Horseman’s Corner Radio

California horsewoman and barrel racing clinician Sharon Camarillo has designed a lot of saddles for years for the barrel racing industry.

 

What goes into designing a good barrel racing saddle? 

 

"I never believe in just a saddle for barrel racing, even though, you know, we need a lighter weight saddle, but we still need a saddle that's a good tool that gives us good balance because barrel racing, as we know, is a high rate of speed event with three change of turns, and I'd like to ride two hands on my reins up into those turns and go to the horn on the back side. I want my feet underneath me, don't particularly like a real free swinging stirrup. I want my saddle, like I said, to be a tool to keep my feet underneath my pelvis so I can maintain balance, whether it's in a straight line approach or in the collection and position for the turn."

 

"Probably most important is that the saddle does that, I like a straighter swell so I don't get too far forward, and the cannel in today's world is a pretty stock four-inch cannel that helps you stay up when you leave those barrels, keeps your pelvis over that center of gravity, but that saddle's got to fit those horses." 

 

California horsewoman Sharon Camarillo. 

Howard asked J.D. Wing in an interview years ago whether or not it was important to think about your horse's comfort when selecting your equipment.

 

"Absolutely."

 

"I was guilty of it as anyone when I was younger and didn't have a whole lot of money, and never really worried about how my saddle fit my horse or anything like that. And then I had all these issues coming up. My horse would quit stopping."

 

"My horse would get hot in the box. My horse would duck in the arena. And once I started really spending time to learn about what a proper fitting saddle was, what the correct bridle was, how to properly adjust my tie down, that fixed a lot of the problems I was having in horses."

 

"It wasn't a training issue, it was a comfort issue. How many times do we go to a U.S. roping and put $2,500 up in fees, and our horse ducks or breaks a barrier or gets mad and puts us in a bad situation where we don't have a chance to win? We're just throwing money out the door, going to a roping with an ill-fitting saddle. You invest that money into a good saddle or into a good bridle, and now you're investing in your future."

 

"When we have a chance to run at a quarter million dollars at Vegas, to me that's a good investment." 

 

Horse trainer, J.D. Wing, in an interview with the late Howard Hale. 

 

That's going to do it for today's Horseman's Corner.

Jeff Gollehon is with us. He has Grizzly Saddlery at Great Falls, Montana. It's a full service shop, but they also make custom saddles, and he finds a problem with saddle fit that's a little bit different and kind of interesting.

 

"One of the things that is, to me, that I have found over my career that is probably one of the most important things, the stirp slot on the tree, on the underside of the tree where your stirp leather goes up over the tree and back down, and that's the part that has the holes in it for your stirp leather adjustment, that piece of leather has to go up over the top of the tree and back down, and it sits under the tree between your sheepskin and the wooden tree. And that's actually what holds the weight of the person when that person is riding. And what we are seeing in a lot of trees, whether they're factory-made companies that we carry in the store, or even some of the custom trees that we see come through, that bar slot that has to be relieved for that stirp leather, from my experience, is usually not deep enough."

Join co-host Nelseena Lehmann as she asks our guest, Vaughn Knudsen about the keys to great horsemanship.

On this interview, the late Howard Hale had Ron Knodle, the unknown horseman, talking about his training methods. Let's check in on that conversation. Nebraska horseman Ron Knodle is our guest today.

 

Ron, give us some of your thoughts about how you ought to use your hands and your legs, particularly on that young horse that you're starting. The two-handed stuff, whether you're in a hackamore or a snaffle, the more that you keep pulling on one rein, the more that they fall to the outside, and you're not going to be able to, for example, make a reining horse when you need to push him through the turns. So one of the things that I've been doing really strong with most of my people that I've been working with in the later years is using almost equal pressure with your inside and outside rein and do more trying to push the horse through the turns than to pull him through the turns so that he was not as apt to fall out to the outside.

 

And what are your legs doing in that situation? I ride my horse as one-legged. For example, when I start a young horse, I open and close doors as a pre-signal. So if I'm riding a young horse along and I want to go to the ride, the first thing I do is my right leg comes off, the left leg comes on.

 

The right hand and the right leg work in unison. They come off of the horse and the left leg would come on if I was going to the right and vice versa. Trainer and clinician Ron Knodle with the late Howard Hale.

The timing of the release is everything.

We have horseman and clinician Brian Neubert on the program today.

 

After more than 20 years of training these colts, is there anything new that you've learned? Well, I don't know if it's something new, but more sensitive to the importance of observing, detecting the horse efforts toward what I want to accomplish. It's whole thing really amounts to encouraging thoughts and actions you want and discouraging thoughts and actions you don't want. And I suppose until I'm done working with horses, I'll probably get, hopefully, more sensitive on that aspect.

 

Relieving the pressure when the horse even has a thought in the direction that I want to go. And I don't guess I'll ever try to get more sensitive on that, but that's where the efficiency comes in and it makes it or breaks it. That's just very, very important.

 

Veteran horseman and clinician Brian Neubert on the Horseman's Corner. That's going to do it for today's program, but there's more on the web at horsemanscorner.com. And don't forget about that Facebook page, Horseman's Corner Radio and Podcast. Visit and follow today.

We asked Larry Reinhold from Lone Tree Ranch, what age of horses do you use there? 

 

"I've said for years it takes about a seven year old horse because there's a lot of fellas, a lot of people can sure turn out a good broke horse, you know, and the horse is three or four years old. A good rider can get on them and keep them going the right direction. But, you know, when you're putting kids on them, and some of these kids might be good riders, but you've got a horse that you're putting three or four different riders on each day, it's pretty easy to mess up a young horse. And, you know, because they get so many, so many miscommunications from the different riders that it plays with their head and it seems kind of like the old adage, an old dog, new tricks. It's really pretty handy to have something that's been, you know, got some age on it. We like what would make just about any outfit a good ranch horse."

 

The Reinhold family lives on and operates the Lone Tree Ranch and Rainbow Bible Ranch, a well-known and well-loved summer ranch camp for kids and teenagers. 

 

https://www.facebook.com/larryrobinreinhold/

https://www.lonetreeranch.net