July 1, 2025 • 65 mins
Rick Jackson takes us deep into his remarkable 40+ year journey as a cutting horse trainer, revealing the fascinating transition from agricultural education professor to championship-level horse trainer. Having grown up with a father who was a renowned figure in the cutting industry, Rick brings a uniquely multigenerational perspective to the evolution of western performance horses.
The conversation explores Rick's unusual career trajectory, including his time riding bulls on the Midwest rodeo circuit during his college years, before ultimately returning to his true passion of training horses. His academic background became an unexpected asset, providing him with communication skills that proved invaluable when teaching both horses and riders. "I'm a better educator and communicator because of my teaching background," he explains, distinguishing his approach from his father's more technical style.
We journey through the transformation of cutting from a general quarter horse show event to today's highly specialized sport, with Rick providing fascinating insights into how horses themselves have changed dramatically. "Horses are better bred, more intelligent, easier to train, and more athletic," he notes, explaining that horses he competed successfully on decades ago "probably wouldn't win a dime today." Rick also addresses the evolution in training approaches, with today's slower, more methodical development of young horses contrasting with the rushed timelines of previous generations.
The episode concludes with a heartwarming reflection on Rick's greatest satisfaction at age 75 - watching his amateur students achieve championship success after years of dedicated coaching. His recent students have reached world champion status in both sorting and cutting, a testament to his lifetime dedication to horsemanship excellence. For anyone interested in western performance horses, Rick's insider perspective offers invaluable knowledge from one of the industry's most experienced trainers.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, rick Jackson, thank you for taking
the time to come and talk to us.
This is probably the fifth orsixth time I've seen you off a
horse in the past 12 years.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Okay, yeah, it's not often During the day, at least.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Yeah, you can move that mic a little closer if you
want.
So you are cutting horsetrainer.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Well, let's call it horse trainer.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Horse trainer.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Specializing in cutting horse.
Okay, I like that Cow horses.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
All right, put that in the notes, john, and you've
been pretty much your whole lifeexposed to this right.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yes, I grew up in the business.
Dad was a horse trainer and hemade me go to college, got a
master's degree in education, inagricultural education, taught
(00:57):
school for five years and gotthe opportunity to come home.
He was getting older, needingto slow, way down and quit, and
I took over the business back inthe early 80s and I've never
looked back, never regretted it.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yeah, where did you teach it?
Right here at eldorado and agteacher and ag class school ag
teacher in el trino did you likethat or not?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
I did um, the, the rural students, farm students,
which you get.
Most of it's an electiveprogram.
We're better than teaching justrun-of-the-mill English math.
Probably wouldn't have been ateacher if I had to teach that
(01:38):
stuff, but the ag students werevery good.
I just could not see myself asa career school teacher.
I got the opportunity to gohome.
I jumped at it, took it, neverlooked back but it's been a
great asset to me in teachingboth horses and people because I
(01:59):
have a lot of amateur ridersthat come and get lessons and
learn how to ride better andlearn how to handle cattle on
horses.
So I think I'm a bettereducator and communicator
because of teaching background.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yeah, and how many years did you say you taught?
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Just five.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Five, and that was all in El Dorado.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
All in El Dorado.
Well, I was in the extensionservice Illinois Co-op Extension
Service for about a year and ahalf Okay, Running a 4-H and
youth program up in FranklinCounty in Benton for a short
time.
But they got the chance to cometo El Dorado to take over the
teaching job and took it and andwent home and started training
(02:47):
horses and people yeah, were youstill riding during those
teaching days?
yeah, yeah, would go home, uh,help dad of an afternoon still
showing a little not nearly asmuch as we do now, but yeah,
I've never not been involvedwith riding and working horses
yeah, and then you also rodebulls uh, yeah for a while yeah,
(03:10):
was that in high school orafterwards?
no, that was actually afterwards.
I guess it started when I wasin a freshman.
In high school dad put me on abig old steer, you know he put
it.
We tied a rope on him andanchored him where I could get
on him and I tried it.
Dad used to rodeo a little bit.
He rode saddle broncs a littlebit and roped, but not a lot,
(03:34):
just a little.
He was too busy to follow therodeo trail but I wanted to try
it so he helped me and then forseveral years I didn't really
pursue it until I got intocollege and late in my college
life I ran into a young fellahere from here in southern
Illinois, rick Murphy.
(03:55):
That was already riding bullssome and he and I got together
and I started traveling withRick and we rodeoed all over the
Midwest.
I didn't travel a lot and wedidn't do like the PRCA or the
bull riding programs that theyhave today.
We did a lot of open rodeostuff and the IPRA, which is
(04:19):
more centralized here in theMidwest.
So we traveled quite frequentlyrodeoing on weekends.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Was there more rodeos back then than there is now?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yes, In the Midwest area there were.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
And more bull riders.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
No, there's plenty of bull riders around today.
The high school program hascreated the interest in rodeo,
created the interest in rodeoand we still work with a lot of
the high school kids who want toget better and get more points
(04:56):
in all around, so they want tolearn how to ride and show a
cutting horse, which keeps me incontact with kids that are bull
riders, barrel racers, goattires.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
In order to get more all-around points for all-around
titles, they can show a cuttinghorse.
So they want lessons and leasea horse and go show in that
level and some of the kids haveactually bought horses to go
compete.
One young lady in fact she'scoming to the barn tomorrow
bought a good show, mare cuttingmare made it to the national
(05:33):
finals and she's coming for apractice session before she goes
to the national final.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Where's the national finals this year?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
This year it's in Rock Springs, Wyoming.
Okay, it usually switches fromRock Springs to Gillette.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
That's what I was thinking, gillette, yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
They go there, they switch off, but this year it'll
be in Rock Springs.
In fact, several years ago Ihad a fairly large group of high
school students who wereinvolved with the cutting and
the extra points and we tookfive high school kids with
horses to Rock Springs to showin a cutting competition.
Uh, they weren't great.
(06:10):
I mean, you get out there andyou run into the top young
people from Texas and Oklahoma,california, that ride and show
cutters all the time.
Like my daughter, hannah grewup riding and showing cutters so
we had one girl make the finals.
(06:30):
The rest of them weren't goodenough to make the finals, but
we were there.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Yeah, that's exciting .
Let's talk about your dad for aminute, because he's a pretty
well-known name in the cuttinghorse industry, correct?
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Right, well, both Aqha and cutting.
Because when I was growing upyou didn't have all these
segmented programs.
You didn't have the ncha andthe uh rain and horse
association, the nrha, uh, thebarrel racing associations.
Everything you did was at aquarter horse show.
(07:05):
You showed cutters, you showedyour reiners, your pleasure,
horses, alder everything was atan aqha show.
I couldn't remember when I wasstill young we would go to do
coin to a quarter horse show inorder to show cutters and it was
late at night, early morningsometimes because the cutting
(07:26):
was always last.
But now it's become specialized.
So now most people you don'teven have cutting in a quarter
horse show anymore, although youdo still have the junior and
senior world championships withAQHA out in Oklahoma.
But things are much morespecialized than they used to be
.
So when I was young, growing up, dad would we'd load up and
(07:48):
take a load of horses and showin halter and pleasure reining
and cutting, and I'd help Dad inthe cutting pen because he
didn't want to show anythingelse but cutting horses.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
That was his passion.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
That was his passion.
I showed reiners, westernwestern pleasure horses and then
became specialized as program,became more specialized, right,
but dad judged a lot.
That's where I got my desire, Iguess, or the influence, to go
judge.
He judged more quarter horseshows than anybody in the
(08:20):
country for two, three years andas a cutting horse he judged
the major fraternities, wentoverseas and judged in foreign
countries as a cutting horsejudge so very well respected,
well known, when he was stillactive, and he took me to my
(08:42):
first judging seminar that NCHAput on back in the 80s and I got
my judge's card and I've judgeda lot ever since too.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
How do you become a judge?
Is there somebody?
Is it like a test?
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yes, you have.
Well, in NCHA and I don't knowabout the other associations,
but in NCHA you have to haveshown as a competitor and won a
certain amount of money beforeyou're even considered a judge
applicant so that you can provethat, yes, I know how to ride
and show a horse and I knowwhat's involved in the arena.
(09:18):
And then you go to a judgingseminar which is sponsored by
the National Association, ncaj,and we have a director of judges
who's in charge of thoseprograms.
He oversees the whole judgingprogram.
He puts on the clinics.
You have to watch video, youhave to pass judging tests,
(09:43):
study rule book and, you know,achieve a certain score on a
judging application testing andall that in order to be become a
judge.
Then we're rated.
The beginners are one a's thatjust start and have only judged
a few shows.
And as you advance and provethat you can judge, you move up
(10:06):
in rating.
So you go from 1a to 2a to 3ato 4a and right now 4a are.
You can't really call them theelite group because there are
several of us, but we're thepeople who have judged enough to
have certain number of creditsand do a lot of shows and prove
that you can judge.
I'm a 4A and they intend toeven take it on up to a 5A at
(10:32):
some point in the next year ortwo, but right now the bulk of
the judges are 3A and 4A.
Now if you get in trouble, do abad job, get written up by
contestants, you can be droppedin a rating and then you have to
judge several shows to get back.
But it's a very and all showsare videoed.
(10:52):
Every ncha show that's approvedis videoed and that gives the
contestant and the judgesomething to look at if there's
a question, and then it goes tothe national office and they
look at it, decide whether youscrewed up or not, and if you do
good, you keep going that's howyou get in trouble, if you
(11:15):
right if, if you miss calls, uh,you don't do a good job, or say
you used to judging was wellyou placed your.
You know, in any associationwhen it's starting out, you have
top trainers who compete witheach other.
You may have some guy who gavehis buddy the win to get the
(11:39):
money when he didn't deserve.
It Used to happen, along with alot of other things about rules
and regulations that we havenow.
But this new monitor systemthat they call it, everything's
videoed and if a contestantdoesn't agree or think a judge
did a good job, he writes him up, sends in a request for the
(12:00):
national office to look at itand then they make the decision
whether he did it cost money todo that.
So if a guy's just mad aboutthe way the judge placed him and
he wants to spend the moneybecause the cuttings is kind of
a rich man's game, so to speak,a few hundred dollars to protest
(12:22):
a show is not much to somebody.
That's a millionaire, right.
But if the national officeupholds protests and the judge
gets penalized.
If they don't, if they say,well, this guy didn't do a bad
job, he didn't miss that youthought he did, or he placed
(12:42):
them about, right, that guyloses his, his money, and you go
on.
So there's a check and balancesystem right in ncha to make it
fair, and it really has yeah youcan't judge you, you can't give
your buddy anything, and youbetter be on your toes and not
go to sleep sitting up there andmiss something if you want to
(13:05):
do that.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
You got to go in congress, right they'll nail.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah, they'll nail you for it.
But anyway, I got a lot of mymy early experience from dad and
then of course he retired andquit, but he judged a lot and
I've judged a lot.
I've been overseas myself,right I.
I've been overseas myself,right.
I've been to Brazil a couple oftimes judged national shows
(13:28):
down there.
I go to Canada almost everyyear once or twice to judge up
there.
I enjoy it.
I like going to different partsof the country to see people
and horses that you don'tnormally get to see.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Yeah, who was riding in Brazil?
Was it Brazilians?
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Yeah, it was Brazilians.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
I've heard they can ride.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Well, there are a lot of Australian and Brazilian
people who come up here and staybecause there's more money, but
they have family, brothers,relatives in Brazil that maybe
came up here and learned thebusiness and went back to Brazil
(14:11):
.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
When I judged a big age event in Brazil a couple
years ago in the spring, therewere relatives of people that I
knew from up here that stayed uphere and showed.
So it's tough, it's as gooddown there as it is up here.
There just isn't as much of itI got you and the money is not
as yeah, it's um.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
What does a big show pay like if you win, for
instance?
Speaker 2 (14:37):
well, if you go to the big faturity which is our
elite program, there's like amillion and a half added money
and you'll have six to eighthundred horses enter that
maturity which runs for aboutthree weeks.
The winner of the of the openfuturity can win 230 to 40 000,
(14:59):
but that's the exception right.
A weekend show, uh, at ducoinor shelbyville or or wherever
you go in the midwest, it'sbased on the amount of added
money there might be in thatshow and how many horses in a
class you can win anywhere from500 to thousand dollars in one
weekend class, if it's a fairlybig class.
(15:21):
now we pay on average we pay onefor three.
So if there's nine horses it'llpay three monies.
So three of them are going towin money.
The other six have paid a $300to $400 entry fee and come up
with nothing.
So that's why it's expensiveand horses are not cheap.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
No, no, which I?
Know you work on most of them,right yeah and um, I do want to
talk to you about your barn thatyou train out of um, there's
probably not another one like itin the country not, not that we
know of.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Every time we my wife or I do a video of a horse or
of a exhibition, everybody knowsimmediately where it's from,
because there's not anotherstructure like it, right, dad?
Dad built that barn.
He wanted to be able to ridefull-time and train, so he built
that in 1958 wow is the age ofthat barn and it's a unique
(16:21):
structure.
It's an old Quonset style, uh,and there are a lot of those
around, but not of the size andscope that this one is Right.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
And did he build all the rafters and everything?
Speaker 2 (16:30):
He and a crew built them right there Wow is it the
first indoor in the state?
Well, right here in this areain this area there there were a
couple of smaller barns thatwere done like square post bills
now okay but they weren't verybig.
You know they might be, excuseme, 40 or 50 feet wide and 70 or
(16:55):
80 feet long.
Gotcha and ours is 70 by 100,the actual working area, and
then there's cattle pens on theback side.
So it was the only way dadcould figure out to get the
width and the size that heneeded, and back then it was a
pretty big barn.
We used to have a lot of littleshows in the spring, in the
late fall, when you couldn'tride outside.
(17:15):
Now it's pretty small.
I wish it were much bigger, butI can still do everything I
need to do.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Right, it's unique yeah, how tall is it?
It's about 40 feet, yeah it's,it's impressive yeah so, um,
when you took over the businessside?
Speaker 2 (17:37):
because recently I took over this business right I
went because your dad used towork for my dad.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Yep heard lots of stories about your dad, but one
thing that's eye-opening to meis the whole business side of it
.
Like if being a vet full-timeis busy enough, but then you got
to manage the people, managethe payroll, manage the bills,
manage the taxes.
Everything was that.
Did school prepare you for allthat with the ag business degree
(18:06):
or well, it helped.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
But you learn so much from your parents, from you
learn from your dad.
I learned from my dad, uh, andthen you.
A lot of it is trial and errorand Dad always told me you know,
you work hard, you do the bestjob you can and don't slight
your work effort on your horsesand respect your customers.
(18:34):
And that's worked through theyears and that's worked through
the years.
Dad was not the greatest peopleperson when it came to coaching
someone.
He could train a horse to doanything.
He was great at it and hetaught me a lot.
(18:54):
But I've seen people confusedbecause Dad didn't understand
why they couldn't understandwhat he told them to do to get a
horse to perform like it neededto and that's where I credit my
ag teaching didn't understandwhy they couldn't understand
what he told them to do Right Toget a horse to perform like it
needed to and that's where Icredit my ag teaching background
and the whole teachingexperience.
I can relate and convey whatI'm trying to get across, maybe
better than he could, so thatmade a difference.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Right.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Yeah, you just learn by doing it.
You know, and I do the samething I've got.
Mine is is more feed, I've gotto have enough hay and grain and
enough labor to maintain thebusiness and you got to have a
little help, have some ridinghelp, because you can't ride
(19:39):
them all.
We've expanded that.
When dad started, when he builtthe arena, he had 11 stall barn
.
That was all he had.
And then late in his life hewanted to expand a little bit
and when I was getting ready tocome home we built a big outdoor
arena.
We added more stalls and we got35 stalls now and that's still
(20:04):
not enough.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
We have weekends you've got a waiting list, don't
you?
Speaker 2 (20:07):
oh, we've always got a waiting list.
Yeah, we, we haven't even gotthrough all the two-year-olds
yet for this year that are onthe list.
But uh, we just just work at itas many as you can we ride on
average uh, 20 to 25 horses aday, and because we have a
certain number of older, what wecall weekend warriors that are
(20:30):
trained horses that only need tokeep exercised and work once or
twice a week to have them readyto show.
Now, like we had a show atDuquoin two weeks ago, right
before that show I had six headof weekend horses come in to be
tuned up.
The people came with them,hooked up their trailers, stayed
(20:54):
overnight, stayed two or threedays to get in the practice,
because I have a good cattlesupply so they get the
opportunity to work cattle.
So it'll it'll fluctuate, right, but you always need more
stalls than you've got.
But you just you learn overtime and experience how much
feed you're going to need, howmuch you got ahead of time, uh,
(21:15):
how many cattle you need.
I keep on average, 100 head ofcattle there all the time and
that usually works adequately tohave cattle, because some guys
don't even use cattle.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Some guys work the flag, some guys work buffalo
I've heard of that is thatbecause they're, they're well
last longer yeah, uh, you canwork 10 horses on one buffalo.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
The problem and that buffalo will get hot and he's
still going to hang out.
But you let him stand a coupleminutes and go work him again.
But they're not like cattle inthat they're faster, for one
thing, and I myself can rememberruining a couple of pretty good
young horses trying to makethem work a buffalo that was
going too fast and they neverstop.
(22:01):
If you get away from themthey'll stop, but if you're
trying to work them, they'rejust constantly moving and they
don't move like a cow.
So you can use them to youradvantage.
They're great for startingcolts because when you step to
one in a pen it'll move.
It's your goal to react andmove, but it's not like having a
(22:24):
bunch of good cattle.
Most amateurs have troubleworking buffalo to prepare them
for showing them.
So the flag helps.
Uh, they can learn to get theirseat when a horse stops.
Ride them through turns,because it's all repetition.
You can stop the flag at anymoment if somebody's out of
whack or needs some instruction.
(22:45):
Here and there we're in.
A cow's not going to stop, no,they're.
You've got to keep working, butcattle are still the best that
there is to work a horse andteach an amateur how to handle
like yeah, and the flag is what?
just a mechanical device thatwe've developed and there are
all different versions of it.
You got an old flag on a string.
(23:05):
Started out with cutting abicycle in half many, many years
ago and putting a cord betweenthem.
You know, run it however longyou want to run toward around
one wheel and other wheelswheel's over.
Here Somebody cranks the pedal.
That's how the flag started.
We have all sorts of mechanicaldevices based on golf cart
(23:29):
frames that will move across thepin stop and turn remote
control.
There are new ones that aremounted on tracks that have a
cow body that pivots and turnsas it flexes and moves across
the pen.
All different versions.
The more intricate they are,the more expensive they are.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
I was going to say that that one sounds expensive.
They are.
How do you control the flag atyour place?
You got a remote.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
It's a remote.
Yeah, it's all electronic.
There's a box on a wall thatyou can set the speed and you
control it with ahand-controlled thumb device.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
So if you're there by yourself, you're controlling
the flag and the horse.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Right.
Most amateurs don't want to dothat because they don't feel
comfortable trying to work theirhorse or ride their horse or
work the flag.
So I work it for them.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Gotcha.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
And I can work on any specific problem they may have
it's stopping on one side orbeing too short or not sitting
down in their stop.
You can work and work and work,because it's all the same as
any other sport.
You learn by practice andrepetition.
The more times you do it righthitting the baseball, shooting a
(24:40):
basketball it's all the samething yep but the only thing
you're doing is you're throwingthe horse variable in there and
you have to learn to feel whatyour horse is telling you
without thinking about it,because that's it, but it's
still.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
It's repetition and learning yeah, and it all
happens pretty fast.
It looks like it happenedpretty quick.
Every time I see you guys do it, I just think of there goes a
horse, I would land in the dirtit can't happen and I even have
it within my sets of cattle thatI work.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
I have certain customers that I won't allow to
work what we call a really fresh, fast cow, because they can't
ride it, they can't handle it,they probably would fall off or
get way out of balance.
So I have them work slow cowsto get their confidence up.
Learn to sit their stop, learnto kick with the right leg at
the right time.
It's all repetition, right, andthose people that are advanced,
(25:39):
advanced, that can show youknow they, uh, they'll go work
fast cow, tough cow.
Normally when you go to a showthey're going to be fairly quick
and rapid.
Or we study cattle at a show totry to decide which cows are
the best to work, which ones aregoing to be crazy and run like
(26:00):
geese balls or which ones arequiet and don't want to move
much.
When you want your amateur towork, right, but you can't show
your horse on a slow cow, right.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Checks and balances again.
Exactly yeah, let's move thatmic a little closer to you.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Oh okay.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
So one thing I've noticed is you're the same age
as my dad, right?
I'm 75 yeah, I think he's.
He was born in 47 I was born in50 okay so he's older than yeah
you just gotta make that pointclear.
But you're still in really goodshape and going strong.
Yeah, you're one of the hardestworking people we work for.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
More than a lot of people.
There are a lot of people myage and older that still show
cutting horses.
Most of them are amateurnon-pros that only do it
part-time.
There aren't too many peoplestill really active and I feel
fortunate to be active, be ableto do what I can do at my age.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Do you have any secrets?
Speaker 2 (27:02):
No, Well, I think working outside, staying
physically active, I've neverhad any major difficulties.
You know I've got arthritis andthe same problems old people
have.
But by being active physically Ithink it helps you maintain
(27:23):
that ability yeah, and that'ssame thing with horses too yeah,
exactly there's, I think it'sdr tracy turner always says that
he's our aap president motionis a lotion for equine joints
well, to a point, there are somehorses that have been used hard
enough as they got older thatthey just simply can't go
anymore, and you see some ofthose, oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
I remember Dad always talking about one of the first
A lot of it was racehorses whenhe started in the early 80s and
then it kind of transitioned tothese quarter horses, western
performance and he always tellsme one of the first rope horses
he worked on was like a17-year-old gilding and the guy
wanted to do everything he couldto keep him going and he was
(28:07):
thinking why does he want tospend money on this old horse?
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Well, I know, because I have a brother-in-law,
several family relatives thatare involved in rodeo and roping
.
They like those older horses,they're solid and consistent.
There's there are people whoare open on horses that are in
their 20s oh yeah and they, theykeep them going because they're
.
It's hard to replace them.
(28:32):
Yeah, uh, and it just seemsthat a lot of the older horses
in the roping world keep going.
Yeah, I think mainly becauseyou know, when you consider when
they go, stop once to stop acow and a cutter in a cutting
run may stop 20, 30 times ormore and it's just physically
(28:56):
more demanding, I think.
Right, it's the differenceprobably.
Yeah, but yeah, I know theropers like those old season
rope horses that are stillhalfway sound yeah, and there's.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
There's so much more that we can do to help them stay
sound than there was right.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Rainers are the worst I guess you know.
You go do a power stop and youask that horse to get on his
hocks and slide for 20 or 30feet.
It's got to be tremendouslydifficult on the joint.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Yeah, five or six years old is old for a reiner.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Right and a cutter, simply because they're doing a
lot on their own.
They'll go, run and stop andthey're controlling themselves
and they'll do it pretty hard.
But it's protective in a way,because that horse is doing it
and you're not forcing somethingon him.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Oh, that makes sense.
And well, it's just like anyother athlete, I mean, every
athlete's career has to come toan end At some point.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
We got a couple old war horses turned down at home
that have been there and donethat.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Yeah, and I've unfortunately had to make some
kids and parents cry when I tellthem that you know.
But it's true, we can only doso much and I try not to waste
anybody's money.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Well, in the cutting horse world, just go find
another horse Right.
My daughter Hannah has shownsuccessfully since she was a
little bitty kid and she's 23now.
We have managed to keep hermounted on a good, solid show
horse that she can compete on,and she's had.
She had one old gilding thatyou've worked on and helped her
(30:30):
with a lot, uh, and he made onea hundred thousand and so she
retired him.
So we had to go find heranother horse.
So it's a continuous process.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
He's earned his retirement.
I love that guy and he stillloves to cut.
Does he?
Speaker 2 (30:44):
I could put you on him right now, right out in the
arena, and he'll go cut a cow.
Oh, that'd be fun.
You probably wouldn't be withhim.
No A couple of thirds, but youknow he's an exception, but
there are some older horses outthere that are still very
competitive.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
What isn't quote unquote older horse in the
cutting pen, that's going to win17, 18.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
There's a lot of good Gildans.
We don't ever ride mares thatlong because we start breeding
them Right but there's a lot ofolder Gildans that are 17, 18
years old that are verycompetitive.
Yeah, no, no, because they goto the breeding barn right and
there's pretty hard to ever seea stud out there more than maybe
(31:28):
eight or ten years old.
It's a rarity if there's onebeyond that so do they go make
their name, and then make theirname young and then just go to
the one autumn as you can and goto the breed and then the more
money and more points andeverything the yeah, the more
money they've won, the betterrecord they have, the more mares
you points and everything.
Yeah, the more money they'vewon, the better record they have
, the more mares you're going toget to breed.
Higher the breeding fee you canask.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Right yeah.
So one thing we work on a lotof here is the team sorting.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Right.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
And that is.
Is that relatively new?
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Compared to cutting.
Yes, it's a newer type sportthat is extremely popular here.
Everywhere I go to judge even,I talk to people in the show
secretaries, the arena help,because you're not really
allowed to discuss and talk alot with the contestants when
(32:23):
you're judging.
But everybody has sortingactivity and we we're very, very
active here.
And it works well with thecutting horse program because
I've always got two or threehorses in the barn that
assorters bought that they wanttuned up a little bit, because
most of the sorting horses todaywere started as cutters and
(32:48):
maybe for one, one reason oranother weren't as good so they
didn't go on in the cuttingworld or they they had say they
aged out.
We have a lot of of shows foryoung horses, cutters at three,
four, five and six year olds.
When they turn six a lot ofpeople want another young horse
coming up so they're ready tosell that six-year-old even
(33:11):
though he's a pretty good horse,so a sorter may buy him to sort
on.
So I get a lot of those in toteach them the sorting game
because it's a little bitdifferent.
And of course recently we had alot of success from right here
in southern illinois customersof yours and clients of mine who
(33:31):
went to the world sortingfinals down in fort worth and
did fantastic.
We had two, two teams that wereworld champion teams yep, right
here in southern illinois righthere from southern illinois and
and we've had other people fromthis area who've had great
success there.
But there's a whole set ofsorting shows, just like the
(33:51):
cutting shows.
There are more of them.
It's a very, very popular sport.
A lot more people put onsorting activity.
You can go every weekend to asorting.
It's less expensive.
To give you an example, if I goshow a horse at a weekend
(34:12):
cutting, it's going to cost meminimum probably $300 to $400
entry fee to go show that horse.
Now I might have the chance towin $700 or $800 or more if it's
good class and I do my job andthe horse works good, or more if
it's a good class and I do myjob and the horse works good.
You can go to a sortingcompetition and you can sort all
day a dozen times or more,three or four different classes
for that three or four hundreddollars yeah now you're not
(34:35):
going to win as much, but youget to play and enjoy the sport
and it's a.
It's a team sport because youhave two people sorting all the
time, and now they havethree-man sorts and different
versions of that, but it'sextremely popular because it's a
little cheaper and people stillget to go work a cow on a horse
(34:56):
.
Yeah, that's what they love.
Every time we have someone comeinto the barn who wants to
learn to ride better if they canride at all the first thing I
do is put them on a horse that'strained enough to work a cow,
because they make you learn touse your legs and your balance,
and once they've worked a cow ona horse, they're hooked.
(35:17):
They just love it, whether theycan afford it or not.
They go to the sorting pen orthey go to the cutting pen, but
there's just something aboutworking another animal on a
horse that is so attractive topeople and they just love the
thrill of it.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
So is team sorting maybe the gateway drug now to
cutting?
Yes, is it?
You get kids in there like that.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
People who maybe can't afford to cut and we have
a lot of customers now who havegone from sorting to cutting.
They've bought, they may own asorting horse and still go sword
, but they've bought a cuttinghorse so they can go cut and
they just love it.
But there are a lot of peoplewho buy that sorting horse.
It's a family event.
(36:00):
They can buy one horse and thegirl, the, the daughter, the
brother, the dad, the mom canall ride to one horse in a
different class and have a lotof fun with it for a lot less
money.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Yeah, so when you do a cutting show, for instance
with one horse, how many timesare you showing that horse or
how many rides you get?
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Depends on the horse.
Our classes are based on theamount of money a horse has won.
So if you have a really goodwhat we call an open horse, say
he's won $20,000, $30,000,$40,000.
He's only open for one class,the open class.
That's it.
Now if a non-pro amateur ownsthat horse, then they could show
(36:42):
it in the open non-pro and Ican show it in the open.
If you're riding a young horsethat hasn't won much money,
there are three, four differentlevels that you could show that
horse in, and the client orowner could too.
So part of our classes arebased on money won on the horse.
The other side is for theamateurs and the non-pros.
(37:04):
They have limits.
We have a 2,000 limit riderclass, open to anybody that's
not won $2,000 in cuttingcompetition like you would be.
That would be me, and then wehave like a $15,000 amateur, so
anyone who hasn't won up to$15,000 can show in that class.
(37:24):
When you win more than that,you go out.
It goes all the way up to$50,000, $100,000 amateur and an
open non-pro which is open toanyone on any horse in a non-pro
Open the same way.
There's no limit, but it's allregulated by the money you won
(37:44):
either as a person or as acutter.
We also then have aged events.
I spend time training younghorses up to their
three-year-old year to cut.
Your new protege, jenny, ownsone that I'm training right now
to make for her.
And there are there.
You always have three-year-oldsin your training program.
(38:04):
Those horses will be shown thisfall as three-year-olds only
against other three-year-olds,so other horses are eligible.
Then we have a four-year-oldclass, so those three-year-olds
move up to the four-year-oldnext year and then it goes up to
five and six and there's amajor show coming up in Fort
(38:27):
worth called a summerspectacular.
That is for those four, fiveand six year olds to show.
Of course they throw in weekendclasses too, but it's all very
based on money, one both on therider and the horse yeah, how do
you think horses have changedsince when you started training?
to now Tremendously.
Horses are better bred, they'remore intelligent, easier to
(38:57):
train and they're more athletic.
I have horses when I firststarted that I trained that I
could go win on regularly.
That probably wouldn't win adime today because horses are
better trained and they're moreathletic in in the skill level
that they have and they'reprobably more intelligent.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Yeah, I like it when the horses come in.
You can see their wheels,wheels turning um it's.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
It's changed a lot and it's much, much tougher.
The show business now.
If you're not really doing agood job and have a well-trained
athletic horse, you might aswell stay home.
Yeah, just donate your money.
You're donating your money.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
How about the horse's toughness?
Do you think they're morefragile than they were, or the
same?
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Well, we went through a phase where we bred away from
bone and structure and we hadissues health issues, lameness
issues but we kind of got thatfixed and people realized what
was happening.
And then they started going theother way and breeding for more
substance, better bone horsesthat hold up, better.
(40:02):
It's not as bad as it was.
Yeah, they're.
You know, dad when he was wastraining, he might get a four or
five year old that might havebeen broke to ride but he'd
never been started on cattle andit was a little tougher to do
that.
And now we get them astwo-year-olds and we just bring
(40:23):
them along slowly, take our time, watch their knees and their
hocks and all stifles and allthose kind of things.
But we get more time to train.
Dad might get six months tofinish a horse to go show him.
I get a year and a half.
Yeah, it's, that is differentand you can take your time with
those young horses.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
Yeah, I think that's important.
A lot of the trouble we see isthe ones that they push way too
hard.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
And we push we probably push the cutting horses
.
We show them as three-year-oldsBarrel horse.
People don't do that.
They don't show them untilthey're four, Right, so you know
, they don't ask them to dothose hard things.
There are probably lots ofyoung cutters or horses trained
in the cutting program thatnever.
They get lame.
(41:08):
Yeah, they don't ever get to goany further, and a lot of them
you can get turned out for ayear or so and then you go back
to riding them, but it becomessword and horses right or brood
bears, yeah, exactly yeah, we'veseen.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
we've seen our fair share of those.
What's the?
If you think you've probablyowned a lot of horses, is there
a couple that stand out like youwish you still had, or the best
ones?
Speaker 2 (41:34):
Well, one of the first horses I ever trained and
talking again about somethingthat I could win on.
Years ago and we're talkingabout mid-'80s okay, a customer
brought me a little mare thatwas by Pepinita.
A lot of people in the businessthey don't even know who
Pepinita is.
Matlock Rose hauled him and wonthe world on him.
He was a great show horse and Ihad this mare trained her.
(41:59):
She was a good mare and she'sthe one probably I could go show
her today and couldn't win adime on her, simply because of
her style, but she was super cowsmart so she allowed me to show
her successfully and her owneruh, she was one of my favorite
horses because she was one of myfirst.
Uh, I've had Elaine and I owntwo studs.
(42:21):
Uh, one of them was a horse wecalled Joker, which you would
have known Joker, and then hisfull younger brother called
Haida, who was out of a hide,his little pet mare, and several
years ago I trained a smartChickalina stud for some
customers and he was a reallygood horse.
(42:41):
His name was Smart China Lena.
I showed him successfully foryears and years and a lot of our
breeding program was based onhim for several years that's the
one you guys got.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
You guys called china , right, yeah, that was the
china horse.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
And then elaine had some good young mares.
The hyda mares won and weraised several good colts that
would have been full brothersand sisters.
And the two studs, joker andhaida, were great show horses
and one of them we had one ofthem passed on.
The other one's still alive andI could go win on him.
You know you can go mark fouror five on him because he had
(43:16):
the style and the strength andhe was one of my favorite horses
because of his ability.
And, of course, china the thedad was was a great horse too.
And then there's been someother horses nothing that I've
owned recently that stand out,but I've had customer horses
(43:37):
that turned out to be reallygood that I could go win a lot
of money.
The customer some of them,would show them to, some of them
didn't care, they wanted me toshow them.
They love to go watch theirhorse show and right.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
So there, there have been several of them through the
years yeah and um, you guyshave raised a lot of babies too.
Yes, we um.
Darla Bill Womack, the worldchampion, you helped.
Yeah, that little baby.
I mean we were there the nextday and then just to watch that
thing, I mean, it's just natural.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
Yeah Well, she's out of one of those two brothers the
height of stud and uh, we, Iguess I'd have to say we haven't
ridden very many of his Coltsbecause Elaine has sold the ones
that we raised.
Uh, but uh, yeah, uh, yeah,there's, there are several of
them still coming along.
(44:28):
That'll be for me to ride oneof these days if I, if my 75
holds up for a few years, Ithink it will.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
Um, what about?
Um?
We talked about some of thetheing Everything's videoed.
Now, for better or worse, Imean, we're videoing right now
the Western I don't know how tosay this like the Western world
has become popular in the media.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
There's one show in particular, Yellowstone, which
we talked a little bit about.
I'd like to hear your thoughtson that, because you grew up in
the real Western world.
The horse world, the horseworld, versus what is being
portrayed on TV, now that a lotof people that haven't been
exposed that's their onlyexposure to it.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Well, of course rodeo right now, which is part of the
horse world, is extremelypopular because it's a spectator
event.
Cutting is a difficult event topromote to the general public
because there's a lot ofdowntime and it's a technical
(45:37):
sport.
If you don't understand whatyou're looking at, it may look
cool but you don't know how thejudge is marking that run.
It's a little difficult forpeople to grasp Rodeo.
You watch some guy kick theheck out of a good bronc and
he's going to score high, soit's easy to see Fast calf rope
and run is easy to see.
Yellowstone really helped andTaylor Sheridan has become very
(46:03):
active and involved.
Has bought a couple of ourmajor cutting horse locations in
Texas from the money he madefrom Yellowstone.
But he's promoted the Westernsport to another level.
I'm not a great fan ofYellowstone itself.
I love Kevin Costner and a lotof his movies, but there were a
(46:24):
couple of episodes ofYellowstone itself.
I love Kevin Costner and a lotof his movies, but there were a
couple of episodes ofYellowstone when I watched it in
the past that I wasn'tparticularly fond of and it kept
me from pursuing it andwatching it, like some people
just live to watch that.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
Oh yeah, all week.
Oh, Yellowstone, I think it wasSunday nights.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
Just an example One day I was traveling, we were
going to a show in Florida mywife and I I had on a shirt
T-shirt said Yellowstone on it.
Somebody got it for me Went to agas station, walked in to get a
soda and a snack and this ladyjust like to fell over because I
(47:02):
had a shirt that saidYellowstone on it and I had a
horse trailer out in the lotwith horses in it and she said,
oh, are you part of Yellowstone?
No, ma'am, I have a T-shirt.
But that's the excitement thatit generated and the Western
lifestyle.
And even one year at the BigFuturity, which is our major
event, they have a celebritynight and this thing runs for
(47:27):
three weeks.
So one night they have sportsfigures.
There are several majorfootball players who own cutting
horses and show successfully.
One night they have TVpersonalities and they had half
the Yellowstone crew there andthey mounted them on cutting
horses and let them go competeand show.
(47:49):
It was.
It was pretty cool, you know.
But and those people tried toportray and this one boy that
that one of the shows I didn'tlike, when they taped him to his
colt a colt made him try toride it forever and ever was
there competing on a cuttinghorse in a different venue.
So they've helped promote ittoo.
But, um, and Yellowstone alsopromoted the reigning industry a
(48:14):
little bit, but it's still adifferent lifestyle to get into
it in the daily basis and learnwhat it takes to compete.
But Yellowstone did promote theWestern lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
Yeah, yeah, it was super.
I've never seen a singleepisode have you watched?
You've watched a couple.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
Just a couple, several years ago, and I wasn't
impressed and I don't follow it.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
My dad was the same way.
My mom didn't know much aboutit so she bought like the whole
DVD set.
I think he watched one episodeand never touched it again.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Oh.
I have customers that justswear by it.
Yeah, they love it.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
Yeah, the that just swear by it.
Yeah, they love it.
Yeah, the only thing I knowabout it was there was an
episode where they gave a horsea shot of banamine in the muscle
and even though it says on thebottle, so all the vet clinics
were taking their opportunity touse that to educate, bash it a
little bit.
Yeah, I guess we bashed it.
So you have trained a lot ofchampions, people and horses.
(49:17):
What would you say is yourfavorite part of your job?
Speaker 2 (49:23):
Well, now used to.
I never missed a show.
If there was a show within 300or 400 miles, I was gone.
Trailer load of horses goingand showing and I've won well
over a quarter million dollarsin money in the cutting horse
industry.
There are a lot of guys who'vewon a million.
Two or three million that showwith the age of advance where
(49:45):
there's more money to be won.
When I was hauling and showinga lot, there wasn't as much
money available to win and Ididn't travel as far, but I
still went a lot.
Now I enjoy helping mycustomers.
I may go to a show and onlyshow one or two horses, but I
(50:06):
may have 10 customers there.
This happened to do corn theother day.
We have a class that a bunch ofbeginning amateurs that I
school and give lessons to.
Nine of the 11 competitors weremy customer and I get a great
thrill out of helping every oneof them try to show that horse
(50:27):
and they're all.
They all work well together.
Nobody gets mad at anybodyright and a couple of them won a
lot that weekend and they'revery supportive of each other.
So now seeing those customersgo win and coaching them through
a run is my favorite part now.
And I still love riding younghorses and training them.
(50:48):
I got a couple of pretty goodtwo-year-olds there at the barn
right now that you can tell thatthe feel and the desire and the
ability is going to be there,and then you get on that one
that doesn't have that oh well,I got to work this horse right.
The other three you lookforward to working because it's
still fun do you work those in acertain order?
Speaker 1 (51:10):
do you just?
Speaker 2 (51:13):
it kind of depends on how the help gets them ready.
Speaker 1 (51:15):
Oh gotcha, whatever one, they've got ready to work
and right now it's extremely hot.
Speaker 2 (51:20):
We have to be.
I mean, we let the cattle outby noon or before.
You cannot work horses oncattle and the horses are going
to get hot and stressed so youhave to be careful how hard you
work them.
So we start as early as we canand work the ones we need to.
You work them.
So we start as early as we canand work the ones we need to,
and then I go to the flagbecause you can work a young
(51:41):
horse on the flag, so there's nocattle involved.
You can work on the techniquestop the turn, how they handle
themselves, how they handle thebridle hit them a lick be done.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
Yeah, it's part of the program yeah, so you had the
four people I know, your wifeElaine and Wild Bill Womack won
the they won the MastersChampionship at Fort Worth in
the RS&C finals.
Yeah, and the future DrBuchanan will be joining us.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
Jenny and Tommy Perkins showed in what is an
intermediate level, because RS&Calso rates all of their riders
by number based on your successin the sorting pen.
And they sorted because youhave to advance.
You know there may be 750, 800teams in the beginning of a
(52:36):
class.
One class sing, runs foreverdown there.
They have to advance to thesecond level and at the third
level and then to the finals inorder to win.
And they did that and they,they were successful.
Also, and you know, tommy's gotthree horses elaine, my, my wife
I never won one of them for himshe coaches Jenny and her mom,
(53:01):
amy and Elaine found thosehorses for them and you know you
kind of got to know what ittakes to win, okay, and then you
got to know what kind of horseyou need and how it fits the
owner, yep.
And to have two teams in twodifferent classes go to the
world finals where there arethousands of people, be
(53:23):
successful, was great.
And then another gentleman,craig shaw, who's one of those
clients who's gone, both cuttingand sorting, sorted earlier in
the week in the uh gosh, thewestern heritage, which is just
another class in the rsncschedule, and he got two or
three checks in that division.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
So it was we did great from our part of the world
right, and those are peopleyou've helped and helped train
their horses.
So how did that feel when yougot the call or the message that
they extremely exciting.
Speaker 2 (53:54):
Yeah, it's good it's.
It's just gratifying, yeah, toknow that what you're doing with
your amateurs is working right.
We we had a lady to go alongwith that.
The very next weekend elainegets home from the world sorting
finals and her championship andwe had the weekend show at
ducoin.
One of our customers who wefound a horse for.
(54:16):
She's been showing now forprobably a couple years and she
had the best weekend she's everhad.
She showed four times in twodifferent classes.
She showed twice in the 50M andtwice in the 15M.
Won all four classes Markedgood scores.
There are variables, you know.
Drawing good, drawing up early.
There are variables, you know.
(54:37):
Drawing good drawing up early.
Where the cattle are still goodare are influences on how you
do.
But she had by far the bestweekend she'd ever had.
Speaker 1 (54:47):
So the cutting carried over from the sorting, I
guess to the successes because,uh, we got a group chat with
everybody that works here andyour daughter works here, hannah
, and when she texted thatelaine and bill won, like I was
so happy for amazing because Ihad a small part in that, just
working on their horses yeah,you keep their horses sound?
Yeah, we try and then when shemessaged that jenny and tommy
(55:10):
won, because tommy just startedsorting what three years maybe
yeah, so he's relatively newpretty new and I, uh, I texted
and jenny too.
Jenny's not really been sorting,not at a competitive level
right, she's been busy with alittle bit busy with vet school
you know, and on top of that,the lady that won at ducoin, uh,
ray williams.
Speaker 2 (55:31):
You know ray because you're working on his horses.
Ray bought a really goodgilding recently that I have
shown successfully.
But he's young andinexperienced but I can show him
well.
Ray has trouble showing thishorse and if you show, if you do
a bad job of showing a younghorse, you create problems.
(55:52):
But showing a young horse youcreate problems.
So Ray has the opportunity tobuy what he needs to win.
So we had another horse there.
That was a seasoned, finishedhorse, still good, that Ray
could show and which the onereally good horse is still in.
(56:14):
He's still in rehab right now.
Can't show him anyway.
So we got ray, this other horse, and he and he uh won three
checks over the weekend atducoin.
Ray is a new beginner at thecutting.
He's only been cutting a fewmonths and ncha has a program
where if you win over athousand000 in cutting
(56:36):
competition in the show pen, youget an achievement buckle.
Speaker 1 (56:39):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (56:41):
And there's 1,000, and there's 2,500, and there's
5,000.
We have other customers who'vewon way more than that, but Ray
won enough at Ducourne the otherday when Christina had her
great weekend.
He also got three checks andwon enough to get his
achievement buckle.
Some people ride for two yearsto try to win.
Speaker 1 (57:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (57:00):
And he did it in about two weekends.
Speaker 1 (57:03):
Yeah, he was in not long after that Was he Okay.
And I think Hannah came out andwe all congratulated him.
I was like I heard you won abuckle.
That's what they tell me.
Speaker 2 (57:13):
It's not an easy sport to learn.
I mean some people, and grantedRay has sorted enough that he's
learned how to handle cattlebetter.
He's not a great rider.
You know.
Speaker 1 (57:26):
He makes mistakes riding and showing his horse,
not sitting his stop when heshould or kicking too quick, but
this horse takes great care ofhim, yeah, and goes ahead and
gets him through the run when hemakes little mistakes and
that's allowed him to win yeah,I love those horses that do that
like we um sponsored some youthrodeo kids and they're all most
(57:47):
of them are riding prettyseasoned horses and I asked them
all, like you know, they taughtyou a lot, and they all just
say their horse has taught themso, so much, which I mean.
When I grew up, team roping itwas the same thing we've got on
horses that knew the job and tobuild the confidence what's the
best way to learn?
Speaker 2 (58:05):
yeah, you can't learn on a young horse that doesn't
know if you don't know.
So when we have a new customercome in, we don't put them on
some green coal, we put them onan old, season finished horse
that knows what to do, and thenthey learn a lot from people.
Speaker 1 (58:23):
Yeah, is there some riders that you've seen or
helped coach that are just maybea natural talent?
Speaker 2 (58:30):
Oh, yes, yeah, I've had people that I simply
couldn't help well enough tomake them a winner.
They didn't ride well enough,their mental attitude wasn't
proper.
They get frustrated or they gethyper or they lose focus, and
no matter how long you teach andwork with them, they just can't
(58:53):
get it.
And then you have those thatlearn very rapidly and, like Ray
, was extremely successful andhe's only been cutting a few
months and now he's got anachievement buckle.
I've got customers who've triedfor two years to win enough
money to get an achievementbuckle and they can't hardly win
a dime, so just the way it goes.
(59:13):
Now, one thing I will add aboutthe high school rodeo kids, when
we were helping a lot of themall they'd ever done was calf
rope, team rope, barrel, race,go, tide, go, go go.
They didn't learn a lot of goodhorsemanship skills, and all of
(59:34):
their parents said when theystarted learning how to sit and
ride a cutter, nearly everyparent said my kids are really
learning how to use their legsand their balances better.
They're better horsemen.
Yeah, so they they learn fromthat yeah, it all kind of ties
together and we still get that.
(59:56):
We get somebody that that comeswants to learn how to ride
better.
Uh, that's, the best way to doit is go get on a horse and
handle cattle yeah, I textedtommy after he won.
Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
You know, I think I said a text like you know hey,
congrats world champ.
And he was like man, this Ican't believe it.
Like I think I'm gonna wake upfrom this dream.
And I just texted him back.
Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
I said tell me you got good horses and you've
worked your ass off at it.
Yeah, he's there to practiceall the time.
Yeah, you got to give himcredit.
He and Jenny and Amy, all thosepeople are there.
Well, craig was there today.
Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
You know they come and practice, they get.
Who was there today?
Yep, you know they come,practice they get to work cattle
.
But I can tell over the yearsof experience helping all these
people what little thing they'redoing wrong to help them be
better, be more successful.
Speaker 1 (01:00:47):
It just shows up almost immediately yeah, and
it's the, I guess the old sayingpractice makes perfect to a
point but it also the uh.
The other thing is practicemakes permanent.
So if somebody's going out andpracticing, if there's not
somebody there telling them,like you know, you need to tweak
this or that, exactly those badhabits they don't realize
(01:01:09):
they're making these littlemistakes.
Speaker 2 (01:01:12):
a lot of people are one hand dominant.
They ride better with one handthan another and it shows up
almost immediately when they goto work a cow and their horse
and if you haven't been to alesson in a while, you can get
your hand.
One hand's down here and one'swhere it needs to be.
Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
And they don't realize they're making these
little mistakes and as soon asyou point it out and oh yeah,
okay, now I remember, and thenthey go do great yeah, it's just
like some of the I don't wantto say bad horse shooers, but
some of the shooing we see comein here and then the people will
tell us oh, so-and-so has beenshooing for 30 years.
(01:01:53):
They're the best.
I.
I in my head I combat with uh,I've been playing guitar for 20
years.
I'm still terrible at it becausenobody taught me properly right
yeah, so the that's thepractice makes permanent thing
for me well and you knowpleasure horses, rainer, barrel
(01:02:15):
racers.
Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
You're dealing with you and your horse and when you
throw that cattle variable inthere you've got to practice a
little to understand how to readwhat that cow's telling you as
they move around the pen andthen apply it and also do your
horsemanship skills right sothat you can handle that cow on
(01:02:39):
a horse that's trained to do itright.
Tommy, you mentioned tommy.
Tommy comes and I pick at himconstantly when he's there.
Practicing makes him do betteryep and then he'll go have some
success and he comes back andyeah, tommy, you're screwing up
here and there.
Speaker 1 (01:02:53):
Just get this right yeah, but that that's how you
learn.
I mean, even Tiger Woods has agolf coach, Exactly Like.
I mean, it's just you got toput in the work and you got to
have a nice horse these days.
Speaker 2 (01:03:04):
Well, true, and it gets more expensive the further
you go and the further we getinto it.
Speaker 1 (01:03:09):
Right.
Speaker 2 (01:03:16):
You know I used to buy a good sorting horse for ten
, twelve thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (01:03:19):
I thought that was fantastic.
Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
Now you better look at 25 or 30 right they even
start.
Speaker 1 (01:03:22):
Yeah, yeah, plus.
I mean that's the cheapest partof owning a horse.
Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
Is buying it probably right exactly, but beat bills
and vet bills, get the rest ofit yeah, and entry fees yeah,
yeah but it's.
It's very gratifying.
When it works right and youhave that good run, you can win.
It doesn't matter if you win$10 or $1,000 or $100,000.
It's still a win and you stilldid things right, right.
Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
Yeah, that's the fun thing about this whole.
And even in the vet side, likejust when I see the horses that
we've helped go on to win, likeit makes me feel so good that
we've given them the best chance, I would agree.
Speaker 2 (01:04:00):
We've got to have you guys.
Speaker 1 (01:04:02):
For necessary evil.
Well, Rick, I think that'sgoing to wrap it up.
Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
All right, well, I've certainly enjoyed our
conversation, yeah thank you somuch.
Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
I know you're a very busy man with all those cows and
training people and horses andI I really appreciate you
sitting down to to talk and it'sit's really hot outside, so
it's it's nice to be sitting inhere this afternoon instead of
trying to work a horse right, soall right.
Thanks again, rick, and forthose of you that tuned in, uh,
take care of your horses andyourself, and we'll see you next
(01:04:39):
time.
Speaker 2 (01:04:41):
Bring your little black bag with the medicines and
bring the trank and the crankand the pen.
All right, rick Jackson, thank you for taking
the time to come and talk to us.
This is probably the fifth orsixth time I've seen you off a
horse in the past 12 years.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Okay, yeah, it's not often During the day, at least.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Yeah, you can move that mic a little closer if you
want.
So you are cutting horsetrainer.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Well, let's call it horse trainer.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Horse trainer.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Specializing in cutting horse.
Okay, I like that Cow horses.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
All right, put that in the notes, john, and you've
been pretty much your whole lifeexposed to this right.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yes, I grew up in the business.
Dad was a horse trainer and hemade me go to college, got a
master's degree in education, inagricultural education, taught
(00:57):
school for five years and gotthe opportunity to come home.
He was getting older, needingto slow, way down and quit, and
I took over the business back inthe early 80s and I've never
looked back, never regretted it.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yeah, where did you teach it?
Right here at eldorado and agteacher and ag class school ag
teacher in el trino did you likethat or not?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
I did um, the, the rural students, farm students,
which you get.
Most of it's an electiveprogram.
We're better than teaching justrun-of-the-mill English math.
Probably wouldn't have been ateacher if I had to teach that
(01:38):
stuff, but the ag students werevery good.
I just could not see myself asa career school teacher.
I got the opportunity to gohome.
I jumped at it, took it, neverlooked back but it's been a
great asset to me in teachingboth horses and people because I
(01:59):
have a lot of amateur ridersthat come and get lessons and
learn how to ride better andlearn how to handle cattle on
horses.
So I think I'm a bettereducator and communicator
because of teaching background.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yeah, and how many years did you say you taught?
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Just five.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Five, and that was all in El Dorado.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
All in El Dorado.
Well, I was in the extensionservice Illinois Co-op Extension
Service for about a year and ahalf Okay, Running a 4-H and
youth program up in FranklinCounty in Benton for a short
time.
But they got the chance to cometo El Dorado to take over the
teaching job and took it and andwent home and started training
(02:47):
horses and people yeah, were youstill riding during those
teaching days?
yeah, yeah, would go home, uh,help dad of an afternoon still
showing a little not nearly asmuch as we do now, but yeah,
I've never not been involvedwith riding and working horses
yeah, and then you also rodebulls uh, yeah for a while yeah,
(03:10):
was that in high school orafterwards?
no, that was actually afterwards.
I guess it started when I wasin a freshman.
In high school dad put me on abig old steer, you know he put
it.
We tied a rope on him andanchored him where I could get
on him and I tried it.
Dad used to rodeo a little bit.
He rode saddle broncs a littlebit and roped, but not a lot,
(03:34):
just a little.
He was too busy to follow therodeo trail but I wanted to try
it so he helped me and then forseveral years I didn't really
pursue it until I got intocollege and late in my college
life I ran into a young fellahere from here in southern
Illinois, rick Murphy.
(03:55):
That was already riding bullssome and he and I got together
and I started traveling withRick and we rodeoed all over the
Midwest.
I didn't travel a lot and wedidn't do like the PRCA or the
bull riding programs that theyhave today.
We did a lot of open rodeostuff and the IPRA, which is
(04:19):
more centralized here in theMidwest.
So we traveled quite frequentlyrodeoing on weekends.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Was there more rodeos back then than there is now?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yes, In the Midwest area there were.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
And more bull riders.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
No, there's plenty of bull riders around today.
The high school program hascreated the interest in rodeo,
created the interest in rodeoand we still work with a lot of
the high school kids who want toget better and get more points
(04:56):
in all around, so they want tolearn how to ride and show a
cutting horse, which keeps me incontact with kids that are bull
riders, barrel racers, goattires.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
In order to get more all-around points for all-around
titles, they can show a cuttinghorse.
So they want lessons and leasea horse and go show in that
level and some of the kids haveactually bought horses to go
compete.
One young lady in fact she'scoming to the barn tomorrow
bought a good show, mare cuttingmare made it to the national
(05:33):
finals and she's coming for apractice session before she goes
to the national final.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Where's the national finals this year?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
This year it's in Rock Springs, Wyoming.
Okay, it usually switches fromRock Springs to Gillette.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
That's what I was thinking, gillette, yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
They go there, they switch off, but this year it'll
be in Rock Springs.
In fact, several years ago Ihad a fairly large group of high
school students who wereinvolved with the cutting and
the extra points and we tookfive high school kids with
horses to Rock Springs to showin a cutting competition.
Uh, they weren't great.
(06:10):
I mean, you get out there andyou run into the top young
people from Texas and Oklahoma,california, that ride and show
cutters all the time.
Like my daughter, hannah grewup riding and showing cutters so
we had one girl make the finals.
(06:30):
The rest of them weren't goodenough to make the finals, but
we were there.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Yeah, that's exciting .
Let's talk about your dad for aminute, because he's a pretty
well-known name in the cuttinghorse industry, correct?
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Right, well, both Aqha and cutting.
Because when I was growing upyou didn't have all these
segmented programs.
You didn't have the ncha andthe uh rain and horse
association, the nrha, uh, thebarrel racing associations.
Everything you did was at aquarter horse show.
(07:05):
You showed cutters, you showedyour reiners, your pleasure,
horses, alder everything was atan aqha show.
I couldn't remember when I wasstill young we would go to do
coin to a quarter horse show inorder to show cutters and it was
late at night, early morningsometimes because the cutting
(07:26):
was always last.
But now it's become specialized.
So now most people you don'teven have cutting in a quarter
horse show anymore, although youdo still have the junior and
senior world championships withAQHA out in Oklahoma.
But things are much morespecialized than they used to be
.
So when I was young, growing up, dad would we'd load up and
(07:48):
take a load of horses and showin halter and pleasure reining
and cutting, and I'd help Dad inthe cutting pen because he
didn't want to show anythingelse but cutting horses.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
That was his passion.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
That was his passion.
I showed reiners, westernwestern pleasure horses and then
became specialized as program,became more specialized, right,
but dad judged a lot.
That's where I got my desire, Iguess, or the influence, to go
judge.
He judged more quarter horseshows than anybody in the
(08:20):
country for two, three years andas a cutting horse he judged
the major fraternities, wentoverseas and judged in foreign
countries as a cutting horsejudge so very well respected,
well known, when he was stillactive, and he took me to my
(08:42):
first judging seminar that NCHAput on back in the 80s and I got
my judge's card and I've judgeda lot ever since too.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
How do you become a judge?
Is there somebody?
Is it like a test?
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yes, you have.
Well, in NCHA and I don't knowabout the other associations,
but in NCHA you have to haveshown as a competitor and won a
certain amount of money beforeyou're even considered a judge
applicant so that you can provethat, yes, I know how to ride
and show a horse and I knowwhat's involved in the arena.
(09:18):
And then you go to a judgingseminar which is sponsored by
the National Association, ncaj,and we have a director of judges
who's in charge of thoseprograms.
He oversees the whole judgingprogram.
He puts on the clinics.
You have to watch video, youhave to pass judging tests,
(09:43):
study rule book and, you know,achieve a certain score on a
judging application testing andall that in order to be become a
judge.
Then we're rated.
The beginners are one a's thatjust start and have only judged
a few shows.
And as you advance and provethat you can judge, you move up
(10:06):
in rating.
So you go from 1a to 2a to 3ato 4a and right now 4a are.
You can't really call them theelite group because there are
several of us, but we're thepeople who have judged enough to
have certain number of creditsand do a lot of shows and prove
that you can judge.
I'm a 4A and they intend toeven take it on up to a 5A at
(10:32):
some point in the next year ortwo, but right now the bulk of
the judges are 3A and 4A.
Now if you get in trouble, do abad job, get written up by
contestants, you can be droppedin a rating and then you have to
judge several shows to get back.
But it's a very and all showsare videoed.
(10:52):
Every ncha show that's approvedis videoed and that gives the
contestant and the judgesomething to look at if there's
a question, and then it goes tothe national office and they
look at it, decide whether youscrewed up or not, and if you do
good, you keep going that's howyou get in trouble, if you
(11:15):
right if, if you miss calls, uh,you don't do a good job, or say
you used to judging was wellyou placed your.
You know, in any associationwhen it's starting out, you have
top trainers who compete witheach other.
You may have some guy who gavehis buddy the win to get the
(11:39):
money when he didn't deserve.
It Used to happen, along with alot of other things about rules
and regulations that we havenow.
But this new monitor systemthat they call it, everything's
videoed and if a contestantdoesn't agree or think a judge
did a good job, he writes him up, sends in a request for the
(12:00):
national office to look at itand then they make the decision
whether he did it cost money todo that.
So if a guy's just mad aboutthe way the judge placed him and
he wants to spend the moneybecause the cuttings is kind of
a rich man's game, so to speak,a few hundred dollars to protest
(12:22):
a show is not much to somebody.
That's a millionaire, right.
But if the national officeupholds protests and the judge
gets penalized.
If they don't, if they say,well, this guy didn't do a bad
job, he didn't miss that youthought he did, or he placed
(12:42):
them about, right, that guyloses his, his money, and you go
on.
So there's a check and balancesystem right in ncha to make it
fair, and it really has yeah youcan't judge you, you can't give
your buddy anything, and youbetter be on your toes and not
go to sleep sitting up there andmiss something if you want to
(13:05):
do that.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
You got to go in congress, right they'll nail.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah, they'll nail you for it.
But anyway, I got a lot of mymy early experience from dad and
then of course he retired andquit, but he judged a lot and
I've judged a lot.
I've been overseas myself,right I.
I've been overseas myself,right.
I've been to Brazil a couple oftimes judged national shows
(13:28):
down there.
I go to Canada almost everyyear once or twice to judge up
there.
I enjoy it.
I like going to different partsof the country to see people
and horses that you don'tnormally get to see.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Yeah, who was riding in Brazil?
Was it Brazilians?
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Yeah, it was Brazilians.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
I've heard they can ride.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Well, there are a lot of Australian and Brazilian
people who come up here and staybecause there's more money, but
they have family, brothers,relatives in Brazil that maybe
came up here and learned thebusiness and went back to Brazil
(14:11):
.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
When I judged a big age event in Brazil a couple
years ago in the spring, therewere relatives of people that I
knew from up here that stayed uphere and showed.
So it's tough, it's as gooddown there as it is up here.
There just isn't as much of itI got you and the money is not
as yeah, it's um.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
What does a big show pay like if you win, for
instance?
Speaker 2 (14:37):
well, if you go to the big faturity which is our
elite program, there's like amillion and a half added money
and you'll have six to eighthundred horses enter that
maturity which runs for aboutthree weeks.
The winner of the of the openfuturity can win 230 to 40 000,
(14:59):
but that's the exception right.
A weekend show, uh, at ducoinor shelbyville or or wherever
you go in the midwest, it'sbased on the amount of added
money there might be in thatshow and how many horses in a
class you can win anywhere from500 to thousand dollars in one
weekend class, if it's a fairlybig class.
(15:21):
now we pay on average we pay onefor three.
So if there's nine horses it'llpay three monies.
So three of them are going towin money.
The other six have paid a $300to $400 entry fee and come up
with nothing.
So that's why it's expensiveand horses are not cheap.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
No, no, which I?
Know you work on most of them,right yeah and um, I do want to
talk to you about your barn thatyou train out of um, there's
probably not another one like itin the country not, not that we
know of.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Every time we my wife or I do a video of a horse or
of a exhibition, everybody knowsimmediately where it's from,
because there's not anotherstructure like it, right, dad?
Dad built that barn.
He wanted to be able to ridefull-time and train, so he built
that in 1958 wow is the age ofthat barn and it's a unique
(16:21):
structure.
It's an old Quonset style, uh,and there are a lot of those
around, but not of the size andscope that this one is Right.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
And did he build all the rafters and everything?
Speaker 2 (16:30):
He and a crew built them right there Wow is it the
first indoor in the state?
Well, right here in this areain this area there there were a
couple of smaller barns thatwere done like square post bills
now okay but they weren't verybig.
You know they might be, excuseme, 40 or 50 feet wide and 70 or
(16:55):
80 feet long.
Gotcha and ours is 70 by 100,the actual working area, and
then there's cattle pens on theback side.
So it was the only way dadcould figure out to get the
width and the size that heneeded, and back then it was a
pretty big barn.
We used to have a lot of littleshows in the spring, in the
late fall, when you couldn'tride outside.
(17:15):
Now it's pretty small.
I wish it were much bigger, butI can still do everything I
need to do.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Right, it's unique yeah, how tall is it?
It's about 40 feet, yeah it's,it's impressive yeah so, um,
when you took over the businessside?
Speaker 2 (17:37):
because recently I took over this business right I
went because your dad used towork for my dad.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Yep heard lots of stories about your dad, but one
thing that's eye-opening to meis the whole business side of it
.
Like if being a vet full-timeis busy enough, but then you got
to manage the people, managethe payroll, manage the bills,
manage the taxes.
Everything was that.
Did school prepare you for allthat with the ag business degree
(18:06):
or well, it helped.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
But you learn so much from your parents, from you
learn from your dad.
I learned from my dad, uh, andthen you.
A lot of it is trial and errorand Dad always told me you know,
you work hard, you do the bestjob you can and don't slight
your work effort on your horsesand respect your customers.
(18:34):
And that's worked through theyears and that's worked through
the years.
Dad was not the greatest peopleperson when it came to coaching
someone.
He could train a horse to doanything.
He was great at it and hetaught me a lot.
(18:54):
But I've seen people confusedbecause Dad didn't understand
why they couldn't understandwhat he told them to do to get a
horse to perform like it neededto and that's where I credit my
ag teaching didn't understandwhy they couldn't understand
what he told them to do Right Toget a horse to perform like it
needed to and that's where Icredit my ag teaching background
and the whole teachingexperience.
I can relate and convey whatI'm trying to get across, maybe
better than he could, so thatmade a difference.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Right.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Yeah, you just learn by doing it.
You know, and I do the samething I've got.
Mine is is more feed, I've gotto have enough hay and grain and
enough labor to maintain thebusiness and you got to have a
little help, have some ridinghelp, because you can't ride
(19:39):
them all.
We've expanded that.
When dad started, when he builtthe arena, he had 11 stall barn
.
That was all he had.
And then late in his life hewanted to expand a little bit
and when I was getting ready tocome home we built a big outdoor
arena.
We added more stalls and we got35 stalls now and that's still
(20:04):
not enough.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
We have weekends you've got a waiting list, don't
you?
Speaker 2 (20:07):
oh, we've always got a waiting list.
Yeah, we, we haven't even gotthrough all the two-year-olds
yet for this year that are onthe list.
But uh, we just just work at itas many as you can we ride on
average uh, 20 to 25 horses aday, and because we have a
certain number of older, what wecall weekend warriors that are
(20:30):
trained horses that only need tokeep exercised and work once or
twice a week to have them readyto show.
Now, like we had a show atDuquoin two weeks ago, right
before that show I had six headof weekend horses come in to be
tuned up.
The people came with them,hooked up their trailers, stayed
(20:54):
overnight, stayed two or threedays to get in the practice,
because I have a good cattlesupply so they get the
opportunity to work cattle.
So it'll it'll fluctuate, right, but you always need more
stalls than you've got.
But you just you learn overtime and experience how much
feed you're going to need, howmuch you got ahead of time, uh,
(21:15):
how many cattle you need.
I keep on average, 100 head ofcattle there all the time and
that usually works adequately tohave cattle, because some guys
don't even use cattle.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Some guys work the flag, some guys work buffalo
I've heard of that is thatbecause they're, they're well
last longer yeah, uh, you canwork 10 horses on one buffalo.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
The problem and that buffalo will get hot and he's
still going to hang out.
But you let him stand a coupleminutes and go work him again.
But they're not like cattle inthat they're faster, for one
thing, and I myself can rememberruining a couple of pretty good
young horses trying to makethem work a buffalo that was
going too fast and they neverstop.
(22:01):
If you get away from themthey'll stop, but if you're
trying to work them, they'rejust constantly moving and they
don't move like a cow.
So you can use them to youradvantage.
They're great for startingcolts because when you step to
one in a pen it'll move.
It's your goal to react andmove, but it's not like having a
(22:24):
bunch of good cattle.
Most amateurs have troubleworking buffalo to prepare them
for showing them.
So the flag helps.
Uh, they can learn to get theirseat when a horse stops.
Ride them through turns,because it's all repetition.
You can stop the flag at anymoment if somebody's out of
whack or needs some instruction.
(22:45):
Here and there we're in.
A cow's not going to stop, no,they're.
You've got to keep working, butcattle are still the best that
there is to work a horse andteach an amateur how to handle
like yeah, and the flag is what?
just a mechanical device thatwe've developed and there are
all different versions of it.
You got an old flag on a string.
(23:05):
Started out with cutting abicycle in half many, many years
ago and putting a cord betweenthem.
You know, run it however longyou want to run toward around
one wheel and other wheelswheel's over.
Here Somebody cranks the pedal.
That's how the flag started.
We have all sorts of mechanicaldevices based on golf cart
(23:29):
frames that will move across thepin stop and turn remote
control.
There are new ones that aremounted on tracks that have a
cow body that pivots and turnsas it flexes and moves across
the pen.
All different versions.
The more intricate they are,the more expensive they are.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
I was going to say that that one sounds expensive.
They are.
How do you control the flag atyour place?
You got a remote.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
It's a remote.
Yeah, it's all electronic.
There's a box on a wall thatyou can set the speed and you
control it with ahand-controlled thumb device.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
So if you're there by yourself, you're controlling
the flag and the horse.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Right.
Most amateurs don't want to dothat because they don't feel
comfortable trying to work theirhorse or ride their horse or
work the flag.
So I work it for them.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Gotcha.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
And I can work on any specific problem they may have
it's stopping on one side orbeing too short or not sitting
down in their stop.
You can work and work and work,because it's all the same as
any other sport.
You learn by practice andrepetition.
The more times you do it righthitting the baseball, shooting a
(24:40):
basketball it's all the samething yep but the only thing
you're doing is you're throwingthe horse variable in there and
you have to learn to feel whatyour horse is telling you
without thinking about it,because that's it, but it's
still.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
It's repetition and learning yeah, and it all
happens pretty fast.
It looks like it happenedpretty quick.
Every time I see you guys do it, I just think of there goes a
horse, I would land in the dirtit can't happen and I even have
it within my sets of cattle thatI work.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
I have certain customers that I won't allow to
work what we call a really fresh, fast cow, because they can't
ride it, they can't handle it,they probably would fall off or
get way out of balance.
So I have them work slow cowsto get their confidence up.
Learn to sit their stop, learnto kick with the right leg at
the right time.
It's all repetition, right, andthose people that are advanced,
(25:39):
advanced, that can show youknow they, uh, they'll go work
fast cow, tough cow.
Normally when you go to a showthey're going to be fairly quick
and rapid.
Or we study cattle at a show totry to decide which cows are
the best to work, which ones aregoing to be crazy and run like
(26:00):
geese balls or which ones arequiet and don't want to move
much.
When you want your amateur towork, right, but you can't show
your horse on a slow cow, right.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Checks and balances again.
Exactly yeah, let's move thatmic a little closer to you.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Oh okay.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
So one thing I've noticed is you're the same age
as my dad, right?
I'm 75 yeah, I think he's.
He was born in 47 I was born in50 okay so he's older than yeah
you just gotta make that pointclear.
But you're still in really goodshape and going strong.
Yeah, you're one of the hardestworking people we work for.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
More than a lot of people.
There are a lot of people myage and older that still show
cutting horses.
Most of them are amateurnon-pros that only do it
part-time.
There aren't too many peoplestill really active and I feel
fortunate to be active, be ableto do what I can do at my age.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Do you have any secrets?
Speaker 2 (27:02):
No, Well, I think working outside, staying
physically active, I've neverhad any major difficulties.
You know I've got arthritis andthe same problems old people
have.
But by being active physically Ithink it helps you maintain
(27:23):
that ability yeah, and that'ssame thing with horses too yeah,
exactly there's, I think it'sdr tracy turner always says that
he's our aap president motionis a lotion for equine joints
well, to a point, there are somehorses that have been used hard
enough as they got older thatthey just simply can't go
anymore, and you see some ofthose, oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
I remember Dad always talking about one of the first
A lot of it was racehorses whenhe started in the early 80s and
then it kind of transitioned tothese quarter horses, western
performance and he always tellsme one of the first rope horses
he worked on was like a17-year-old gilding and the guy
wanted to do everything he couldto keep him going and he was
(28:07):
thinking why does he want tospend money on this old horse?
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Well, I know, because I have a brother-in-law,
several family relatives thatare involved in rodeo and roping
.
They like those older horses,they're solid and consistent.
There's there are people whoare open on horses that are in
their 20s oh yeah and they, theykeep them going because they're
.
It's hard to replace them.
(28:32):
Yeah, uh, and it just seemsthat a lot of the older horses
in the roping world keep going.
Yeah, I think mainly becauseyou know, when you consider when
they go, stop once to stop acow and a cutter in a cutting
run may stop 20, 30 times ormore and it's just physically
(28:56):
more demanding, I think.
Right, it's the differenceprobably.
Yeah, but yeah, I know theropers like those old season
rope horses that are stillhalfway sound yeah, and there's.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
There's so much more that we can do to help them stay
sound than there was right.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Rainers are the worst I guess you know.
You go do a power stop and youask that horse to get on his
hocks and slide for 20 or 30feet.
It's got to be tremendouslydifficult on the joint.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Yeah, five or six years old is old for a reiner.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Right and a cutter, simply because they're doing a
lot on their own.
They'll go, run and stop andthey're controlling themselves
and they'll do it pretty hard.
But it's protective in a way,because that horse is doing it
and you're not forcing somethingon him.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Oh, that makes sense.
And well, it's just like anyother athlete, I mean, every
athlete's career has to come toan end At some point.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
We got a couple old war horses turned down at home
that have been there and donethat.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Yeah, and I've unfortunately had to make some
kids and parents cry when I tellthem that you know.
But it's true, we can only doso much and I try not to waste
anybody's money.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Well, in the cutting horse world, just go find
another horse Right.
My daughter Hannah has shownsuccessfully since she was a
little bitty kid and she's 23now.
We have managed to keep hermounted on a good, solid show
horse that she can compete on,and she's had.
She had one old gilding thatyou've worked on and helped her
(30:30):
with a lot, uh, and he made onea hundred thousand and so she
retired him.
So we had to go find heranother horse.
So it's a continuous process.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
He's earned his retirement.
I love that guy and he stillloves to cut.
Does he?
Speaker 2 (30:44):
I could put you on him right now, right out in the
arena, and he'll go cut a cow.
Oh, that'd be fun.
You probably wouldn't be withhim.
No A couple of thirds, but youknow he's an exception, but
there are some older horses outthere that are still very
competitive.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
What isn't quote unquote older horse in the
cutting pen, that's going to win17, 18.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
There's a lot of good Gildans.
We don't ever ride mares thatlong because we start breeding
them Right but there's a lot ofolder Gildans that are 17, 18
years old that are verycompetitive.
Yeah, no, no, because they goto the breeding barn right and
there's pretty hard to ever seea stud out there more than maybe
(31:28):
eight or ten years old.
It's a rarity if there's onebeyond that so do they go make
their name, and then make theirname young and then just go to
the one autumn as you can and goto the breed and then the more
money and more points andeverything the yeah, the more
money they've won, the betterrecord they have, the more mares
you points and everything.
Yeah, the more money they'vewon, the better record they have
, the more mares you're going toget to breed.
Higher the breeding fee you canask.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Right yeah.
So one thing we work on a lotof here is the team sorting.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Right.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
And that is.
Is that relatively new?
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Compared to cutting.
Yes, it's a newer type sportthat is extremely popular here.
Everywhere I go to judge even,I talk to people in the show
secretaries, the arena help,because you're not really
allowed to discuss and talk alot with the contestants when
(32:23):
you're judging.
But everybody has sortingactivity and we we're very, very
active here.
And it works well with thecutting horse program because
I've always got two or threehorses in the barn that
assorters bought that they wanttuned up a little bit, because
most of the sorting horses todaywere started as cutters and
(32:48):
maybe for one, one reason oranother weren't as good so they
didn't go on in the cuttingworld or they they had say they
aged out.
We have a lot of of shows foryoung horses, cutters at three,
four, five and six year olds.
When they turn six a lot ofpeople want another young horse
coming up so they're ready tosell that six-year-old even
(33:11):
though he's a pretty good horse,so a sorter may buy him to sort
on.
So I get a lot of those in toteach them the sorting game
because it's a little bitdifferent.
And of course recently we had alot of success from right here
in southern illinois customersof yours and clients of mine who
(33:31):
went to the world sortingfinals down in fort worth and
did fantastic.
We had two, two teams that wereworld champion teams yep, right
here in southern illinois righthere from southern illinois and
and we've had other people fromthis area who've had great
success there.
But there's a whole set ofsorting shows, just like the
(33:51):
cutting shows.
There are more of them.
It's a very, very popular sport.
A lot more people put onsorting activity.
You can go every weekend to asorting.
It's less expensive.
To give you an example, if I goshow a horse at a weekend
(34:12):
cutting, it's going to cost meminimum probably $300 to $400
entry fee to go show that horse.
Now I might have the chance towin $700 or $800 or more if it's
good class and I do my job andthe horse works good, or more if
it's a good class and I do myjob and the horse works good.
You can go to a sortingcompetition and you can sort all
day a dozen times or more,three or four different classes
for that three or four hundreddollars yeah now you're not
(34:35):
going to win as much, but youget to play and enjoy the sport
and it's a.
It's a team sport because youhave two people sorting all the
time, and now they havethree-man sorts and different
versions of that, but it'sextremely popular because it's a
little cheaper and people stillget to go work a cow on a horse
(34:56):
.
Yeah, that's what they love.
Every time we have someone comeinto the barn who wants to
learn to ride better if they canride at all the first thing I
do is put them on a horse that'strained enough to work a cow,
because they make you learn touse your legs and your balance,
and once they've worked a cow ona horse, they're hooked.
(35:17):
They just love it, whether theycan afford it or not.
They go to the sorting pen orthey go to the cutting pen, but
there's just something aboutworking another animal on a
horse that is so attractive topeople and they just love the
thrill of it.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
So is team sorting maybe the gateway drug now to
cutting?
Yes, is it?
You get kids in there like that.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
People who maybe can't afford to cut and we have
a lot of customers now who havegone from sorting to cutting.
They've bought, they may own asorting horse and still go sword
, but they've bought a cuttinghorse so they can go cut and
they just love it.
But there are a lot of peoplewho buy that sorting horse.
It's a family event.
(36:00):
They can buy one horse and thegirl, the, the daughter, the
brother, the dad, the mom canall ride to one horse in a
different class and have a lotof fun with it for a lot less
money.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Yeah, so when you do a cutting show, for instance
with one horse, how many timesare you showing that horse or
how many rides you get?
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Depends on the horse.
Our classes are based on theamount of money a horse has won.
So if you have a really goodwhat we call an open horse, say
he's won $20,000, $30,000,$40,000.
He's only open for one class,the open class.
That's it.
Now if a non-pro amateur ownsthat horse, then they could show
(36:42):
it in the open non-pro and Ican show it in the open.
If you're riding a young horsethat hasn't won much money,
there are three, four differentlevels that you could show that
horse in, and the client orowner could too.
So part of our classes arebased on money won on the horse.
The other side is for theamateurs and the non-pros.
(37:04):
They have limits.
We have a 2,000 limit riderclass, open to anybody that's
not won $2,000 in cuttingcompetition like you would be.
That would be me, and then wehave like a $15,000 amateur, so
anyone who hasn't won up to$15,000 can show in that class.
(37:24):
When you win more than that,you go out.
It goes all the way up to$50,000, $100,000 amateur and an
open non-pro which is open toanyone on any horse in a non-pro
Open the same way.
There's no limit, but it's allregulated by the money you won
(37:44):
either as a person or as acutter.
We also then have aged events.
I spend time training younghorses up to their
three-year-old year to cut.
Your new protege, jenny, ownsone that I'm training right now
to make for her.
And there are there.
You always have three-year-oldsin your training program.
(38:04):
Those horses will be shown thisfall as three-year-olds only
against other three-year-olds,so other horses are eligible.
Then we have a four-year-oldclass, so those three-year-olds
move up to the four-year-oldnext year and then it goes up to
five and six and there's amajor show coming up in Fort
(38:27):
worth called a summerspectacular.
That is for those four, fiveand six year olds to show.
Of course they throw in weekendclasses too, but it's all very
based on money, one both on therider and the horse yeah, how do
you think horses have changedsince when you started training?
to now Tremendously.
Horses are better bred, they'remore intelligent, easier to
(38:57):
train and they're more athletic.
I have horses when I firststarted that I trained that I
could go win on regularly.
That probably wouldn't win adime today because horses are
better trained and they're moreathletic in in the skill level
that they have and they'reprobably more intelligent.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Yeah, I like it when the horses come in.
You can see their wheels,wheels turning um it's.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
It's changed a lot and it's much, much tougher.
The show business now.
If you're not really doing agood job and have a well-trained
athletic horse, you might aswell stay home.
Yeah, just donate your money.
You're donating your money.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
How about the horse's toughness?
Do you think they're morefragile than they were, or the
same?
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Well, we went through a phase where we bred away from
bone and structure and we hadissues health issues, lameness
issues but we kind of got thatfixed and people realized what
was happening.
And then they started going theother way and breeding for more
substance, better bone horsesthat hold up, better.
(40:02):
It's not as bad as it was.
Yeah, they're.
You know, dad when he was wastraining, he might get a four or
five year old that might havebeen broke to ride but he'd
never been started on cattle andit was a little tougher to do
that.
And now we get them astwo-year-olds and we just bring
(40:23):
them along slowly, take our time, watch their knees and their
hocks and all stifles and allthose kind of things.
But we get more time to train.
Dad might get six months tofinish a horse to go show him.
I get a year and a half.
Yeah, it's, that is differentand you can take your time with
those young horses.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
Yeah, I think that's important.
A lot of the trouble we see isthe ones that they push way too
hard.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
And we push we probably push the cutting horses
.
We show them as three-year-oldsBarrel horse.
People don't do that.
They don't show them untilthey're four, Right, so you know
, they don't ask them to dothose hard things.
There are probably lots ofyoung cutters or horses trained
in the cutting program thatnever.
They get lame.
(41:08):
Yeah, they don't ever get to goany further, and a lot of them
you can get turned out for ayear or so and then you go back
to riding them, but it becomessword and horses right or brood
bears, yeah, exactly yeah, we'veseen.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
we've seen our fair share of those.
What's the?
If you think you've probablyowned a lot of horses, is there
a couple that stand out like youwish you still had, or the best
ones?
Speaker 2 (41:34):
Well, one of the first horses I ever trained and
talking again about somethingthat I could win on.
Years ago and we're talkingabout mid-'80s okay, a customer
brought me a little mare thatwas by Pepinita.
A lot of people in the businessthey don't even know who
Pepinita is.
Matlock Rose hauled him and wonthe world on him.
He was a great show horse and Ihad this mare trained her.
(41:59):
She was a good mare and she'sthe one probably I could go show
her today and couldn't win adime on her, simply because of
her style, but she was super cowsmart so she allowed me to show
her successfully and her owneruh, she was one of my favorite
horses because she was one of myfirst.
Uh, I've had Elaine and I owntwo studs.
(42:21):
Uh, one of them was a horse wecalled Joker, which you would
have known Joker, and then hisfull younger brother called
Haida, who was out of a hide,his little pet mare, and several
years ago I trained a smartChickalina stud for some
customers and he was a reallygood horse.
(42:41):
His name was Smart China Lena.
I showed him successfully foryears and years and a lot of our
breeding program was based onhim for several years that's the
one you guys got.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
You guys called china , right, yeah, that was the
china horse.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
And then elaine had some good young mares.
The hyda mares won and weraised several good colts that
would have been full brothersand sisters.
And the two studs, joker andhaida, were great show horses
and one of them we had one ofthem passed on.
The other one's still alive andI could go win on him.
You know you can go mark fouror five on him because he had
(43:16):
the style and the strength andhe was one of my favorite horses
because of his ability.
And, of course, china the thedad was was a great horse too.
And then there's been someother horses nothing that I've
owned recently that stand out,but I've had customer horses
(43:37):
that turned out to be reallygood that I could go win a lot
of money.
The customer some of them,would show them to, some of them
didn't care, they wanted me toshow them.
They love to go watch theirhorse show and right.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
So there, there have been several of them through the
years yeah and um, you guyshave raised a lot of babies too.
Yes, we um.
Darla Bill Womack, the worldchampion, you helped.
Yeah, that little baby.
I mean we were there the nextday and then just to watch that
thing, I mean, it's just natural.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
Yeah Well, she's out of one of those two brothers the
height of stud and uh, we, Iguess I'd have to say we haven't
ridden very many of his Coltsbecause Elaine has sold the ones
that we raised.
Uh, but uh, yeah, uh, yeah,there's, there are several of
them still coming along.
(44:28):
That'll be for me to ride oneof these days if I, if my 75
holds up for a few years, Ithink it will.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
Um, what about?
Um?
We talked about some of thetheing Everything's videoed.
Now, for better or worse, Imean, we're videoing right now
the Western I don't know how tosay this like the Western world
has become popular in the media.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
There's one show in particular, Yellowstone, which
we talked a little bit about.
I'd like to hear your thoughtson that, because you grew up in
the real Western world.
The horse world, the horseworld, versus what is being
portrayed on TV, now that a lotof people that haven't been
exposed that's their onlyexposure to it.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Well, of course rodeo right now, which is part of the
horse world, is extremelypopular because it's a spectator
event.
Cutting is a difficult event topromote to the general public
because there's a lot ofdowntime and it's a technical
(45:37):
sport.
If you don't understand whatyou're looking at, it may look
cool but you don't know how thejudge is marking that run.
It's a little difficult forpeople to grasp Rodeo.
You watch some guy kick theheck out of a good bronc and
he's going to score high, soit's easy to see Fast calf rope
and run is easy to see.
Yellowstone really helped andTaylor Sheridan has become very
(46:03):
active and involved.
Has bought a couple of ourmajor cutting horse locations in
Texas from the money he madefrom Yellowstone.
But he's promoted the Westernsport to another level.
I'm not a great fan ofYellowstone itself.
I love Kevin Costner and a lotof his movies, but there were a
(46:24):
couple of episodes ofYellowstone itself.
I love Kevin Costner and a lotof his movies, but there were a
couple of episodes ofYellowstone when I watched it in
the past that I wasn'tparticularly fond of and it kept
me from pursuing it andwatching it, like some people
just live to watch that.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
Oh yeah, all week.
Oh, Yellowstone, I think it wasSunday nights.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
Just an example One day I was traveling, we were
going to a show in Florida mywife and I I had on a shirt
T-shirt said Yellowstone on it.
Somebody got it for me Went to agas station, walked in to get a
soda and a snack and this ladyjust like to fell over because I
(47:02):
had a shirt that saidYellowstone on it and I had a
horse trailer out in the lotwith horses in it and she said,
oh, are you part of Yellowstone?
No, ma'am, I have a T-shirt.
But that's the excitement thatit generated and the Western
lifestyle.
And even one year at the BigFuturity, which is our major
event, they have a celebritynight and this thing runs for
(47:27):
three weeks.
So one night they have sportsfigures.
There are several majorfootball players who own cutting
horses and show successfully.
One night they have TVpersonalities and they had half
the Yellowstone crew there andthey mounted them on cutting
horses and let them go competeand show.
(47:49):
It was.
It was pretty cool, you know.
But and those people tried toportray and this one boy that
that one of the shows I didn'tlike, when they taped him to his
colt a colt made him try toride it forever and ever was
there competing on a cuttinghorse in a different venue.
So they've helped promote ittoo.
But, um, and Yellowstone alsopromoted the reigning industry a
(48:14):
little bit, but it's still adifferent lifestyle to get into
it in the daily basis and learnwhat it takes to compete.
But Yellowstone did promote theWestern lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
Yeah, yeah, it was super.
I've never seen a singleepisode have you watched?
You've watched a couple.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
Just a couple, several years ago, and I wasn't
impressed and I don't follow it.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
My dad was the same way.
My mom didn't know much aboutit so she bought like the whole
DVD set.
I think he watched one episodeand never touched it again.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Oh.
I have customers that justswear by it.
Yeah, they love it.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
Yeah, the that just swear by it.
Yeah, they love it.
Yeah, the only thing I knowabout it was there was an
episode where they gave a horsea shot of banamine in the muscle
and even though it says on thebottle, so all the vet clinics
were taking their opportunity touse that to educate, bash it a
little bit.
Yeah, I guess we bashed it.
So you have trained a lot ofchampions, people and horses.
(49:17):
What would you say is yourfavorite part of your job?
Speaker 2 (49:23):
Well, now used to.
I never missed a show.
If there was a show within 300or 400 miles, I was gone.
Trailer load of horses goingand showing and I've won well
over a quarter million dollarsin money in the cutting horse
industry.
There are a lot of guys who'vewon a million.
Two or three million that showwith the age of advance where
(49:45):
there's more money to be won.
When I was hauling and showinga lot, there wasn't as much
money available to win and Ididn't travel as far, but I
still went a lot.
Now I enjoy helping mycustomers.
I may go to a show and onlyshow one or two horses, but I
(50:06):
may have 10 customers there.
This happened to do corn theother day.
We have a class that a bunch ofbeginning amateurs that I
school and give lessons to.
Nine of the 11 competitors weremy customer and I get a great
thrill out of helping every oneof them try to show that horse
(50:27):
and they're all.
They all work well together.
Nobody gets mad at anybodyright and a couple of them won a
lot that weekend and they'revery supportive of each other.
So now seeing those customersgo win and coaching them through
a run is my favorite part now.
And I still love riding younghorses and training them.
(50:48):
I got a couple of pretty goodtwo-year-olds there at the barn
right now that you can tell thatthe feel and the desire and the
ability is going to be there,and then you get on that one
that doesn't have that oh well,I got to work this horse right.
The other three you lookforward to working because it's
still fun do you work those in acertain order?
Speaker 1 (51:10):
do you just?
Speaker 2 (51:13):
it kind of depends on how the help gets them ready.
Speaker 1 (51:15):
Oh gotcha, whatever one, they've got ready to work
and right now it's extremely hot.
Speaker 2 (51:20):
We have to be.
I mean, we let the cattle outby noon or before.
You cannot work horses oncattle and the horses are going
to get hot and stressed so youhave to be careful how hard you
work them.
So we start as early as we canand work the ones we need to.
You work them.
So we start as early as we canand work the ones we need to,
and then I go to the flagbecause you can work a young
(51:41):
horse on the flag, so there's nocattle involved.
You can work on the techniquestop the turn, how they handle
themselves, how they handle thebridle hit them a lick be done.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
Yeah, it's part of the program yeah, so you had the
four people I know, your wifeElaine and Wild Bill Womack won
the they won the MastersChampionship at Fort Worth in
the RS&C finals.
Yeah, and the future DrBuchanan will be joining us.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
Jenny and Tommy Perkins showed in what is an
intermediate level, because RS&Calso rates all of their riders
by number based on your successin the sorting pen.
And they sorted because youhave to advance.
You know there may be 750, 800teams in the beginning of a
(52:36):
class.
One class sing, runs foreverdown there.
They have to advance to thesecond level and at the third
level and then to the finals inorder to win.
And they did that and they,they were successful.
Also, and you know, tommy's gotthree horses elaine, my, my wife
I never won one of them for himshe coaches Jenny and her mom,
(53:01):
amy and Elaine found thosehorses for them and you know you
kind of got to know what ittakes to win, okay, and then you
got to know what kind of horseyou need and how it fits the
owner, yep.
And to have two teams in twodifferent classes go to the
world finals where there arethousands of people, be
(53:23):
successful, was great.
And then another gentleman,craig shaw, who's one of those
clients who's gone, both cuttingand sorting, sorted earlier in
the week in the uh gosh, thewestern heritage, which is just
another class in the rsncschedule, and he got two or
three checks in that division.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
So it was we did great from our part of the world
right, and those are peopleyou've helped and helped train
their horses.
So how did that feel when yougot the call or the message that
they extremely exciting.
Speaker 2 (53:54):
Yeah, it's good it's.
It's just gratifying, yeah, toknow that what you're doing with
your amateurs is working right.
We we had a lady to go alongwith that.
The very next weekend elainegets home from the world sorting
finals and her championship andwe had the weekend show at
ducoin.
One of our customers who wefound a horse for.
(54:16):
She's been showing now forprobably a couple years and she
had the best weekend she's everhad.
She showed four times in twodifferent classes.
She showed twice in the 50M andtwice in the 15M.
Won all four classes Markedgood scores.
There are variables, you know.
Drawing good, drawing up early.
There are variables, you know.
(54:37):
Drawing good drawing up early.
Where the cattle are still goodare are influences on how you
do.
But she had by far the bestweekend she'd ever had.
Speaker 1 (54:47):
So the cutting carried over from the sorting, I
guess to the successes because,uh, we got a group chat with
everybody that works here andyour daughter works here, hannah
, and when she texted thatelaine and bill won, like I was
so happy for amazing because Ihad a small part in that, just
working on their horses yeah,you keep their horses sound?
Yeah, we try and then when shemessaged that jenny and tommy
(55:10):
won, because tommy just startedsorting what three years maybe
yeah, so he's relatively newpretty new and I, uh, I texted
and jenny too.
Jenny's not really been sorting,not at a competitive level
right, she's been busy with alittle bit busy with vet school
you know, and on top of that,the lady that won at ducoin, uh,
ray williams.
Speaker 2 (55:31):
You know ray because you're working on his horses.
Ray bought a really goodgilding recently that I have
shown successfully.
But he's young andinexperienced but I can show him
well.
Ray has trouble showing thishorse and if you show, if you do
a bad job of showing a younghorse, you create problems.
(55:52):
But showing a young horse youcreate problems.
So Ray has the opportunity tobuy what he needs to win.
So we had another horse there.
That was a seasoned, finishedhorse, still good, that Ray
could show and which the onereally good horse is still in.
(56:14):
He's still in rehab right now.
Can't show him anyway.
So we got ray, this other horse, and he and he uh won three
checks over the weekend atducoin.
Ray is a new beginner at thecutting.
He's only been cutting a fewmonths and ncha has a program
where if you win over athousand000 in cutting
(56:36):
competition in the show pen, youget an achievement buckle.
Speaker 1 (56:39):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (56:41):
And there's 1,000, and there's 2,500, and there's
5,000.
We have other customers who'vewon way more than that, but Ray
won enough at Ducourne the otherday when Christina had her
great weekend.
He also got three checks andwon enough to get his
achievement buckle.
Some people ride for two yearsto try to win.
Speaker 1 (57:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (57:00):
And he did it in about two weekends.
Speaker 1 (57:03):
Yeah, he was in not long after that Was he Okay.
And I think Hannah came out andwe all congratulated him.
I was like I heard you won abuckle.
That's what they tell me.
Speaker 2 (57:13):
It's not an easy sport to learn.
I mean some people, and grantedRay has sorted enough that he's
learned how to handle cattlebetter.
He's not a great rider.
You know.
Speaker 1 (57:26):
He makes mistakes riding and showing his horse,
not sitting his stop when heshould or kicking too quick, but
this horse takes great care ofhim, yeah, and goes ahead and
gets him through the run when hemakes little mistakes and
that's allowed him to win yeah,I love those horses that do that
like we um sponsored some youthrodeo kids and they're all most
(57:47):
of them are riding prettyseasoned horses and I asked them
all, like you know, they taughtyou a lot, and they all just
say their horse has taught themso, so much, which I mean.
When I grew up, team roping itwas the same thing we've got on
horses that knew the job and tobuild the confidence what's the
best way to learn?
Speaker 2 (58:05):
yeah, you can't learn on a young horse that doesn't
know if you don't know.
So when we have a new customercome in, we don't put them on
some green coal, we put them onan old, season finished horse
that knows what to do, and thenthey learn a lot from people.
Speaker 1 (58:23):
Yeah, is there some riders that you've seen or
helped coach that are just maybea natural talent?
Speaker 2 (58:30):
Oh, yes, yeah, I've had people that I simply
couldn't help well enough tomake them a winner.
They didn't ride well enough,their mental attitude wasn't
proper.
They get frustrated or they gethyper or they lose focus, and
no matter how long you teach andwork with them, they just can't
(58:53):
get it.
And then you have those thatlearn very rapidly and, like Ray
, was extremely successful andhe's only been cutting a few
months and now he's got anachievement buckle.
I've got customers who've triedfor two years to win enough
money to get an achievementbuckle and they can't hardly win
a dime, so just the way it goes.
(59:13):
Now, one thing I will add aboutthe high school rodeo kids, when
we were helping a lot of themall they'd ever done was calf
rope, team rope, barrel, race,go, tide, go, go go.
They didn't learn a lot of goodhorsemanship skills, and all of
(59:34):
their parents said when theystarted learning how to sit and
ride a cutter, nearly everyparent said my kids are really
learning how to use their legsand their balances better.
They're better horsemen.
Yeah, so they they learn fromthat yeah, it all kind of ties
together and we still get that.
(59:56):
We get somebody that that comeswants to learn how to ride
better.
Uh, that's, the best way to doit is go get on a horse and
handle cattle yeah, I textedtommy after he won.
Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
You know, I think I said a text like you know hey,
congrats world champ.
And he was like man, this Ican't believe it.
Like I think I'm gonna wake upfrom this dream.
And I just texted him back.
Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
I said tell me you got good horses and you've
worked your ass off at it.
Yeah, he's there to practiceall the time.
Yeah, you got to give himcredit.
He and Jenny and Amy, all thosepeople are there.
Well, craig was there today.
Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
You know they come and practice, they get.
Who was there today?
Yep, you know they come,practice they get to work cattle
.
But I can tell over the yearsof experience helping all these
people what little thing they'redoing wrong to help them be
better, be more successful.
Speaker 1 (01:00:47):
It just shows up almost immediately yeah, and
it's the, I guess the old sayingpractice makes perfect to a
point but it also the uh.
The other thing is practicemakes permanent.
So if somebody's going out andpracticing, if there's not
somebody there telling them,like you know, you need to tweak
this or that, exactly those badhabits they don't realize
(01:01:09):
they're making these littlemistakes.
Speaker 2 (01:01:12):
a lot of people are one hand dominant.
They ride better with one handthan another and it shows up
almost immediately when they goto work a cow and their horse
and if you haven't been to alesson in a while, you can get
your hand.
One hand's down here and one'swhere it needs to be.
Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
And they don't realize they're making these
little mistakes and as soon asyou point it out and oh yeah,
okay, now I remember, and thenthey go do great yeah, it's just
like some of the I don't wantto say bad horse shooers, but
some of the shooing we see comein here and then the people will
tell us oh, so-and-so has beenshooing for 30 years.
(01:01:53):
They're the best.
I.
I in my head I combat with uh,I've been playing guitar for 20
years.
I'm still terrible at it becausenobody taught me properly right
yeah, so the that's thepractice makes permanent thing
for me well and you knowpleasure horses, rainer, barrel
(01:02:15):
racers.
Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
You're dealing with you and your horse and when you
throw that cattle variable inthere you've got to practice a
little to understand how to readwhat that cow's telling you as
they move around the pen andthen apply it and also do your
horsemanship skills right sothat you can handle that cow on
(01:02:39):
a horse that's trained to do itright.
Tommy, you mentioned tommy.
Tommy comes and I pick at himconstantly when he's there.
Practicing makes him do betteryep and then he'll go have some
success and he comes back andyeah, tommy, you're screwing up
here and there.
Speaker 1 (01:02:53):
Just get this right yeah, but that that's how you
learn.
I mean, even Tiger Woods has agolf coach, Exactly Like.
I mean, it's just you got toput in the work and you got to
have a nice horse these days.
Speaker 2 (01:03:04):
Well, true, and it gets more expensive the further
you go and the further we getinto it.
Speaker 1 (01:03:09):
Right.
Speaker 2 (01:03:16):
You know I used to buy a good sorting horse for ten
, twelve thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (01:03:19):
I thought that was fantastic.
Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
Now you better look at 25 or 30 right they even
start.
Speaker 1 (01:03:22):
Yeah, yeah, plus.
I mean that's the cheapest partof owning a horse.
Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
Is buying it probably right exactly, but beat bills
and vet bills, get the rest ofit yeah, and entry fees yeah,
yeah but it's.
It's very gratifying.
When it works right and youhave that good run, you can win.
It doesn't matter if you win$10 or $1,000 or $100,000.
It's still a win and you stilldid things right, right.
Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
Yeah, that's the fun thing about this whole.
And even in the vet side, likejust when I see the horses that
we've helped go on to win, likeit makes me feel so good that
we've given them the best chance, I would agree.
Speaker 2 (01:04:00):
We've got to have you guys.
Speaker 1 (01:04:02):
For necessary evil.
Well, Rick, I think that'sgoing to wrap it up.
Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
All right, well, I've certainly enjoyed our
conversation, yeah thank you somuch.
Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
I know you're a very busy man with all those cows and
training people and horses andI I really appreciate you
sitting down to to talk and it'sit's really hot outside, so
it's it's nice to be sitting inhere this afternoon instead of
trying to work a horse right, soall right.
Thanks again, rick, and forthose of you that tuned in, uh,
take care of your horses andyourself, and we'll see you next
(01:04:39):
time.
Speaker 2 (01:04:41):
Bring your little black bag with the medicines and
bring the trank and the crankand the pen.
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