Ranch Sorting, Trust and Expanding Your Horse Horizons

Say Hi to Opie. Or is it OP? Which stands for "Old People."
Opie, don't worry, everyone is very nice on this blog.

The orginal plan is that TR, C and I would head over to Dave's place and get some lessons, cowboy style. Straight shooting, to the point, no pussy footing around. So when I texted the only cowboy I know who can text and ride, I was surprised when he called me and told me that he had forgotten that he had a clinic going on for sorting cows - ranch sorting is the technical term.

Personally, I sort all my cows at the grocery store. Lean, super lean, today's special... you know.

And cows make me a little nervous, truth be told. Remember when the bull came over to the barn? I did manage to chase him off, but I was more than a little intimidated.

But I was too excited about my all horsey weekend to not ride out this change in plans. So, I let TR know, and while he didn't think me or C would get what we really needed (which was some cowboy telling us in no uncertain terms the 500 things he tries to tell us all the time), he was up for it. He decided to bring his horses for him and C, but I let cowboy Dave know that I'd need a horse.

After all, my goal has been to ride a different horse every chance I get. TR wants me to get on as many different horses as possible, and in the last 2 weeks I haven't ridden the same horse twice in a row yet.

Hence, OP. Op was brought to the clinic for someone who ended up with a hangover... er... ended up not coming because they weren't feeling well.

Thank goodness TR told me to bring a saddle. OP is 20+ and has some serious power steering. That horse knows how to sort cattle, which made one of us. He was fantastic but once again I found as I was riding him around in the beginning, trying to get use to his nature and controls, that we were wandering all over the place.

Trust the horse, I told myself. Once I trusted him, I knew that the only thing left was to fix what I was doing wrong.

So I focused, realizing that I was cueing this horse somehow. He was so soft, that while he was dead broke, he was also very responsive and I was unconsciously cueing with my legs again, just as I had on Smokey. Thankfully Opies was also very forgiving. I got myself together and we were finally going straight and true.




There was quite a mix of riders. Some were women like me - never did anything like this, just loved horses and were looking to learn anything they could. M and I were the only total newbies, everyone else had done it at least once before.

Funny, I never had that old trepidation, even though I was on a horse I didn't know, doing something I had never done before, in a place with people I didn't know very well, with thousands of pounds of future happy meals running around.

M on her lovely horse Louie, Me on Opie, the smarter-than-a-40+-greenhorn horse

Two women were fearful of their horses and their horses were ill behaved. It was good for me to see this, it was like a bright highlighter came on in my mind every time I saw control crumble in their hands.

• She's not correcting that horse that's pinning it's ears.
• She's not carrying through, waiting until she gets the horse's head down before releasing the pressure.
• She's rewarding that resistance because she's too scared to finish.

I thought of the times control crumbled in my hands, a dozen little missed cues, adding up exponentially until I had worked up to a buck or crow hop. Or just aimless ambling.

To their credit these women rode out many of the issues they had with those horses, rode through their fear. I knew that place on their journey. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. But now, I'm on the other side of it, just by a millimeter, but it's the biggest darn millimeter in the world.

J on her buckskin - she was one of the best riders out there, TR and Lola next to them.

Other riders were solid riders on solid horses, like J on her hot, beautiful buckskin. That woman could ride and sort! She was there to improve her technique, but I just admired the way she moved as one with her horse.

There were three men, including TR. I was a little surprised - I know women own the horses in this country (by and large), but this ranch sorting thing seemed like it was boy horse stuff. I didn't expect a 3 to 1 ratio here too...

The rest of us were somewhere in between - a little more solid with our horses, but still with things we needed to work on.

I watched teams working, tried to pick up some idea of what the heck I was supposed to do.

Then it was my turn, and M and I, the only two newbies, headed into the pen.

I'm going to presume that you know what I know about ranch sorting. NOTHING. So you experienced people, just scroll down for a minute.

The idea of the game is a lot like flying Southwest Airlines. Load the pen in numerical order. The calves (or are they cows? I have no idea), who are suddenly little things when you are up in a saddle, have numbers around their necks (although I've been told there are lots of ways to put numbers on them, so YMMV (your mileage may vary)).

So there's the little herd, wanting nothing more than to stay together, and you go in there with your horse, find your calf numbered "7", and separate him from his buddies and only let him go into the other pen without 3, 0 or 1 running in with him.

Usually one person goes and drives in the calves and the other guards the pen. But we switched out constantly. I suspect that was for our training, not for efficiency.

And let me tell you, chasing little calves with numbers on their neck is FUN! If this is on your bucket list, go get it done, but look out - cuz you won't want to stop. The best part of it was that you learn while focusing on something outside your horse. You have to get yourself in a good basic riding position, but then you have to watch the calf, move it along and not over think what you're doing.

And cows are not just pre-burgers! We had one little cow, number 3, that had the best head fake in the business. He'd look like he was going one way, then would dive another way. It's enough to make you think about switching over to sushi. (Kidding. I intend on supporting my new calf sorting addiction with some organic beef)


The instructions from Dave were:

• Watch the cow's head, not it's butt.
• Keep riding.
• Get out of the hole, quick. (the hole is the gap between pens where the cows run through)
• Communicate to your partner.
• Keep on your calf, your partner worries about the others.
• Keep him on the fence.
• Break up the crowds, just get in there!
  
• Don't turn away from the calves when you are in the hole. Back your horse, move his hindquarters. (So that's why you teach them that!)

TR was kind enough to video a few runs, so I've included them below, these were at the very beginning. Possibly the slowest ranch sorting you'll ever see (usually you have 75 seconds then you're done), but I'm still pretty proud of what we did.

I was pumped when we got ours done, finally with a clean run, at a little over 2 minutes, on our last run of the day.


Oh yeah. And I decided to buy Smokey. But that's another post. :)