Horseman’s Corner Radio

California Horsewoman and trainer Sharon Camarillo.

 

When you're unsaddling your horse, that's the time to look for dry spots, rubbed hairs, soreness when you're brushing that horse's back off. I always like to use just a little alcohol and water or liniment on my horse's back as I brush off that sweat. And you know, you're a good sitting saddle with the right pad when you pull it off, should have an even sweat pattern. If you see white hair starting in an area up on that spine, it's pretty confident that it's a pressure point. When your horses quit working, when they're switching their tail, when they're grumpy, when their ears move, you need to listen to that horse. He's trying to tell you something and a lot of times you can fix it by just paying attention to quality of equipment. It's not how much you pay for it. It's really the fit. How it sits on that horse's back, the type of pad you're using. I said it earlier, I'm going to say it again. When you're around your horse, when you walk to the stall or the pasture to catch him, that's when you need to put your mind in the game.

We have a nearly limitless vault of old Howard Hale archived interviews to share with you, and here's another one from Minatare horsewoman Val Baker.

 

This was years ago, but still good information and a lot of fun. Let's listen in. 

 

Minatare Nebraska horsewoman Val Baker competed in the Art of the Cowgirl event. There was also some breakaway roping down there.

 

Was it a big breakaway roping, Val? 

 

"And it was a tough breakaway. They used the herd work cattle. So rather than roping 250, 300 pound calves, they were roping 600, 700 pound steers, and they were slow to start, and then they ran like little boogers, and it was a tough competition. There weren't any super short times."

 

That's becoming a bigger event, isn't it, the breakaway roping? 

 

"The ladies' breakaway is definitely coming into stride. I'm glad to see it. I don't know that it'll ever be to the level of the barrels for the ladies, but when they're winning millions of dollars out there now, and the purses have gotten so much bigger than when you had actual WPRA rodeos. So one of my little gal friends, Riley Smith, her and her partner, Hope Thompson, swapped in down there at the ranch rodeo deal, and they come away with $90,000 a piece.  They split $180,000 for an all-girl roping, and that's just respectable as all get out."

 

Minatare horsewoman Val Baker talking about a huge breakaway roping with some unusually large cattle. That's going to do it for today's Horseman's Corner.

Utah Horseman Jim Hicks on how he trains his horses to handle the situations that might be uncomfortable for them.

I want to create thinking horses that respond, that learn to think their way out of the problem versus horses that react and check out. And so what I have found for myself is that in doing that I need my horses familiar with the things that I'm going to expose them to so that when I expose them to things that they're unfamiliar with, that they'll work with me and we can work through it in a positive way.  This was a valuable lesson that I learned on the horse that I took to Tom Dorrance was is when you allow the horses curiosity to work for you, it's more powerful and more potent for the horse because what happens is you go out in the pasture and you intend to catch the horse, you might just sit there and look at the tail end up because you're trying to catch them. But if you walk out in the pasture with a bucket of tools and you set them down and you start doing the job, the horses curiosity will draw them in.

That was Utah Horseman and clinician Jim Hicks. 

Gary Kirchhoff operates and trains out of the Rockin P Ranch located in Gaylord, Kansas. He is a professional horse trainer and clinician with decades of experience spanning multiple equine disciplines, utilizing natural horsemanship philosophies influenced by masters like Tom Dorrance and Ray Hunt.