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I now have another hero. I don’t know who all of the well-known trainers are yet since I’m new to all of this. But at the futurity, I was able to learn and see them all together, under one roof, riding their hearts out. One man, stood out for me, over all the others, Ken Wold. That guy can ride! He was spectacular to watch. I don’t know what it is that makes one rider stand out from all of the other incredible riders, but Mr. Wold has whatever that is. He was magic.

This is one of his rides during the futurity with Playgirls Miss Grace. You can tell by the crowd that I wasn’t the only one who was thrilled to watch him. I heard that he was inducted into the NRCHA hall of fame this year. Congratulations to Ken and thanks for the show! WOW!

Ken Wold’s web site is: http://www.kenwoldtrainingstables.com/

I’m home! I’m too sleepy to make the movies tonight, but wanted to post this photo because I was thinking about the fashion I saw. Ok, ok, I’m fairly certain that cowboys don’t EVER use the word fashion, but, well, what else should I call it? Maybe “cowboy style” or “cowboy gear?” Anyway, I’m not sure who he is, but does this guy have some style or what? One of the things about the futurity is you see a huge variety of cowboy fashion/gear. This guy, with matching blue horse, was the winner of fashion week in my mind.

I saw a lot of square-toed boots still, but also a lot of those tall buckaroo cowboy boots. There were a lot of men and women wearing the buckaroo boots with their pants tucked in. There were also a lot of elephant and hippo hide boots for sale, if you can believe it. They said the elephants all died of natural causes. I walked away grumbling.

I like the more unusual hats, like the traditional cowboy hats that have some crazy shape to them. I love the one this guy is wearing, but I saw this other guy wearing a palm hat that had THE COOLEST shape. I think I captured him of video. I’ll try to find it. I don’t even have a hat, but if I could find just the right one…

Al, I bought another pair of boots, and I’m actually going to wear them and retire my English ones. They’re soooo comfy. First thing I did was get some of that futurity arena dirt on them for luck. I also got a pair of Ricotti spur straps. Then I lost my mind buying NRCHA shirts. Amanda, I got the cutest hoodie and jacket with the NRCHA patch on it. Ya! I was THE BIGGEST tourist. I don’t care if I’m a big goofball. I was to excited about everything to care.

And can I say, no matter what they were wearing, rich or poor, famous or unknown, everyone was so nice. What a great group of people. I didn’t meet anyone that had a nasty attitude and best of all, I didn’t meet anyone that didn’t want to talk about horses.

A horse called Black Pearl won the Futurity! The rider, John Ward, took home the prize. What was that prize again…ooooh..mmmm….something like $100,000. It was amazing to watch the two of them. What a horse!

I have lots to say, but it’s midnight and I have to catch a way-too-early flight back to Seattle. Al and Amanda, you guys HAVE to be there next year. I mean it! It was so exciting. You can’t help but fall in love with at least a few of the horses. My absolute favorite was a horse called Mr. Playinstylish out of Playin Stylish and Tari Chick Gay. He was so cool during the herd work.

I think, of all the riders, I enjoyed watching Ken Wold the most. That guy can ride. I mean, they were all amazing to watch, but Ken was just out there riding the hell out of his horse. He’s on my list of heroes now for sure.

Since we were recently talking about stopping, I kinda had that on the brain going it, so I recorded 20 slides–one of each of the futurity finalists. I’ll make a short movie and post it asap.

Also, coolest the EVER, for some of the show, Les was in the row of seats above me so I got to hear his commentary. I learned so much this weekend. Know what else? I’m pretty sure I’m completely lost to this sport now. Is there anything more glorious than a cow horse?

Stand by for pictures and videos! I’ll have them coming your way soon!

Oh! Oh! Oh! And I got to meet Lyle Lovett! I almost fainted but held it together long enough to shake his hand.

I finally picked up some skid boots for my little stopper. Heres how much he likes it. He may act like this is the first time he’s ever worn them, but this was taken after he’s worn them about ooooooh…eight times. He does this every single day!

If this plays really slow, try following this link to YouTube. It might work better and you can see it in high quality. If this works, I’ll be able to post some videos from Reno this weekend!

I’ve be working really hard on the stops. Leo is just a superstar stopper from a trot now. I’m talkin’, I sit down and barely lift the reins and he tucks butt to nose. HOWEVER, at a canter…forget it! It’s like all that softness in the mouth just disappears.

So a few weeks ago, I decide to just do rundowns over and over until he decided to stop. We got through maybe four of those, when on the last one he just slammed down on all fours, mainly the front. I was sitting slightly twisted I think and MAN! It just destroyed my back. I was a hurtin’ unit for about four days. Ugh! Lesson learned.

Since that approach didn’t work, today I worked on just letting him canter for a while, but I kept him very very collected. This is one of those approachez I learned at a Vogt clinic. I attempted to stop maybe four times from a canter before I really asked for extreme collection, and all four stops were bad. He just trotted down and pulled against the bit. The last time, I had him canter the length of the arena three times and had him very collected. Then I turned him down the middle of the arena and sped up a little then sat back and said “whoa.” WOW!!!! It toooootally worked! He stooooooooooooooped! Woooohooooooo!
I had to hop off and let him be done for the day. It was so cool!

I’m a little bummed that winter is coming because I won’t have a place to really work on cantering and more speedy things. I hate that. I wish I had a big huge covered arena with the perfect dirt. Ooooh well. At least I have a great horse to ride, huh!!!

Well, Leo did it today! He had his roping debut! Our strategy was to just have him do one run and then let him relax, so he would have as little stress as possible and walk away feeling good.

Last year, Leo was a very anxiety filled little fellow. He was hot, jumpy, and very unmanageable. I’ve noticed at these team roping events that you can just feel the intense energy and anxiety in air; it’s stirred up and swirling around every horse and rider along with the dust. Even during warm up, it’s not an easy place to keep a horse calm. Riders are zipping past you at all speeds, ropes are whistling through the air, and more than a few horses lose their cool. Continue Reading »

Tomorrow is Jim’s day because he gets to rope with Mike Beers in the annual WestStar Arena Open Roping. I showed up a day early because they have a little party for the ropers the night before. The ranch is about an hour and a half drive for me. I took this first photo on the drive—a piece of a carnival probably headed to the Ellensburg Rodeo for this holiday weekend.

On the way over, Jim called and told me that Leo had gotten hurt in his horsie hotel paddock, no one knows how. I’m sure Leo knows, but he’s not telling us. He’s probably too upset about the 5 stitches he got in his right leg. I can’t ride him for 10 to 14 days. I’m so glad it wasn’t too serious.

Here’s Jim and I, you can’t see it, but he’s holding a tube of nasty paste antibiotics that we have to give Leo for a few days.

After squishing that into Leos mouth, we headed over to the dinner party. The ranch is offering $100,000 in cash and prizes this year. They had all the prizes on display. Here’s the saddle that I told Jim he needs to win. Trophy saddles are fantastic.

Tomorrow I’m going to have a riding lesson first thing in the morning. I get to ride that beautiful bay that I fell in love with a few weeks ago. Then I’m off to the big roping. I haven’t seen the legendary “littlest cowboy” Clay O’Brein Cooper yet, but I’ll be on the look-out tomorrow for sure.

Wow! You sure had a lot to say about the turn-around. Thanks so much for all the help. You know the best part about it? Now I know I’m not the only one that thinks it’s a difficult maneuver. It’s really hard to get the hang of! They (the they, you know who they are) make it look so easy.

I got to go to my third Les Vogt clinic last weekend, as you know (only my second on horseback). During his clinics, there is free time where he’ll let you choose what you’d like to work on and have him help you with individually. I chose to spend most of my time, under the watchful eye of Les, doing turn-arounds and the collected sequence stop.

I think the two maneuvers have one major thing in common, that thing that Les is always saying, “It’s all in the neck!” This clinic really hammered home the importance of that. If the horse isn’t supple and soft in the neck, the maneuver will always fail. I don’t know why it’s taken so long for that to sink in to my noggin.

With the turn-around, I worked on the approach a lot (riding into it like Al says)–bumping the back of the horse up to the front, always keeping the form of the neck. When the neck was right I could make the attempt. I really had to pay attention to my hands (drrr). The inside rein (hand) helps create that bend where you should only see the horse’s eyelashes, and the outside rein (hand) controls the speed and also helps to keep the form of the neck. With Les supervising several attempts, I feel like I’ve really got the idea now and realize that it’s going to take a lot of practice before it becomes second nature.

I get it now. Basically, there should be no resistance in the neck whatsoever. None. Thats where I need to work with Leo right now, but he’s pretty dang close (I say this with no small amount of pride).

Amanda, you were talking about some hip issues? I think you said your horse might be swapping ends a little? Leo does that too. I watched Les have some riders really go to work on that. If the horse is swapping ends than one thing he suggests is “having a conversation” with the horse about it by pushing the inside hip to the eye, before trying again. Also, where is your foot/leg? Have you tried cuing from farther back, like you would to move the hip in a turn on the forehand? You probably already know that but just in case–it might help hold the hip in.

Leo is home! Finally! He looked like he’d been in cowboy bootcamp all summer. He just looked really wore out and soooo happy to be home. He hadn’t seen green grass all summer and his little nose was sun burned. The best part was seeing him and his pasture mate Shadow say their hellos. Cuuuute!

I let him have a few days off to relax, and then I hopped back on. I got so frustrated today over turn-arounds. I’m just not getting it at all.

The exercise: When I’m practicing a turn-around, I’m walking a bigger circle, then I cut to the middle of the circle, turn around, and walk or trot out. I repeat that over and over until I hate myself for being so lame at it (and sometimes I stay up til 2 in the morning to blog about how lame I am at it).

How I ask: I bump with my legs to the center of the circle, then I take out the inside leg so he’ll turn.

The problem(s): I think I’m messing up with my hands and my body position.

Questions: Do you guys lean to the inside with your weight? Do you lean back? Do you look into the turn (twist your body in the direction of the turn, almost like you’re looking over your shoulder?) What about your hand position?

I’ve seen that hand position should be the inside rein higher than the outside rein, with hands pretty close together. But it seems to work better for me if I almost guide him with the inside rein, almost pulling him around.

The results I’m getting–how I know I’m messing up: Either I bunch him up so much that he starts that dreadful hopping around with his front end; or I give him too much slack and he walks out of it.

Sometime I feel like I was born to train horses. Other days I feel like I should quit and take up Ping-Pong. Today I felt like I needed to take up Ping-Pong. Ugh!

I’m so glad Leo is back though. I missed him bunches.

Hi! Sorry for being so quiet lately! Guess what I’ve been doing? Riding horses and chasing cows! I’m been having so much fun. You know, chasing cows is a lot like longing horses, putting pressure on the hip speeds then up and pressure on the head slows them down. Piece of cake right? Pffft!

I don’t have a bunch of time to write because I’m behind on everything, but heres the quick summary:

• Turns out Leo is super supple and I’ve done “a great job” there
• I “get” the cows. Does that mean I’m cowy?
• Leo and I are horrible at turn-arounds, which means, it’s really me thats horrible at turn-arounds.
• We did our first flying lead change. Woooooooooo!!!! It was ugly, but we did it!!!
• I have a riding instructor/amazing horse trainer that is a total keeper
• Leo is going to his first team-roping this weekend. This is a pass or fail for him so keep your fingers crossed.
• Best news of all! Leo is coming home after the roping next week. (Of course, if he does horribly at the roping, he’ll probably only be home for a short time, but I’ll worry about that if it happens.)

I hope everyone is having a great summer so far! Hows training going? How are the horses? Whats going on?