was on the property with the horses all the time, anyway, they might as well live there, he says.
Since then they've purchased the neighboring St. Marcella's property where they now keep some of their 15 horses.
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