Million Dollar Rider Zane Davis

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
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with host Chance Conrad. Are youfreaking serious? It's Conrado. This is
the Gauge and I am Chance Conarado. On this episode of the podcast,
we have got Zane Davis back fora full length and I mean full length
episode. This one's awesome. Hegives us a lot of wisdom and there's

(02:20):
some really amazing topics in there.You do not want to miss check it
out. We're we're happy to haveyou back because the last time you were
in here, things were getting prettygood and the response that we got from
you and your father's episode as awhole was it was awesome, but people
really honed in on some of thestuff that you were were saying. And

(02:40):
what do you guys think some ofthe comments we got like we need more
of that? What what do youmean we only get thirty minutes? Was
Zane? He was getting so philosophicaland deep. Anyway, that's good?
Yeah, no, it was.I think for that block of time,
I think it was the most popularepisode we had during that deal. We
break him up into months, sothat month, your guys, was was

(03:04):
the most POLICI the same month asdu Kat? Or was he the next
month? You know, I reallydon't know. I just want to be
sure to tell him that mine wasmore popular than his. Yeah, I'll
just tell him that. Anyway,Well, it probably would have been because
because because it was a political podcast, it doesn't matter if the politician is
huge or if they're like a lobbyistslike that. People tune out on those

(03:24):
a little. They saying, youwere the episode right before his first one?
Ah, what was that was that? Rch March? Yeah? Yeah,
well there you have it all right. Good smoked him, Poor poor
fellow yeah, he probably couldn't takethat. Maybe don't tell him be the
gentleman in the scholar that everybody knowsyou are. Yeah, suffer dude,

(03:47):
kid, he doesn't think. Yeah, well, I'm glad that you were
able to come and uh, Andwe were just chatting about maybe what we
should talk about this time and rightnow, Oh yeah, yeah, okay,
we're on we go. Yeah,there's no warnings, right, there's
role But one of the things Rileywas saying that maybe we should talk about
is a little bit more about likeyour actual story, because that kind of

(04:10):
got pushed over, and then westarted talking about some philosophical things and principles
and things of that nature. Butyou did transition from rodeo into what you
now do and are primarily known for. And I know that you're reasoning was
that is that you just wanted tocreate your own path, But maybe you

(04:30):
could hone in on some of thedetails on what pushed you to that specific
thing, and and then a littlemore on your mindset. And you're an
extremely disciplined guy, and I thinkI think people need they need that message
of discipline because that is one ofthe key and fundamental things that it just
seems to not be very active inour world today. Well, um,

(04:54):
I guess all you might have toremind me all those questions we go along,
I'll address the first one first.Um, as far what prompted me
to get into that, you know, we covered a lot of it the
first time I was here. Um. As I said the first time,
it was never on my mind tobe a horse trainer in my whole life.
And again I got started relatively latein life doing what I do now.

(05:15):
And as I said the first timeI was here, I think my
association, my ability to communicate,my ability to communicate with animals so much
as my desire to be around animalssometimes more than humans, kind of drove
me in that direction as much asanything. But it was mostly purely by
chance. As I talked about thefirst time, I was just didn't know
what to do with myself, andmy wife had suggested that I start some

(05:38):
colts, which I knew very littleabout, but I said, well,
okay, that's I'll try that.And from from the first time I started
the first colt, it just kindof consumed me. And I'd never been
consumed by anything like that before.And I remember we were living in Montana
at the time, Like I talkedabout the first time, and uh,

(05:59):
I would I would wake up beforebefore the light and just look out the
window and just wait for the sunto come up so I could go out
and get on that first horse.You know, I only had three or
four, but I was. Iwas so excited. I couldn't sleep.
I had to get up and ifI wasn't For months and months, maybe
even years, when I wasn't onthe horse, I was reading about it.
I was studying what I could couldabout the horse. And I even

(06:20):
at that point, I hadn't reallydecided that that could be a career move.
I mean, I was a coupleof years I wanted to do that
as a career, but I reallycouldn't believe people were gonna pay me to
ride a horse. And I knowthat sounds corny, but I remember at
the time thing, I think,people really want me to ride a horse,
and they're gonna pay me to rideit. And I know I was.

(06:42):
I was familiar with horse trainers andhorse training to a certain degree,
but the fact that somebody was goingto pay me to ride a horse,
I couldn't quite wrap my head headaround. But anyway, you know the
story from last time, But thingsevolved and I had a couple of good
breaks, and um and I didI did worked quite you know, pretty
hard. Yeah, but at thetime, I didn't think I was working

(07:04):
hard. I was having an outstandingtime. That was a lot. I
was having a lot of fun.I mean, I would have paid somebody
to let me ride their horse fora long time. And I was just
lucky that I fell into something thatI really enjoyed getting up in the morning
and go doing, because I don'tthink most people do, you know,
and which is a shame. Andso I always consider myself blessed and lucky
for having been able to actually belucky enough to fall into something accidentally that

(07:29):
I enjoyed doing. So anyway,and if I don't want to and be
repetitive, I don't know who heardthe first podcast and who didn't, you
know, there's a lot to thestory, but I think that I was
just really lucky to have fallen intoit. Yeah. Well, I mean
I want to go back to someof the things you said, because there's
a lot of good stuff there.But I guess one of the things that

(07:49):
interests like me personally and selfishly askingthese questions because my favorite age of horses
two year old, and you startedbreaking colts, that's what you alreded doing.
And you're you came from a roughstock background, obviously, I mean
obviously, and what what was thatlearning curve like for you? Like,
what what did you utilize as faras you know, because it's you don't

(08:13):
just start two year olds because youcan screw them up. Yeah, you
don't just do it because we've seenI mean everyone's seen people who want to
just break horses or start horses,and there's some really key fundamental things that
can go really really wrong. Andobviously it went really really right for you
based on where you are now.But I mean, how did you what
did you utilize as learning tools andkind of where did the method come from

(08:35):
that you utilize to make sure thatyou, yeah, we're able to you
know, do a great job likeyou will have. I don't know that
I did a great job in thebeginning. As I said, the first
time, I just got them tiredenough that when they went home people thought
they were broke because I just wrotethem and rode them and rode them and
rode them. Um. But toto better answer your question, I think,
you know, I don't know how. I'm not really that confident of

(08:56):
a person. But from the timeI was a little kid, whether it
was my parents that didn't stalden inme, or or what I was always
told I had, I could ride, you know, naturally I looked good
on a horse. Things were easy. I think if I was born with
any type of talent um you know, I don't know if I was born
with it or they just told meI was good enough that I believed it
at some point, But I thinkI probably had a certain amount of natural

(09:18):
talent. I was doing all theguys that I compete against for the most
part, so things came easy forme with the horses I I when I
started, when I decided, wedecided I was going to be a horse
trainer. You know, last lasttime I told you, I just put
an ad the paper and said I'ma horse trainer. And I had no
I had some background because I'd riddena ton. Uh you know, we

(09:41):
I roped. I grew up basicallyon the racetrack because my dad it was
his hobby then where it's his professionnow. He always had a bunch of
thoroughbred race horses around there, andso my mother had a hunter jumpers.
She made me do that, youknow, so I could ride an English
saddle. I could ride a jockeysaddle really good, because I started galloping
race horses went on the track whenI was about eight seven or eight.

(10:03):
The problem with having a father thatisn't scared of things, he assumes that
everybody he's around not scared of thingseither. So I mean he'd put me
on those racehorses when I was alittle guy, and we'd breeze racehorses down
the track. And we had atrack at our house that wasn't exactly a
track. It was he'd plowed abig circle out there with no rails.

(10:24):
And it was also the same fieldwhere the cattle grave. And so when
you were running down those those straightaways, there's cattle, you know, crossing
the track, and you don't havea lot of stop on those racehorses,
And I mean I ran over cattle, and he'd ran through fences and all
those kind of things all before Iwent to school in the mornings, and
so did he. For some reason, he thought it was fun and I
didn't. But anyway, so Igrew up on the racetrack and riding an

(10:48):
English saddle, and I think thatcreated quite a bit of balance, if
nothing else. And then of courseI rode the rope horses and those kind
of things. Never trained anything.We started the race colts, but that
basically amounted to getting on him inthe box stall and then head into the
track, because again he wasn't scaredof anything, so if they bucked or
something. I saw him one timespur one in the neck in a jockey

(11:11):
sad and so you know. SoI did learn a lot, a great
deal of balance and could ride verywell, I think. But when I
decided to be the horse trainer again, that was a suggestion from my wife
because I told her, I said, look, I got to do something
with my life, and she said, well, while you're deciding, whence
you start some colts. And soI put it out in the paper,

(11:33):
said I was going to be ahorse trainer. And as I said last
time, there was a video thatI got from my mother in law that
was a ray hunt tape, andI was he just as I said last
time as well, he just ropedhim and saddled him and got on him
and away he went. And Ihad no other point of reference at the
time how to start one. Sothat's what I did. I roped him

(11:56):
and saddled him and got on him. And because I'd just come from the
rodeo world, I mean, itdidn't seem like a big thing at the
time. Uh you know how youthink about it now and you think,
boy, there was probably easier waysto do that, in less dangerous ways.
But I was having the time ofmy life doing it that way.
And I think at the time thethrill of the way I was doing it
added to it. Um you know, I was still in my twenties and

(12:18):
stuff, and so anyway, that'sthat was my first experience. And how
I how I started was with theray Hunt tape, and people brought me,
um just some old ranch tipe horsesand I would I'd put them in
that roundpen for a couple rides andthen open the gate and the way we'd
go. And I don't know tothis day what kept me alive, because,

(12:41):
as as I also said last time, because I only charged three hundred
dollars a month, I got thebottom of the barrel in the horse and
the horse area and these things woulddo some crazy stuff and I just thought
it was fun. You know.They had to hit and roll, or
they'd stumble and roll, because weever had badger holes everywhere, and they
had rolled, and I'd somehow comeout on my feet, you know,

(13:01):
and they'd come up and I'd getback on them, and I they and
I would ride them so much that, you know, just just mostly gathering
cows and that kind of thing,not not driving them into the ground.
But by the time thirty days wasup, you know, they were pretty
broke. Not broke like I wantthem now, but I knew enough.
So in a little bit of studyi'd done in those first few months,

(13:22):
I knew you had to have acertain amount of lateral flection, you had
to have a certain amount of verticalflection. And I'd been taught from an
early age from my mother and myfather about lateral movement on a horse.
So all our old ranch horse ora rodeo horses, they all moved off
your legs really good. And soand my mother, I remember, I
still remember this, when I wasreally young, she taught me how to
teach a horse to side pass.So I'd get them a little bit,

(13:46):
a little bit broke. Laterally alittle bit broke vertically, and I could
teach them all to move off myleg. And I knew how to get
a lead. I knew leads reallywell, and I also knew that a
lead and I don't know where Ipicked up a lot of these things,
but I knew a lead was initiatedwith a hind quarter, so I knew.
I knew how to walk trot canner. I knew lateral um and vertical

(14:07):
flection, and I knew a lotof lateral leg moot motion. Well,
if you know all that, you'vegot a pretty good basis on a horse,
and then absolutely you can open gates. You can do everything you want.
Plus I'd also learned from the fewvideos and books that you had to
have a certain amount of sacking out. So I'd swung a rope and I'd
drug everything on the place. Andso they come and get these horses after
thirty days. In thirty days,I'd probably put ninety hours on a horse.

(14:33):
Right of all this soul, Thesethings are pretty dog on broke.
Well, then I kind of startedgetting a little reputation as the guy that
take the horse. And when theygot it back, it was broke,
you know, because um, sometimeshorse trainers aren't the most industrious lot,
and so they'd get horses back theypaid money for nothing was done, and
I was still under the impression thatare still I was still flabbergasted that I

(14:54):
was getting paid to do it.So I was I was really putting a
lot isolated up there in Montage allstuff that was going on down here and
on the east Oh absolutely, wherewe lived. You wanted the isolation.
My nearest neighbor was like seven milesaway, right, you know, I
there was nobody around. But anyway, so that's kind of how it started.
Um, and I did have somebasics when I started that I didn't

(15:15):
actually know I had until I started. The ray hunt helped me a lot,
and so many people, Yeah,yeah, And then of course then
I'm like we talked about last timeI got in with Monty Roberts, who
was a good friend and I,as I said, he didn't have a
lot of time to work with me, but I learned a lot about horses
and horse people from Monty, andI got to see him work with a

(15:37):
lot of really really problem horses,and in the beginning that's what I really
wanted to work with, with problemhorses because I loved it, and Monty
had some things that he did withproblems horses. That's you know, I've
always used and there's just not alot of market out there for problem horses.
You know. He'd had some successbecause he was on the racetrack and
had worked with some of the Queen'shorses that had been bad the starting gates,

(16:00):
those kind of things. But ifyou were just going to be a
problem horse trainer, unless you weregoing to fix things like one hundred jumper
problems or gssage problems or things thatI didn't have enough background in at the
time, there wasn't a lot ofmarket to be a problem horse trainer,
right, So then I had tokind of evolved, and he given me
a signal. Okay, well heI told him if I got I got

(16:23):
too close or got too far awayfrom the mic to go like this or
something lower it I get all right. Um. So anyway, Monty was
a big help in advancing me along, and then of course then we got
into the cow horses. Yeah,yeah, it's it's it's interesting right because
most people, I shouldn't say most, that's a terrible thing to do.

(16:45):
You never want to just grab groupsof people that you don't actually know and
put them in a category I suppose, but you know, starting colds and
being truly like it's almost a fallbackfor some people because they don't know what
else to do, right, andyou found like this source of purpose enjoy
in it, which a lot ofpeople do. I mean, it's not
hard, like, especially if youget on a good one. Like I'll

(17:07):
tell you a little story from likethree or four days ago. Right,
I've got this red roan two yearold that I probably have six or seven
rides on her, and she's doingso good in the round pin that I'm
like, it did the same thingwhen you open this freaking gate. Up.
Let's go out. Let's go out, and we'll go ride. And
we're walking walking her down the roadand she's a barrel horse, is well

(17:29):
will be? She is just gettingI'm just starting her now and I won't
do barrels on her. Someone will. But I was like told my mom,
I want to start this one,le rere. We're not sending her
to the cutting horse guy. I'mgonna start this one because I like her,
and you know, same thing.I'm opening gates, walking over logs,
walking her through the creek with fiverides, and it's like, you
know when you get those ones andyou're just like, holy shit, this

(17:52):
is a ferrari and they can giveyou a false sense of reality though from
other horses, and this one certainlydid. But I'm walking her down the
road, passing some neighbors' houses andthere's a pile of leaf trash bags that
somebody had piled up, and thenthere's a buzzing transformer. She sees the

(18:14):
buzzing transformer, goes right, goesleft. I go down, My foots
hung in the stirrup boy, andthis two year old, who I put
five rides on, this was justlike four or five days ago, just
stands there really no basis for itat all, and I'm like, this
is impressive. This is what youwant to see that and it puts something
in you where you're just like,I could actually drop everything else I'm doing.

(18:36):
I don't care if I'm poor forthe rest of my life and only
do this. And I think anybodywho rides young horses it. Of course,
then you get the ones who slamminginto the fence and roll over on
you, and you're like, I'mgonna go be a paralegal. Yeah,
but you know, it's just somethingspecial about it that can pretty well heal
all wounds or put you on agood path. It seems like, yeah,

(18:56):
I will. You bring up avery good point when you say that
a lot of people get into thehorse training mores or especially the colt starting
is a fallback, fallback, andand that is you know, if I
was fortunate, that was not itfor me. You know, it's probably
might might have started out that waybecause I didn't know what I was going
to do in life, but itended up being Wow, this is really
something I am very, very interestedin. But I think that's where a

(19:18):
lot of our problems come from withour horse training, because it is a
lot of work. I mean,it's no fun to get up and where
I live it's cold, even thoughI haven't insulated into arena. But you
get up at six o'clock in themorning and it's twenty below and you got
to ride those horses as much asI like, and it's not fun.
And so if you don't have alot of passion for it, it's you
can be one of those guys thattakes the money and doesn't train the horse.

(19:40):
You know, Yeah, it's easyto do. And that's kind of
the point, is that I don'tthere's this weird stigma I think in the
Western world that you must be init, right you notice that, like
it's just people gravitate towards it becausethey just feel like, oh, the
fear of missing out, that theyjust have to be in it. And
what people will end up doing.I've even done this as you. You

(20:03):
have this just terrible fear of missingout on it, that you go ahead
and forsake what maybe it might bea better path for you, and they
end up being a really horrible horsetrainer because you you're not in it,
You're not bought in, you're notready to do the six ams, you're
not ready to ride fifteen or twentyhead of horses to make it lucrative enough
to do it, and so youend up starting a bunch of junk horses.

(20:25):
Yeah, I agree, it's justhate. I hate that, and
it just seems like there's so muchof it nowadays, and it's probably that
way in every aspect of life.I bet it is familiar more with this,
and I'm sure it's the same thingeverywhere you get whenever your occupation you
look at I think you're probably right, but you did that and this,

(20:48):
and I don't have any understanding ofwhat your your method is, but your
mindset is probably one of the things, because you did come at it from
a state of just pure passion basedon the way you explain it. But
I mean, what has always beenyour mindset? And I probably already ask
you this, I don't remember,but I know it was one of the
things that I thought was really valuablethe last show is that you just you

(21:12):
just have this kind of positive mindsetand you give so much credit to the
horses, and and have there beentimes where you have thrown up your hands
and you're just like, man,I don't I just screw this, screw
that? What am I doing?How do you get back to your positives
as far as positive because it's concernedI have positive mindset about training horses.

(21:34):
I have a very negative mindset aboutshowing I think that's that's something I really
really struggle with. Training horses iseasy for me, and something that that's
easy for me to do. Onewhich you haven't talked about yet and we'll
get to, is because I'm probablyoverly disciplined. It fits me very well
because I can get up at thesame time every morning, have the same

(21:56):
routine, deal with the same kindof problems every day, and I can
stay out there for long periods oftime without um needing to come in or
quit or those kind of things.And I do that. I can do
it consecutive days, months, yearsin a row without without wearing down and
without becoming bored. And I thinkthat's something that um, you're a lot

(22:17):
of it's you're born with. Youknow, not everybody can do that.
I know some very good horse trainersthat go out and ride two or three.
They're very successful on those two orthree and the others, you know,
because they just can't do that.So I'm really lucky that I,
you know, I was one ofone of the things I was born with.
It's easy for me to do UM. But uh, as far as

(22:38):
you know, a method and thatkind of thing, I struggle a lot
um with staying positive in the showing. UM. Again, the other just
the training parts easy for me becauseI think I was just born like that.
The it's the it's the mental themental side of it's for showing is
excruciatingly difficult. UM. Some haveno problem with it. You know,

(23:02):
they love to come to the horseshow. My biggest problem are one of
my biggest problems. I'm not social. I don't need to come to the
horse show to see my friends.You know, I wish I did.
It would certainly be a lot easier. I don't. I'm not there to
socialize. I don't really need togo talk to anybody. I can go
home and not talk to anybody andbe just plenty happy. So there's no

(23:25):
draw that way. So what isthe draw? The only draw for me
is to go see how good ofa job I did train in the horse.
There's no other reason to be atthe show. I've also learned over
the years that especially in the raincow horse, there's so many variables that
play into it that no matter howgood a job I do, things are
still going to go bad. Inthe preliminaries of the fence work yesterday,

(23:45):
not only for me, but forseveral other people that had very good horses
who were sitting high, things wentbad that were out of their control.
That for me is extremely difficult todeal with because I'm a control person.
Well then something comes along and I'vedone everything right that takes me out of
it. And I've been working thishorse for two years every day, and
all these owners, money and dreamsare resting on me, so I can

(24:07):
make one last good Finch run andmake everybody's dreams come true and something.
Sometimes it is my fault, butsometimes it's not my fault, and I
have no control over it, andI don't handle that well. Um.
For instance, just I have ahorse that's really good. I mean,
he was six months behind the otherthree girls, and I said, this
is the best horse here, butbest my best horse there. He was

(24:27):
doing very well up until the cowwork, and he drew a cow that
he couldn't work. And I'm prettysure of the horses there could not have
worked either, And so he missesthe finals, not by much, but
he still missed it. I wentto the back gate and almost broke down
crying. You know. It wasterrible, you know, like, and

(24:48):
I wake up at two o'clock inthe morn and I going, you know,
I felt bad, you know,not only for him, for me,
his owners, everything. So Igotta deal with it now. Some
guys just shake it off. Andthe phrase I hate more than anything,
Well, that's horse showing. No, it's not to them it is,
and I wish I could think thatway. And this is where it gets
difficult for me. This is thepoint I'm getting to. I can't do
it's just horse showing. No,it's not horse showing. This is somebody's

(25:11):
money, this is somebody's dreams.You know. I put a lot of
time in that isn't just horse showing. And they said, well, there'll
be another one. Yeah, wellthere's only one of these one time a
fraterity. I mean, you gotone shot ye at this. So I
wish I could shake it off.And I respect those people that can't,
because that's what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to just it's horse showing
or things went bad. But Ican't. I can't do it, And

(25:34):
so then I I've had as faras throwing up my hands and saying the
heck with it with the training.No, I've never done that with the
showing. Pretty much every time Igo to a show, because and I'm
going on, I'm gonna give everybodythat's listening is the example of how not
to be. You don't want tobe like me, do everything you can

(25:55):
not to be like me, becausewhat I do, I go to the
show. Say, I show fourhead, I might win it on one.
The other four to three don't makea don't make a check. You
know what I think about the threethat didn't make a check. My wife
said, doesn't winning make you happy? I said, and that's what people
pay me to do. I said, that doesn't make me happy. I

(26:15):
said, it's better than the alternative, which is losing. But I'm so
worried about the three that didn't dowell that I can't enjoy the one that
did. That's not how you shouldbe. And I've struggled for a lot
of years to try to figure outhow to overcome that. And I again,
I think it's a personality thing.So to answer your question, yeah,

(26:36):
there's there's do I want to throwup my hands and say the heck
with it? Pretty much every timeI go to a horse show at home,
no, I know the training.No. And so that's a that's
a struggle I deal with a lot. Yeah, you know that there's other
people and other professions in sports,and like somebody like a Tom Brady comes
to mind. And when you thinkof these other people are like a Lebron

(26:56):
James, even a Michael Jordan,I mean, I don't know how much
you know about any of those guysor or if you take inspiration from other
athletes or things like that, butI mean, that's that's one of the
critical components of like Michael Jordan forinstance on Yep. Yeah, yeah,
that like the idea of and Imean, if you're looking at four horses,

(27:22):
right, and the way that yousee it is that a twenty five
percent, even if you want it, twenty five percent success rate is not
a success rate terrible. Yeah,And I get what you're saying. But
at the same time, it's likeif you if you hold yourself to a
really specific standard, like a realspecific one, which you do clearly,
you hold yourself to a standard,which is actually it's kind of like a

(27:45):
stoic principle. It's really uh,it's really I think a good quality for
may not be good for interpersonal relationshipsnecessarily, but it's really good for kind
of an internal compass and your principlesbecause that means you actually stick to them,
like you actually represent something. AndI am one of those people who
just like, ah, we'll gethim the next time. But I feel

(28:06):
and I'm sure some of those peopledo, like I wish it could be
more the other way, because Ijust don't take things serious enough. Something
you don't want to be that guy. You don't want to be me.
Yeah, anybody out there that's aspiringto be a horse training you don't want
to be me. Don't. Don'tlook at me for an example. There's
there's good things about it, obviously. I mean, we should be very
cognizant of every horse being at theirbest or or everything happening right. But

(28:27):
you can't become overwhelmed by it orconsumed by it, or make you know
your whole life is miserable if youdon't um I don't. It's not the
winning is you know you're not gonnawin all the time. It's it's did
that horse performed to the best ofhis ability under the circumstances, and or

(28:47):
even like the horse yesterday that Iused as an example, he really tried
to work a really bad cow andso it wasn't his fault and that he
performed the best of it he did, but still things didn't turn out.
So you got to let those kindof things go. And it's funny.
My my wife's a very positive person. She's an optimist, she's got to
be the exact opposite, exactly theexact opposite. I hate optimists, except

(29:10):
for her. You know, she'salways saying, you gotta let that stuff
go. I said, oh,yeah, let's I can't let it go.
I can't let you just let itgo. No, you don't just
let it go. You don't understand, I said, you know what's wrong
with you, optimists? It's alwaysseventy two agrees and sunny until everything collapses
and you're not prepared for it,he said. I said, I'm prepared
for everything. I said, soit's it's good. You have to be
like you're saying, you gotta letstuff go. And I think that's my

(29:33):
my biggest struggle, Um, isI don't let anything go, and I
should. And intensity is a goodthing until it becomes all consuming. You
know. I don't know much aboutLebron James. I know a little bit
about Tom Brady, a lot aboutMichael Jordan because he's more from my era,
right, But he was a littlebit that way. I mean that
son up again and and it's,um, you know, he had a

(29:55):
great deal of success too, Umbecause of that. You know, he
drove everybody into the ground. That'swhat I do. I drive everybody into
the ground. I'm easy to getalong with in the barn, but I
mean, you know, it's intense, you know. I try to take
the intensity away from my horses.That's one thing I think. You have
to be careful. Your personality cankind of overlap into your horses. And
I'm really really careful about that becauseI don't want a bunch of intense horses.

(30:18):
I want them to be intense,but I want them to be happy,
you know. And and so yougot you gotta be careful there,
and I'm pretty aware of it.I watch them closely so that I know
I know they're not becoming me heylSon. If you're not wearing rock and
Roll Denham, then you ain't nocowboy. I'm Dale Brisbee, the greatest
boar oder ever to live, andI'm known for keeping it ninety. And

(30:41):
I keep it ninety because I'm wearingRock and Roll Denham with reflex technology.
They give me the flexibility I needto get that knee up. My biggest
problem is I get an earache becauseI get my knee up so high.
I kick myself in the ear.That's why I'm the greatest of all time.
It's because of rock and roll,Denim all Son, get you some.
Yeah. Well, and that's sointeresting you say about horses, because

(31:03):
I always, like, I alwaysthink about horses and the way that some
people are with them. Right,It's it's almost like it's this, oh,
baby, Booby, I love you, this this relationship like it's a
pet or a showpiece, or likeit's your friend and like and that's fun,
right, and it makes you feelgood and it hit your endorphins.

(31:23):
But that's not how they interpret therelationships, right. It is no different
than if they're a wild horse andyou're the stalling or the alpha of the
herd or the horse. That ishow your relationship with a horse, from
the time you're halter breaking them goes. And that's why so many people,
I've always thought, struggle with horsesbecause they don't set the relationship correct,

(31:45):
because they do mirror you, likeif your horse is failing at a certain
area, and I always think aboutfrom a roping or a barrel horse standpoint,
but anything, it's like they mightbe mirroring your behaviors because they're so
sensitive and if the leader of thepack is an emotional basket case, then
that horse is an emotional basket casebecause they're following you as a leader,
not as a buddy or a compatriot. It's no, they're looking for you

(32:08):
for all the answers. Yeah,it's a it's a. I remember when
I was with money and we wouldbe in England. Most of the horse
owners in England are women. Youknow, if you get off the racetrack,
most of them are women. Andthey use lead chanks that are about
this long for some strange reason,and they all have seventeen hand warm bloods
dragging them around. And I neversaw so many horse treats in my life.

(32:31):
Now, I don't have anything againsthorse treets, but they these things
became alligators because these women had bucketsof treats. They just fed them all
the time. Well, you know, we never know exactly what horses think.
We think we do, but wereally don't. I mean, there's
certain amount of scientific things that areproven, mostly around hurt instinct, but

(32:52):
other than that, we're just guessing. You know that we draw conclusions from
the fact that we've had past experiencesthat have been successful or unsuccessful, but
we don't know what these think.Well, you know, even treats can
be used as a training tool toa certain degree. But these ladies would
feed and treats all the time thinkingthey were making a friend like you do

(33:12):
with a dog. That's what Iwas going to say. It's like people
horses for dog exactly. Well allthey I try to try to explain,
and I don't know, but exactlythat's say, Hey, you know,
they don't think here comes that personthat loves me and is going to give
me something. They think there's thatperson that tastes good. You know.
I never saw so many biting horsesin my life because they were chewing on

(33:32):
you all the time, you know. So we can make and we all
make mistakes with horses, no matterhow much time we've spent with them and
how much experience we have. Butyeah, that can be a big problem,
is misinterpreting what they what they think. Yeah. Yeah, that's kind
of the fun part about messing withhorses though, is just trying to and
just like people, they can actone way. They can be amazing one

(33:55):
day and be absolutely awful the nextday, just like people. On it
it's just so interesting and I thinkthat's why maybe we find some solace in
them, is because it's just apuzzle that doesn't talk back. Kind of
does in a way, but it'sjust a puzzle that you can solve almost
every day, and it's just aninteresting, interesting industry. Um. I

(34:16):
think the last part of your question, I remember quickly was about the was
about the self of dicip Would youwhat you say about that? Yeah,
you're you're your self discipline and I'vegot a few other questions took back to
that. But do you want meto wait and talk about that? To
talk about that? Now? Notalk, there's no we have no rhyme
reason here. I'm very we gotto have one, two three. I

(34:37):
don't function very well. Okay,So anyway, UM, the self discipline
thing, again, I must havebeen born with it. I should have
been military, quite honest. Everytime you speak, I'm thinking about some
of our our army rangers. Ishould have been a guest. I don't
know about a navy settle swim verygood, and I'm not that tough,
but uh, they you know,my my dad is an extremely intense person

(34:59):
too. However, he has afun side. I don't have a fun
side, you know. And andand he was able to um, I
think kind of blow things off ornot blow things off. But um,
when he when he competed anyway,I think he was able to have fun
as he did it, which isan important It's funny when people like sports
psychologists and stuff, I can tellhim things that they don't even know because

(35:22):
I know more about sports psychology.I've studied every aspect of it. Really.
Oh absolutely, you know. Um, so I know all. I
know all the things. You know, my wife will come home with this
idea, you got to try thisand think of that. I only know
that I know that better than theguy that wrote it him. But anyway,
Dad was able part of being agood competitors having having fun. And

(35:42):
uh, he was able to dothat. I know I wasn't so much,
but um, he was. Hewas, he was. He was
intense to intensity sometimes um creates acertain amount of discipline because um, you
know, you're so focused on whatyou want to do. But I I
this probably started strangely enough. Um. I think I was probably a relatively

(36:06):
easy going little kid. And Iremember I started boxing when I was a
second grader. My dad was astate golden glove and so the time when
we were little, um, youknow, he'd put the boxing gloves on
the kitchen and we'd he'd let mebeat on him. And um. When
I went to an actual um gymwhen I was a second grader, he

(36:27):
took me in there, and uhthere's things were disciplined there, you know
to us. You know, Igrew up in a home that was a
discipline to the extreme, So Iunderstood that kind of discipline. But as
far as you know, physical meaningyeah, well, I mean it was
yeah, typical ranch thing. Itwas like, Okay, this is what
you do, this is what youdon't do when you're cross the line,

(36:50):
this is what you're gonna get typeof thing. Um. So I understood
those kind of things. But whenwe went to a more physical and sport
type of thing, um, youknow, I saw that things were regimented
there. You had to if youwanted to win, you had to do
your road work. You had todo this, you had you had to
do the heavy bag, you hadto spar you had to do all those
things, and uh, um youhad to do they had push ups and

(37:14):
sit ups and all those kind ofthings. Well, those the training was
very easy for me because I justkind of gravitated toward it, you know,
because I was probably born with it, and I think at that point
was when I started really liking discipline. Um, the boxing was probably harder
on me than anything, because Icould never fathom the thought of losing,

(37:36):
you know, because when when youlose a team sport. I played football
in those kind of things and reallyliked it, even the team sport.
Well darn you know. How didI play combat sports aside from horses?
My favorite, especially boxing, alwayshas been well, and see the problem
when you lose in the in thering, you didn't just lose, you

(37:58):
were dominated by someone else. Youcan lose on the judge's card when you're
still one, but you you stillI mean it's personal. You lose a
football and there's such a and yourealize this if you've ever done a combat
sport, like if you do lose, even if it's in the gym,
like, there's an emotional toll.It's like you know, a bad breakup

(38:20):
that when you're very you probably didn'tfeel anything when you had a bad breakup.
But yeah, exactly. But ifyou or think about a type of
loss like maybe you lost a dogand I just wrecked you or a horse,
it's just that that terrible gut wrenchingpain can't bring back. You can't
well when you lose, like psychologicallyin a boxing ring, in a in

(38:42):
a cage, not really like ajiu jitsu or something like that, because
you can just do that over andover, or wrestling even but when you
lose by being dominated by somebody elsewho is more physical, more skilled or
talented you and then there's a physicalrepercussion. Someone beat your ass. Yeah,
that hurts like it is gut wrenchingpain. Your ego is spilled out

(39:04):
on the floor. And you seethis great champ. First time Mike Tyson
lost, he did go on alittle terror, but then like there was
such a downward spiral attached to losseslike you you can't really mentally recover from
it. And I think it reallyillustrates my point about the horse training because
and I'm kind of going to acircle it. I'll come back and get

(39:27):
everything grouped together like I like ithere and but uh, the to finish
about the discipline and I'll get backto that what we were just talking about.
The boxing started me on the discipline, and I and they we also
had these uh at the time,they I don't think they have them anymore,
but they have. In fact,I know they don't because my kids
don't participate on But they had thisthing called the Presidential Physical Fitness Award,

(39:47):
and so it was like push up, set us, pull ups, runs,
that kind of thing. And yeah, that that went away and my
era I did it just about tenyears ago. Okay, so it lasted
quite a while. But anyway,they started that when I was in grade
school, and well, I reallylike that, and so you couldn't beat
me because I trained all year justto win that little medal, you know.
And so those kind of things ata young age taught me a lot

(40:09):
of physical discipline, and I waveredat time, probably through my teenage years
and stuff. But as I asI got older, I really started liking
things that were organized and things thatI could have a regiment on. And
so that's the horse training fit verywell into it because of the thing.
It's easy for me to get upand do the same thing every day.
And so I think to answer thequestion about the discipline, you know,

(40:32):
I was grazed in a disciplined Itwas some people that rebel in a disciplined
situation. You know, I actuallydid well in it, I thrived in
it. And because I was naturallythat way and too and I was put
into, you know, activities asa young person that required a certain amount
of discipline I started. I didn'tthe reason I was disciplined, I think
because I didn't want to lose.I had to figure out ways that I

(40:55):
didn't lose. If I could runlonger than you, and I could jump
the rope longer than you, andI punched the bag longer than you know,
I spartan one, I could probablybeat you, you know. And
so that became my mindset with everythingthat I did for the most part.
Again, I probably wavered in highschool and a lot of stuff like that,
but later in life I picked itback up. And and so I
always felt like, you know,the more discipline in the in the heart

(41:15):
of you train, the more advantageyou gave yourself so you didn't have to
lose, you know. And soI think in over the years it just
became easy. Self discipline became easyfor me. My wife, again,
she's optimistic and much more mentally stablethan I am, and she's always saying
people aren't like U, saying yougot to revise. They do that because

(41:37):
they're not like you. And becauseyou know, I can't figure out why
you don't pick up your damn socksthat you set on the ground when they're
dirty, you know, put themin the basket. Easy to throw them
on the basket that it is tothrow them on the ground, you know.
So so it goes into every spell. Oh yeah, yeah, Like
I said, you don't want tobe me type as one can get.
But they the sports thing, umkind of a I've done the jiu jitsu

(42:00):
and I wrestled and stuff like that. It was it was probably harder on
me. Um. The first timeI went to a jiuja not very good.
You know. I drift in andout. I don't ever stay very
long. But the first time Iwent in to it, this is a
side story. I went in.I was thirty at the time, and
I was the oldest guy in there, and they asked me if you've done
anything. I said, I wrestledand I boxed a lot. I said,

(42:21):
I don't know, you know anythingabout this, And they put me
against a sixteen year old that tiedme in knots and choked the stew out
of me. And I couldn't doanything about it. You know, the
matter I got, the more Igot beat up, you know, and
it was a very humbling experience.Um, but it was funny. I
actually that was the jiu jitsu,even though I'm like, yeah, I

(42:42):
don't know, I'm not any goodat it, and I don't go consistently.
I went for a little while andthen occasionally I pop in and out.
Now, but um, it wasit was probably less hard on me
than the boxing of the wrestling,because you know, they I guess I
just planned on losing when I wentin. There is a great well,
it's such a different thing, rightwrest wrestling, like you keep the scorecard,

(43:04):
and then boxing there's there's a realphysical toll that's done right. Like
getting punched in the mouth is notthe same as someone putting you an arm
bark. You just reset and youcan do it one hundred times the drill.
But getting knocked unconscious, yeah,I'll stick with you from So it's
just different. Well anyway, soI think I I think I answered the
self discipline question for the part.Yeah, yeah, I get well,

(43:28):
and I get really interested about likeyour interpersonal relationships. Now I kind of
feel like a therapist. You can'tbe helped, but I I can't be
helped. I still feel like exactly, it's a it's a interesting thing,
like how long have you been married? Thirty No, let's see ninety five.
So what is a twenty seven?Twenty seven years? Yeah, yeah,

(43:49):
it's a long time. Yeah.No, I it's uh the marriage
at first. And I'm getting offmy horse training track here, but I'll
tell the funny story. Um,we dated for three years before where we
got married almost three years and neverhad any and he never had a fight
or anything else. And I've beenblessed that I've always had a relatively good
marriage. But I remember there's thingsyou don't know about someone until you're actually

(44:14):
married. And we'd had a littlehouse and that we'd rented, and we
had to share a closet. NowI'd never shared a closet before. And
we came home from church one dayand I looked in the closet and all
my shirts were hanging, you know, just right on the same color hangars.

(44:35):
And the sports coats were first,and then the shirts, and then
the short sleeve shirts and down theboots were everything, And then over in
her side was a pile. Therewas one thing hanging on a hangar kind
of everything else was kind of ina pile shoes that didn't really have matches.
And I said, what do youthink Jesus Christ would think if he
came and saw this closet? BecauseI was going to teach her a lesson.

(44:57):
And she looked at the closet.She said, Rob, the one
of us is compulsive. So anyway, Yeah, yeah, I've been married
twenty twenty seven years. So whatyou're saying is she knows how to win
with you. Ah well, Ithink she she uh, she knows how
to probably be as good as anybody, um, how to deal with me,

(45:22):
you know, and and and keepme um motivated. It's not the
word um grounded. Maybe rounded isprobably a much better word. Uh See,
my my dad can to a point, but he can't quite understand the
lows, you know, because hesays, you just gotta you know,
we kind of they get tough thing. Yeah, well that don't work,
you know, uh, because that'sthe way he would do it. Um.

(45:45):
So but she's been around me longenough that she can kind of know,
you know, other than though,oh you just gotta think about I
know that doesn't work. Thinking positivecrap. I mean, you do that
beforehand and things go bad, whatdo you do? How do you come
back that? But anyway, um, yeah, So I've been married a
long time and I've been fortunate thathad somebody that's you know, been a

(46:05):
mental help to me quite a bit. And I'm not as bad as I'm
portraying, you know, But I'mjust always tell everybody don't be because I
get young guys that want to beHorsetrayer's couping. How do you deal with
it? I just go, I'mnot the guy, and most people think
I'm the ice man, which isfunny, you know, I'm not.
I'm probably the most mentally screwed upguy out there, you know. But
I think what saves me is Imentally prepare myself for hours and hours and

(46:30):
hours before I compete. It's theonly way I can do it. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, I mean itis interesting. There's some people who
who drink the beer smashed on theirhead, get on and go no problem,
totally different. That's really It justshows you that it's a total melting
pot really of different personality types thatcan all kind of There's more more than
one way to crack an egg.I guess sounds you had Gary lafeu on

(46:52):
here. I've heard his deal dozensof times. You know, he's the
hot man. You know, I'mhot. You know that doesn't work for
me. I think it does formost people. It's great stuff that he
teaches. You know, A rodeowas never gonna work for me past a
certain level. Because those guys theylive day to day, you know.
UM, the ones that have longevityin it, they they do, they're

(47:15):
they're even if they don't, UM, they have a special way of dealing
with those kinds of things. Icould never you know, I wrote bulls
and I was never going to bea bull rider after college, you know.
But those guys deal with ups anddowns. I mean, you're ninety
points one day, you're zero thenext. Well, I see, I
can't handle that kind of thing,you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

(47:35):
especially not sixty to eighty times ayear. Yeah. No, that's
incredible. I've always been impressed withthat. Yeah it is. But you
I mean, you're going to bein five cities in five days. I
mean, there's just there's just noway that mentally you can hang on because
you're just you'll just fail. Veryimpressive how they do it, especially if
they do more than one event,whether it's time to event or a roughstock
event. You know, yeah,exactly, you know, thirty minutes in

(47:59):
between writing saddle bron Courson getting ona bull. Just he's very impressive.
Compatie Murray was from Meyer and itwas just you know, he didn't make
many mistakes and didn't have a lotof things to grieve about because but you
know, he had a good mentalityhow to do those kind of things.
Louis Fields was outstanding. Yeah,he had a great mental attitude. I
mean, I wish I could duplicatethat. It was really good. Yeah,

(48:21):
I'm so casey. Yeah, Idon't know him as well since he
was a little kid, but Iknew Louie pretty well. And you know,
he worked multiple events and kild youknow, he had a great attitude.
Yeah, yeah, I think that'swhy he was so beloved everybody.
Absolutely. What are what are someof the like some of the things that
you take in right, Like,like you said, you've read every sports
psychology book, Like where do youwhere do you turn for knowledge? Inspiration?

(48:44):
Maybe like if you're in a lowpoint, do you do you turn
to things like because that's what Ido. I turned to books for every
problem I have. Yeah, um, yes, I'm reading some Really my
only hobby, Uh, I getI'm always told I need to get more.
I might not be as into ifI had more hobbies, but books
are a good one for me.I had a friend remind me of this
yesterday too, that um, becauseI wasn't thinking, oh, you know,

(49:07):
I did really well earlier in theweek on the older horses, Um,
won a lot of money. Um, I got one in the finals.
I wasn't thinking about that. YesterdayI made the fines. I was
thinking about the one that didn't makethe finals. You know what, which
is what I do. And youknow, one thing he reminded me of
that I do a lot is thinkabout how unconsequential this really is and the

(49:29):
big thing, the big scheme oflife. You know, I don't know
that the Lord really cares about howI mean, he's he's interested in how
each of us does, you know, but in the big scheme of things,
it really doesn't make any difference,he reminded. My friend reminded me
of somebody that had been paralyzed thatwe that we both knew, and how
well he was accepting life and doingthings in life. You know, Well,

(49:52):
that's all I did was make abad fence run. So I think
for me, one of the bigthings that I do is remind myself as
often as I and you know howsmall a thing it is, and the
big scheme of things, the pressurethat I put on myself, I would
put on myself no matter what.But one ideal, as I mentioned earlier,

(50:13):
when I deal with other people's dreams, you know, it becomes more
difficult because if you think about it, a performance horse trainer is a basically
non contributing member of society at thispoint. There's at one time, I'm
sure a horse trainer was an integralpart of society, you know, kind
of like a mechanic, like amechanic, yeah, or a car dealership.

(50:35):
Yeah. Right, But what dowe contribute now? Nothing? No,
really, I mean there's a certainamount of people that enjoy watching us.
It's a minuscule part of the world'spopulation. If you go to our
major events other than the Open FaterityFinals and the World's Greatest Horseman, you
can shoot a shotgun in the grandstandsand not hit anybody. So it's not
that millions of people are watching us, so, but there are a certain

(50:57):
amount of people that you know,enjoy watch that's one thing. Two,
we do create horses for people toenjoy in the same sport that we do.
Again, it's a very small numberof people. Other than that,
the only other thing a performance horsetrainer really does is we make dreams come
true. And um as a dreammaker, that's that's our job. We're supposed

(51:21):
to make somebody's dreams come So ifyou think about you bought this prospect,
well today they cost a fortune.You spend all this money on on on
a on a prospect to be shownat a fraterity. That's the probably the
least of your costs you've got.You've got to pay the trainer, You've
got to pay the farrier, yougotta pay the vet. You got to
start hauling the horse. You gottapay for that. You gotta pay for
all the expenses of entering um,the incidentals at the show. Well,

(51:44):
the time you're into this thing andyou get it to the fraternity, if
you spent forty thousand, you hada pretty m conservative horse trainer. So
we get to the fraternity, You'vegot all these things into this horse,
and you're relying on this guy toget it shown. Because the only reason
you by a performance horse these days, unless you're going to show it yourself
at some point, is because youwant to be along for the ride.

(52:06):
You want the thrill of watching yourhorse wins. Same thing with a race
horse, you know. And soI ride in the arena and uh,
you know, I've got all everybody'shopes and dreams pinned on me. That's
a lot of pressure if you stopto think about it, especially for a
pressure guy. You know, mosta lot of guys can just shake it
off, say that's horse showing,you know, But when you look at

(52:27):
it from that aspect and you've gotall that financial responsibility and somebody's dreams riding
on you, that's a lot ofpressure, you know. When you hate
to disappoint, and we do.Sometimes it's our fault. Sometimes it's not,
and most people are really good aboutit, but it is. It
is a lot of pressure, andit's it's hard to deal with, and
uh, you know, it's it'sit's not always just horse showing, you
know, or that phrase that someonelike me really hates, as it is

(52:51):
what it is. No, it'snot, you know, sometimes it is,
but anyway, yeah, yeah,well, I mean, and that's
I think it's good message though,right, because what you're really saying is
that you take serious these people's investment. And I'm not saying that the other
people don't, because people wouldn't,but some people don't. But that's really

(53:15):
valuable in our society today because alot of people they never think about the
next guy because we're we're just inthis this world where everything is just it's
a camera in front of your face. Like wherever you are, whatever you
are, you can you can justlive in this bubble of your own narcissism
for lack of better term. Sonobody's thinking about the next guy. You

(53:37):
see it in industries, like you'llsee people who do sloppy work and they
don't think about the guy who hasto come clean it up or what have
you or or whatever that is.So I think and you may not recognize
it like this, but you say, what are we really doing? Well,
if you have a good message,you're helping people with that message and

(53:57):
reality, right, And and youdo have a good message, and there's
a lot of people who do whatyou do, who do that's the whole
reason this show exists because I thinkpeople like you have some of the best
messages, not just for horse people, but for the world. Like,
if you can get a valuable thingfrom some of these other athletes we've referred
to, they could sit there,Michael pick pick a name and say that
exact same thing and inspire millions ofpeople. Why, because what's the real

(54:22):
value of putting a ball in ahoop? What's the real value of throwing
a football? And all reality,what's the real value of throwing a punch
in a ring? No more thana horse show. But they've got to
take more people than we do.But that's that's my point. It doesn't
nest. You've heard the old adagelike if it inspire just one person,

(54:43):
it was worth it. Whether ornot you actually believe that, you know
or somebody believes, that is onething. But but it is a thing.
It is a valuable thing, especiallyif you fall into biblical principle,
like you actually realize that that isthe whole purpose of life. Oh,
certainly everything of value to every thingwe do kind of you know, is
is uh Um divine in a way? I mean, whatever each occupation we

(55:07):
choose in life because I get what. Like I was saying earlier, I
don't. I don't. You know, there's hundreds of people I compete against,
and the all mine. He doesn'tlove me more than any of them,
so he's not gonna make me win, you know. But in the
big scheme of things, there's alot more important things to in life than
horse showing. And again, toget back to your question, that's something

(55:30):
that helps does help ground me whenI stop to think about it. I
think, you know, this,this isn't this isn't the most important thing
in the world. And sometimes youhave to think about that. Yeah,
there's a because of what that wordreverts back to, I think. And
there's a there's a really great bookby this author named Ryan Holiday, and

(55:52):
I don't necessarily grew with some ofhis politics, which is he's a superb
writer, and he focuses on onereally core aspective history, which is the
whole principle of Stoicism. It's it'slike a it was really cool to be
into Stoicism a couple of years ago. I mean, granted, people have
been into it for thousands of years, but because nobody did it now it's
kind of trendy on social media.But he has this book, it's a

(56:15):
series of books but called Ego isthe Enemy. And basically everything you said
is a message of anti ego,because that's the one thing that destroys a
lot of people. And you know, not focusing on the wind, that's
a core principle of that, youknow, doing right by other people,

(56:35):
that's a core principle. Having disciplinefor the sake of having discipline, that's
a core principle. So really,all I'm getting out of everything you say,
and I know you see it adifferent way, is that you were
living a correct life. And Iknow maybe you don't think think of it
that way because you're like, God, damn it, why do I have
to have blue shirt? Blue shirt? Red shirt, red shirt? That's
not the rainbow, PLI it,But you know it, living a discipline

(56:58):
life and doing it that way iskind of what we're called to do.
No, I think you're exactly right. I read a book you asked about
books just recently, and Kelby Phillipshe worked for me years ago, and
he and I are a lot alike. We have a few distinct differences,
but we're very very much alike andthink a lot alike. I come from

(57:22):
a little bit different background and handlethings a little differently than he does.
But we can communicate with each otherwithout communicating. And he was talking to
me a couple of well, it'sbeen about two months ago. I told
him, you need to read abook. I said, this book won't
help you, but it'll help youunderstand that there's people like us out in
the world. And it was thatbook, Andrea Agassi's autobiography, and it

(57:43):
was really good because here was aguy that his first line, I believe
in the book is I hate tennis. I don't hate horse training. But
he said I hate tennis, andthey said, no, you really don't,
Yes, I do. I hatetennis. And he goes the whole
book. He goes through these highsand lows and um, he goes from
number one in the world to like, I don't know what it's like,
one hundred and seventy fifth in theworld or something like that. And it

(58:07):
was very interesting to see his mentalityand how he dealt with it or how
he couldn't deal with it, andvery similar to mine. Yeah, in
a lot of ways, he couldbe number one and then he could fall.
Um, and and how he hewas you know, a different personality
than me, but it was itwas interesting, and it's it always interesting

(58:27):
to see how guys that are reallygood at whatever they do. You you
know, you think they're they're impenetrableiceman, like I said, but they're
not. You know, a lotof them aren't. No, and he
was he was a basket case.You know. Made me feel pretty good
about myself, you know. Soanyway, yeah, yeah, it's ah,
So I kind of have one lastquestion for you, um, because

(58:50):
you've said, like I guess Ido wonder because I don't. I actually
don't believe in happiness per se.I actually believe happiness is just an emotion,
just like anything. Right, yoube happy a hundred times in a
day throughout the day, and thenyou could be miserable for a second,
happy and then you're a little angry, and like it's it's a spectrum,
just like being angry. You canbe angry for thirty seconds or three hours,

(59:14):
the same thing with happiness. Butwell, what do you find like
joy and and things like that,like whe where do you get that from?
And where do you suppose people shouldget that from in a society?
We live in. Yeah, well, I think that's one of you.
Like last time you had one question, I remember what it was that I
was like, yeah, Charlote,should have thought about that longer. But

(59:35):
um oh, I remember your questionlast time was if one thing could be
etched and stone about? Yeah.Yeah, And I did finally get around
to a good answer. You hada great answer on that one. Yeah.
Um, but this one is probablya little easier to answer. Um.
I think I actually do think wewere we were put here to be
happy. You know, some ofus. It's easier for than others.
You know, a lot of agreat deal of our unhappy And I'm being

(01:00:00):
loss for here more than anything,but a great deal of our unhappiness we
caused. You know. Then sometimesthere's things that happened to us in this
life that we didn't cause that causeus a great deal of unhappiness. Most
of the unhappiness that I feel everyday is crap that I caused, you
know, not that I caused,but that I've inflicted upon myself, you
know, because of I'm too intense. Um. But I you know,

(01:00:22):
that's another marital discussion we have aa long time. Because I think I
sometimes portray myself as a person who'snot happy, when the truth is I
actually am relatively happy. It's justintensity and competition can sometimes make me unhappy.
So, uh, my own mothertold me one time that competition has

(01:00:45):
never been good for me. Youknow, some people are good at it
and I'm not always. But uh, I to to better answer the question,
Um, I think we all findour own ways to be happy,
and sometimes we pick the wrong ways. We think things are making us happy
and they're not. Because I've beendisciplined, I've never gone down those kind

(01:01:08):
of roads, you know, ofthe things that I thought made me happy
that didn't. But I think,uh, probably the I get I give.
I like most of us, Ithink a great deal of happiness comes
from our family, and whether it'schildren or you know, extended family.
I think that's the greatest part ofhappiness, at least on this earth for

(01:01:30):
me. I think another part ofhappiness is I remind myself constantly that I,
you know, I get to getup every day and do what I
want to do where a lot ofpeople don't, and so that when I
remind myself, it gives me quitea bit of happiness. And then we
all have to find some things Ithink that actually outside of work, that

(01:01:52):
that do do make us happy.Um, I don't have I like to
read that makes me happy. Ilike animals. I got ducks and chickens
and dogs and everything, you know, because I go out and hang out
with them. You know. Ihave want My younger daughter, we had
a we had a child when wewere old, a surprise baby. So

(01:02:13):
I still have one that's under eighteen, and she's like me. She's not
the intense personality, but she lovesanimals. I mean, she's like snow
white. When she walks outside,all these things just come to So she
and I go, I hang outwith the animal. That's kind of my
Thingum. My problem is is thethings that I go do for recreation,
like when I went to jiu jitsu, and it's another form of competition.

(01:02:36):
So I gotta find things that Ihave as hobbies that are not competition,
you know, because I get tothat when my hobby also becomes something that
creates anxiety, then it's it's it'sdefeating it. Do you ever just hop
on a good horse and go rideout in the past yure? Yeah,
Sometimes it's usually one that he's riddenanyway that I getting paid for. But
yeah, because I don't have ahorse on my own. Yeah, but
yeah I do occasionally we'll do it. I go on vacation once a year,

(01:02:58):
Yeah, and we go on towe always go somewhere tropical every December
January and I become a different personfor one week. And that's that's another
thing that I do. Um.So those are some things that work for
me. I uh and and helpme stay sane. Yeah yeah, yeah,
I think a lot of happiness doescome from our family and watching them

(01:03:19):
do things. Uh. I hadto be careful because I really liked football.
My son played football. But theend I come too intense. I
don't yell and scream from the sidelines. I just pays it like a cage
panther, you know, because heplayed the same positions I did. Nice
because so I know what he's doingwrong and I'm just over So a lot
of times my recreation became intense aswell. But yeah, a lot of
a lot of my joy comes fromfrom family and and uh, I stay

(01:03:44):
ground to do for me, uhhelp what helped me stay helps me stay
ground as I come from religious background, and um, that really works for
me. You know, I'm sureeverybody has their own way of coping with
those kind of things that that reallyI think if it wasn't for that and
having a good family, I wouldprobably live my life in a rubber room.

(01:04:04):
But anyway, yeah, well,and you're surprisingly funny first, But
you know, happiness is such aninteresting topic. And then I'll let you
get back to your brooding and thinkingabout yea the show. But I've thought
about it so much and read somany books on happiness and like and I
always look at specific figures throughout historyand the ones that I would admire that

(01:04:29):
you know, the Winston Churchills,and not that he was perfect by any
means, but a lot of peopleare victims of their time period. Nobody,
all the all the these moral peoplewho come from this moral high ground
where they want to attack people fromhistory. It's like, I can assure
you, whatever this moral superiority youthink you have in today's modern area,
you would not have had back then. You wouldn't have you. In fact,

(01:04:50):
you would have been the first onenot standing up for something because we're
just too soft nowadays. But Ijust don't know for a man and specifically,
and somebody might not like that.But I just don't know that being
happy is something that a man needsto think about. Yeah, I just

(01:05:11):
I don't, because that can preventyou from your duty and your purpose.
If you're just so fixated on theidea of being happy, like you might
not ever do anything because you're justgonna chase every single emotional high that comes
your way, and then next thing, you know, you pissed away a
whole lifetime. It's like I lookat the people like Winston Churchill when he
became Prime Minister. He was likein his sixties when he went through all

(01:05:32):
the stuff that he went through,he'd already lived an entire life, Like
he could have just sat and hungup and not fought Nazism and done the
things that he did and continue toserve his entire life. And did he
have bad habits probably because it wasn'tthat healthy. Gambling and things of that
nature, and financial issues maybe,but maybe being overly happy. And this
is not for you, it's forpeople listening, But maybe don't focus on

(01:05:55):
happiness as a goal. Well youmight, you know, I don't know
enough about that kind of thing tocomment too much on it. I watched
there was that that documentary on Netflixcalled Happiness Yeah, which I thought was
really good. And uh, youknow, people would talk about what made
them happy and how happy they were. And I remember the one guy that

(01:06:15):
lived with I don't know, Ihad three or four kids, and somewhere
in in uh cheese, I don'tknow where's the Laocean country, you know,
somewhere, he had a house thathad a tarp. It was basically
just tarped, and he said itwas pretty nice unless the wind blew a
certain direction and blew rain in.Other than that, he had a really
nice house. Yeah. He pedaledpeople around, um for a living.

(01:06:38):
I had one of them bikes andhe pedaled around. They out in the
back and he was just happy allthe time. And I mean, if
a guy like that can be happy, then some guy like me ought to
have no reason to be anything buthappy. Yet we yet sometimes or not.
I think happiness is always should bea goal. And I, as
we talked about here, I thinkcertain look has to do with um,
the personality we were born with.I think you're right. I think that

(01:07:00):
has because some people are just naturallysuper happy people. I guess. I
guess because I'm one of those people. I really try not to chase it
because I'm like, this is false, this is false. You wake up
and you're like, oh my god, I'm so happy about everything, Like
you shouldn't be on your duty,right, yeah, but like you shouldn't
be happy about some of the thingsthat transpire to some of the bad decisions
you've made or could make, becauseyou chase happiness as a thing you need

(01:07:25):
to folks on something else. SoI think it's because we're so different that
maybe we see it that way.Oh look at you. But I I
do try to think a lot abouton how I can keep my horses happy.
Yeah, all the time as ahorse trainer, and I think that's
one of my biggest challenges because,especially for a fraterity horse, that's a
lot of things, especially in therain cow horse, so many con contrary
things were teaching horses. Some thingsare backward motion, some things are forward

(01:07:47):
motion. Um, these horses areare very uh, they're they're taught a
lot of a lot of things ina short period of time, and then
we ask them for their life whenthey get here to this faturity and you
got to keep these guys happy andthat it's when we talk about happiness.
I don't think that much about people'shappiness as I should as much as I
do horses happiness, And I thinkall the time, how can I keep

(01:08:09):
this bugger happy? You know?And some of them I've noticed are just
naturally happy horses. And then there'sothers that don't, don't receive a lot
of discipline or tough love, thataren't as happy, you know. And
that's everything that I All the conclusionsI draw about people, I mostly get
from horses. And I assume,you know, because you watch horses,
and you can watch one that justgets spurred on all the time because he

(01:08:30):
won't because he's goofing off and stuff, and he's just happy, and then
another one that gets after him onceor twice and he's hurt mentally hurt and
sulky and unhappy, you know.And I think a lot of how do
you handle those two different personalities?And horse it's tough specifically, you know,
how do you keep how do youkeep the the emotional horse together?
That's it's a tough thing. AndI don't have the answer to it.
Um you just have to and Ihave I have three kids, so I'm

(01:08:54):
not an expert, you know,every one of them was different. I
didn't do the right things a lotof time, and sometimes I did write
things, but um, I noticedwhether it was the horse or the kid,
you had to know when to backoff at times. And I'm not
a good back off guy. Youknow, you don't say, well I
was. It's hard with children.It was a little bit more difficult because

(01:09:15):
I was the kind of kid thatmy dad said, don't do that,
and I went, okay, Iain't even try it, you know.
Um where I had one kid thenwhat you said, don't do that?
And they went not bad, butmore so than I ever was. It
was like, I wonder why everyyeah? And I and I had another

(01:09:36):
one that was more like me thatwent, oh okay, you know um.
And my wife was also the sameway. If they said don't do
that, she didn't do it.Well the one that went, maybe I
might. I wonder why they don'twant me to do that. It was
hard for us to deal with becauseit wasn't a background we had, right
and dad said don't do it,we went okay, you know when dad
went and said Noah to Hersey wentwonder why yeah? So anyway, but

(01:10:00):
horses do the same thing, butkeeping a horse happy as a especially if
a dirty horse, it can bea difficult thing. And how do we
do it? I mean there's lotsof things, you know, turning out,
changing routine, changing training methods.The one I made the finals on
here, for instance, was ahorse in July. I called the owner.
I said, this is a goodhorse. I'm not getting her.

(01:10:21):
I'm not getting her. I'm I'mjust fighting with her. I know she's
I think we ought to send herto somebody else. And I said,
because I think there's a good horsein there, for whatever reason, I'm
not tapping it. She wasn't happywith me. I wasn't happy with her,
and her performance was terrible, andI knew there was ability there and
this will shoot. This was middleof July and I was coming back from

(01:10:42):
a practice cutting and she was terribleand wasn't filling her potential. And I
made the call and I said,he said, well, what do you
want me to do? He said, who do you suggest I send it
to? I said, well,I suggested some people. And I said,
you know what, let me thinkabout the rist away home and I'll
get back to you. Well,on the way home, I kind of
had some inspiration, you know,um, probably just something in the back

(01:11:06):
of my head that came forward.But I thought, I howd to try
this? Like calling back at theend of the trip, I said,
let me have her a week.Let's let me try a week. Is
that I'm gonna do something different.Within a week, I had a different
horse, just on a different approach, and she kept getting better and better
and better and better. Just asubtle change, it was. It was.
It was just well to me,it was subtle to her. It

(01:11:27):
was probably huge, you know.It was just the way I approached a
lot of things with her. Iturned down some of the intensity because she
was bad. You know, shewouldn't do things right that she knew how
to do. So what do youdo? You're gonna give her some tough
love? You know? Well,I finally said, let's try, let's
let's knock that off because obviously it'snot working. Well, just it's hard
for me to ignore bad behavior.I'm going to ignore it. Well,

(01:11:50):
I thought my head was going topop off, but I ignored it,
and we just ignored the bad andkind of just went around it. Well,
pretty soon she started coming Within oneweek, she started coming back to
me. She started. I startedfeeling changes every week, a little more
change. It wasn't until two weeksago. I have two examples. Actually,
a two weeks ago, I went, holy cow, I got something

(01:12:10):
here. This is really good.And she's built like a little tank.
She she didn't look like a horsethat can rein at all, and she
does. You know, she's notthe best reiner there by any means,
but she can really cut. Butshe couldn't cut two weeks ago. She
might be one of the best cuttinghorses there, you know. And she's
always gone down the fence pretty well. Another example, I had another horse
that showed potential early on, andI've been telling the owner, who I've

(01:12:32):
never seen in my life. Hesent him to me, that's pretty good
horse. We all all of asudden, one day he's not. He
did. The others kept progressing,even her kept progressing. The one that
I spoke up previously, this onejust kind of came to a halt.
We did find some physical issue.Because it with horses, because they can't
speak to you, you have toreally be on top of their physical problems.

(01:12:53):
And that's something I've had to learnthe hard way over the years because
I didn't. I can't work themthrough it, and I can't, you
know, And I didn't have alot of you know, my dad was
very good at that with his racehorses, but it was something growing up
I just kind of ignored. Buthe's he's like overly cautious about physical things
and horses, and I kind ofdidn't pay a lot of attention to it.

(01:13:14):
Over the years, and I gotbetter and better at it, but
especially the last few years, Ipaid very close attention to it. So
we found some things in him thatwe didn't know we're there, and we
we treated him still nothing, andwe went through him with a fine tooth
comb physically, because I caught ahorse that's behavior is this bad, something
with this much ability, something hasto be physically wrong with him. When

(01:13:35):
we checked every single cell on hisbody, I said, well, it's
not physical. So I went toI said, well, the only thing
it can be is I'm not hardenough on him, just the opposite of
the one I told you about before, because he's kind of a happy personality
where she was a more worried personality. So I was pretty rough for him.

(01:13:57):
I got after him and I gotafter him for like a week.
This was three weeks ago. BecauseI didn't have anything with him. I
had a lot of ability, butI didn't have a show horse, and
I really really got after him.And he responded to that almost like he
was happy. You know, hewent, Okay, I got it now
and came here almost made the finals, which we weren't even gonna bring him

(01:14:18):
here, and he had a reallygood performance all the way through. Wow.
And two different horses treated two completelydifferent ways. One got backed off
the pressure, one got out ofthe pressure, and they both ended up
happier. So how do you keepa young horse happier horse? And I
don't know. They all have differentanswers. Yeah, just like a kid.

(01:14:38):
Yeah, yeah, I wish Iwere I think with my horse training,
one thing that I wish I werebetter at is being a better and
I think we all do thinking tryingto get into their mind better because sometimes
because I'm a routine guy, mybiggest flaws. I can get into a
routine with a horse, this iswhat we do on this day, and

(01:14:59):
then I can miss the mental aspectof it that I shouldn't miss. Fortunately
I'm cognizant of it, and I'mI always say, oh, yeah,
check the mental but we got himhere mentally, you know, rather than
just grinding on them all the time, which I've probably done plenty of times.
But anyway, Yeah, we tryto keep them as happy as we
can, and we have to dealwith them all differently. Yeah, I
mean, it's it's really unbelievable advicefor anybody who wants to hone in on

(01:15:21):
their horsemanship. And I'm proud too, because everybody to hear these days is
riding a horse that's, you know, cost two hundred thousand dollars and my
most expensive A thirty horse is twentytwo thousand. Yeah, well it actually
is something. The one that madethe finals cost seventy five hundred. I
won twenty five thousand luckily this weekon one that costs seven thousand, you
know. So now I'm not sayingthat that's I just got lucky, but

(01:15:44):
anyway, yeah, I'm proud ofthat. Yeah, I mean there's probably
something too. Taking a horse that'snot on paper, probably the exact same
as the rest of these ones thatare going for so much money, and
putting them through a severe, severesound that's a bad word. An extremely
disciplined program that maybe getting superduper hungup on the breeding, the top,

(01:16:08):
the bottom and all that. Likeeverybody is now, maybe a lot of
horses can rise to that same levelif they have the right programming. I
think more can get better. Youknow, we I don't want to discount
breeding, and I don't want everybodysending me a second rate horse now that
they've heard this podcast, you know, and say, oh, I gotta
you know a great grandson of PocoBueno that you can make a fraternity change,
because you can't. But sir,this horse's backfeet are facing the other

(01:16:30):
way. Yeah, I don't.I never ask a person how the horse
is bred when they call me.I never do a lot of Most of
the time they want to tell you. I mostly send it. Let's see
what you got. And you know, you gotta be careful doing that,
especially when you take as few horsesas I do, because Brie, I
don't want to again, I don'twant to discount breeding because the very well

(01:16:50):
bred ones are always gonna win.But yeah, I think we can sometimes
talk ourselves out of one because wethink, well, maybe you know,
it doesn't that well bred, andit actually is a pretty good horse.
I've always thought, especially like inour world, these incentives have really just
gone out of control. I mean, there's horses selling for a million dollars
in sales right now. I meanthere's embryos selling for six figures now.

(01:17:13):
It blows them, It blows yourmind. And but that's for a certain
type of person. And I thinkeverybody's so fixated on that that they're missing
out on really great horses that arejust below that, or somebody didn't pay
up. It's like there's some amazing, untapped talent out there for what you're
doing that you should be considering thatdoesn't cost seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

(01:17:34):
Well you have to one or two. You know, there's someone who's
telling me about a trainer that's doingvery well, a cutting horse trainer.
I'm doing very well all right now. It has two hundred horses in training,
and I usually keep twenty around there, and I'm thinking, two hundred
horses, how do you even knowwhat they look like at that point?
And so you know, there's gotto be something fall through a crack when

(01:17:56):
you've got two hundred horses just Imean, statistics could not have happen.
And we I talked about this before, but when I was here last time.
But you know, it's it's myjob to make every horse the best
it can be. If I've donethat, I've done. I've done that
horse of favor. You know.That's what we talked about last time.
And and you know, I'm notgoing to keep anything around and waste money
on something that needs to be ina different discipline. But if I can,

(01:18:19):
if I have one horse that Iwant a foterity on. Before I
came here, he was half apoint out of the finals. Here,
he's about fifteen one, which ishuge for a three year old fiterity horse.
It doesn't have a ton of ability, but he tried pretty hard and
I thought we might be able toget him in the finals at the tail
end, and he almost did,you know when his owner was good with

(01:18:40):
that. She didn't pay very muchfor him. He certainly wasn't embarrassing,
and we thought we had a chanceof making the finals, and we all
want that. You know, itwas worth a shot. And that's a
much better horse because of the timewe spent on him, right, you
know, so make a great horsefor her, Yeah, absolutely, yeah,
yeah, which is I guess theend goal really, Yeah, or
somebody yeah somewheah, well, well, Zane, I would say this has
been a absolutely fantastic podcast. Itwas so regimenow yeah, now everybody's yeah,

(01:19:09):
I've depressed everybody out there. No, it was. It was really
good. Um. So thank youso much for coming and doing this again.
And you have a great message.I say, I think you should
continue to share it when you can. Well, thank you for having me.
It's been a pleasure absolutely and bestof luck. Thank you. This

(01:19:33):
has been The Gauge hosted by meChance Conrado, produced and edited by our
guy Ty Yeager. Shout out tothe executive producers, Dustin Pointer and Cody
Denton. Marketing and content produced byRiley Chone. Make sure to rate and
review this podcast, as well asfollow the Gauge on Twitter, Instagram,
and Facebook, and make sure tosubscribe to the Gauge wherever you get your

(01:19:56):
podcast. We'll see you guys nexttime.

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