Horseman’s Corner Radio

Keeping Horses Sound

In a past interview, the late Howard Hale once asked Ricky if he had any trouble keeping all those horses sound.

We got to keep 50 riders going and then the condition is that we have to ride these horses in whether it's outside or in that feed yard anywhere it's going to be tough to keep them sound. But no, we don't. But as many horses as we have, the kind of lameness that we have are very, very minor. We don't see a lot of long term joint trouble or that kind of stuff. If anything, it's little things and it's short term.

One thing that we do at our place is all the shoeing is in-house. I brought a friend of mine in from Oklahoma named Tommy Kilgore. He's been one of the best things for my life as far as knowledge on a horse. He's been really a big deal for me in understanding movement and understanding true soundness in a horse. And I brought him in and I've got two people that I work with, two younger guys that are mid-20s and they've taken into the shoeing. So all of that is done in-house.

Having that and being able to trim these horses and balance them the way we want to  balance them from an early age now all the way up into this five and six year old range when we start marketing those horses to the public. We have a really good idea what this horse is, what his soundness is, and we understand it at above normal level. So we give these horses the best shock we possibly can. And if we end up having a horse that's lame, it's usually a chronic thing that was going to happen anyway most of the time.

Starting Age of Horses with Ricky Quinn

More great information from Horse Trainer, Ricky Quinn. From what I've gathered, the whole program you have there Ricky starts with the halter breaking.

Absolutely. You bring those babies in, you ween them off their mom. First thing we do is toss a little rope around their neck, their foot, but just toss them that rope on there, start and roll the hind quarters in the beginning and allow them all the horses to learn how to come off of the feel to understand that that rope can touch them and it's not the end of the world and just start that mind kind of coming your direction. Working off of pressure, understanding a release of pressure, starting to get them to hunt that release and start drawing that mind in the direction you want it to go.

What age do you start working them?

They're born in May and they start getting halter broke sometime in the November timeframe. We'll be done halter breaking hopefully end of the December timeframe, take a couple months. Once we go through that process, they get bumped out. We'll bring them back in as two-year-olds, they have a crew of guys that come in December. They'll start anywhere from right around 40 head of colts in December as twos, put a handful of rides on them, they get kicked out. So then the threes from the previous year come in at the same time and then from then on they really kind of get camped on as three-year-olds and they get ridden and more moving forward with them into the five and six-year-old mark. So as a three-year-old, three and a half-year-old, they're getting used more, we start introducing to the feed yard, start introducing them to the outside ranching and then really by the time they're five and six they're pretty mature and they're working full-time.

Horse trainer Ricky Quinn with some great information. Find that full interview on Horsemanscorner.com.

What Makes a Good Bridle Horse

Here's Horse Trainer Ricky Quinn with an infamous question that is asked often.

I get questions all the time, "Ricky, in your opinion what does it take to make a bridal horse?" I just kind of shrug my shoulders now where I am in my life and I'm like I don't know the answer to that. I don't, I mean because if you go and you talk to my friend Buck about it, he's pretty sophisticated in what he's looking for to make that horse a bridal horse in the movements that he wants, right? And then if you go talk to somebody who is a trail rider, they may not need to do a honch is in on the trail and if you go back to Brannaman and say well what do you think about a honch is in on the trail? You'll just kind of say well that just means your horse knows more, right? He's more of a sophisticated trail horse. Some people don't really necessarily want to go that far. So just being a good, solid, gentle horse that understands his jobs. And around about way what I'm saying, I love my foundation and I believe every horse needs to understand where it's tying feet are and how to work them, where it's front feet are and how to work them. They all need to walk trout lope on a loose range. They need to come down through the transitions on that loose range end of the stop. I think they should understand things like ropes and tarts so that they can handle some pressure in the world and just have a really, really good, solid foundation.

Horse Trainer Ricky Quinn.

Ricky Quinn on Learning New Things

Once you get to be a cowboy there should be a lot of pride there. You should believe in yourself.  You got to have confidence to give confidence to the horse to be able to move a cow that doesn't want to be moved.  You got to think something of yourself. But sometimes in that world too it can be really hard to change. There's no difference in anywhere. And that change is really, really hard. But some people might try it and say, oh yeah, I'm open to learning when the new wears off it comes down to they weren't as interested as you thought. And I think really the people that I work with are very, very, very open.  And they're learning so much and they're just really, really excelling because they're very open. And really there's kind of a deal where I work that if you're not open to this we're not interested in your work in here.

And the other thing that I've got in my favor is the crew that I work with, they really do believe in it. And so when somebody new comes in that's kind of off the mark a little bit and they can kind of see through these people and those people really aren't into it and they're there
for other reasons. It's really not even me that discourages that person. It's the rest of the crew. Because the rest of the crew's work so hard to get the death lost down and to get these cattle handling a certain way or to get these horses away, right? The people that are part of what we call the steerhead part of the place get a lot of these horses going and then they've got to go to the feed yard.  You know, we want that transition going into the feed yard. We want everybody working in the feed yard the same way that we're working at the arena and out on the ranches. And so that it's a seamless transition for the horses.

Ricky Quinn Full Interview

Join the late Howard Hale as we listen in to the long version of an archived interview with an outstanding horseman from Nebraska, Ricky Quinn.

Ramzi Hughes Interview

We're talking to Ramzi Hughes, Anchor Brand Ranch.

I wanted to ask you about your philosophy of working with horses. What we do are kind of narrow my favorite breeds down to the American Quarter Horse and the regular old mustangs. That's kind of a mixture of what we've got. Those mustangs are tough and they go like crazy and the kids can break them and ride them and use them for ranch horses. But they are not the athlete that an American Quarter Horse is when it comes to the rodeo events and team roping that we like to do in the arena. So everything's got its place and we like our American Quarter Horse for our team roping and our rodeo event. And then for some of the ranch work, these kids sure have fun and do good on some of them
hard-footed mustangs. And the mustangs don't really stand up against the Quarter Horses. Not when it comes to athletic ability, speed, slide and stop and they just don't. They might walk faster like out on the ranch. They walk faster and be a little more sure-footed in the rocks.  But just to be honest and realistic and we've tested it out, they just are not the athlete in the arena. They don't have the start and go and stop speed. Each has its place.

That was Ramzi Hughes from Anchor Brand Ranch with our co-host David Woodruff.

Gary Kirchoff Interview

Now here's an interview with the late Howard Hale and Kansas breeder Gary Kirkhoff.

I've seen some horses that have been drilled so much on the ground that they get to the point doing the same thing over and over where they basically have the handler tuned out. That's dangerous isn't it?

Yeah, that's very dangerous because you need that horse to be looking to you for direction. And when it's kind of zoning you out, it's on the borderline of self-preservation there. And if something goes wrong, you're maybe not the first choice it's going to have. Sometimes some of that can be overdone. Repetition's good, but it's really about, you can't do it day in and day out because the horse, some days he's in a different frame of mind. Maybe there's an owl hooting all night or something, he didn't sleep good. So you got to adjust to where he is that day. That was a big key I found in getting along with the horses. You can't go out there with a pre-described deal in your head that, well I'm going to get all this, I'm going to get my right lead master today and my left spin because he may not be there, you know, quite ready to absorb that.

That's Kansas Horseman Gary Kirkoff on the Horseman's Corner.

Thinking vs Reacting with Jim Hicks

The Horseman's Corner is an original production of Howard Hale Broadcasting on the air since 1994 with over 7,000 episodes with people involved in the world of horses. I'm Howard's son Brian and we welcome you to the Horseman's Corner.

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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. That's going to do it for today's Horseman's Corner. Thanks again for listening and may God bless. I'm Brian Hale.