Duane Horsman could deliver a Sunday morning sermon, belt out a gospel song on his guitar, teach firearms safety to the youngsters in town and take his sons out hunting or fishing after working all week to support a wife and family of eight children. Then, on Friday night, he could knock your lights out if you put on a pair of boxing gloves with him. Horsman was a man for all seasons, a man of commitment, of civic duty, of love for family, a man of the land and a professional fighter who became known as the Chatfield Chopper.
It seems poetically proper that he was also a union iron worker, a man who made his living in construction, because he was tough as nails, and a banger as they say in the sport.
“He was a puncher, who would trade with an opponent, and a pretty good boxer, too,’’ said international referee Denny Nelson, who was a teammate to Horsman on an Upper Midwest team that fought in the national Golden Gloves tournament.
“He wasn’t a fancy boxer like a Pat O’Connor or a Del Flanagan, but there was no quit in him. He always came to fight.’’
Nelson recalled that although Horsman was never rated, he was Ring Magazine’s Prospect of the Month on one occasion. It is likely, too, that Horsman, like so many Minnesota fighters, simply didn’t have the connections necessary to climb more rapidly in the sport, connections to the East, West and Southeast.. Yet, Horsman didn’t travel far to met the woman he would marry, Doris, the mother of their eight children, five girls and three boys. They grew up on farms next to one another in rural Chatfield, not more than a couple of miles apart.
Horsman went into the Air Force after graduating high school in Chatfield and was stationed in Amarillo, Texas. He contracted a kidney infection from drinking the water there, Doris said, and was given a medical discharge. Subsequent tests at Mayo Clinic gave him a clean bill of health, and he entered the trades as an iron worker, frequently driving to and from the Twin Cities on a daily basis for jobs located there. Brett Horsman was born in 1972, two years after his father retired from the boxing ring so he never saw him fight. He saw a completely different side to his father, accompanying him on a variety of different outdoor pursuits. “He was really an outdoors guy,’’ Brett said.
“He loved being out in the sun, in the heat. He always thought of himself as a hot-weather person.’’ Growing up Horsman included some challenges, however. Kevin, the eldest of the Horsman boys, recalls the reaction from some school kids once they heard his father was a boxer. “If you could beat a Horsman you were somebody, I guess,’’ he said. “But we stood our ground. It only happened to me once. I won that first fight and nobody picked on me again.’’ Duane Horsman began his career on May 28, 1959 with a first-round knockout of Lennie Brown in Rochester. His last fight was on August 28, 1970 in Omaha, Neb., against Art Hernandez who stopped him in three rounds. He retired with a 49-13-2 record, winning 35 fights by knockout.
His nemesis, however, was Doug McLeod, who beat him the four times they fought, sending the Chatfield fighter into a two-year retirement after their last fight. Horsman had won 20 of 22 fights upon his return when he lost to O’Connor, 18 at the time, in a fight that could have gone either way, before an out-state record gate at the Mayo Civic Auditorium.
In one of his most memorable fights in Rochester, Horsman lost on points to Ralph Tiger Jones, a middleweight of the era who had upset Sugar Ray Robinson, who was in the second fight of a comeback at the time, andalso won and lost against Joey Giardello and Kid Gavilan, both champions at different stages of their careers.
Horsman’s patented punch was a liver shot that would temporarily paralyze a person’s legs, dropping them to the canvas. “He’d show us that punch,’’ said Kevin. “Try to teach us. It would drop a guy to his knees.’’ Kevin also recalls the family piling into the car for a trip to what, the record indicates, was his dad’s last fight. “I think there were three or four of us kids then,’’ Kevin said. “I remember jumping into the Pontiac Bonneville and heading to Omaha for a fight.’’ There are countless other memories as well. “Oh yeah, he’d wake me up at 3 a.m, and we’d head to the Mississippi to go coon hunting,’’ Kevin added. And, of course, there were always the scouting trips to locate ginseng and mushrooms.’’
After retiring from the ring, Horsman stayed busy in boxing, teaching and training the kids at the Whitewater Boxing Club. Always, at home and in the community, he kept that connection with youth. What had been missing in Horsman’s life, not unlike many if not most Minnesota fighters, were the connections necessary to reach the higher rungs in the sport. Minnesota’s best managers often could not pull the necessary strings to bring about the right opportunities.
And when the opportunity did come, after he lost on points to the nationally recognized Jones, Horsman had a family and was unwilling to leave home. Jones’s manager Bob Melnick wanted to add Horsman to his eastern stable, but Duane chose instead to stay in Chatfield.
That was the right choice for Horsman, his wife, his sons, his daughters, that he remain at home, that he remain with family, friends and his community. Now the Chatfield Chopper has found another home, a permanent one, in the Minnesota Boxing Hall of Fame.
