LT the Cow Horse

By Patty Wilber

A lot went on last weekend: Judged a 4-H show (what a great group of kids and parents!); helped a friend help a woman ride into the Sandias to find the site of her grandfather’s house on an old homestead (found it!)

: The corner of the old homestead!

and rode with Troy Rogers to continue to improve LT’s skills as a reined cow horse.

Thursday morning the thermometer read 17F at 7 am and I had two lessons scheduled. At 8:30 am we were up to 18F and the lessons went on. I have some impressively tough clients! Good grief. I think I would have stayed inside. By 11:30 it was 30F– heat wave…

All of those topics could make a story, but I’d conned Troy into taking pictures of LT on cows and they turned out super cool (I think) and so, that’s my topic!

A cow horse needs to have enough guts to body up on a cow if necessary, enough speed to out-run a fleeing bovine, enough stop to bury it when the cow stops, enough catty-ness to change direction in a split second, and enough drive to keep going when tired.

LT has all that.

But she also has difficulty taking direction, and a tendency to be unfocused. This makes her a challenge for me to train.

Despite the frustrating moments, when she can’t understand a thing I am telling her, my heart has always lifted when I watch the way she floats when she moves.

And she just has something, some intangible, that draws me to her.

I really should sell one of my three mares. But it won’t be LT.

Here is LT on cows. A BIG thank-you to Troy Rogers (find him on Facebook as he has no website) for his continued help and for taking these pictures.

: LT has some speed and the desire to use it!

The girl can stop! (If you click the little pics, they enlarge. My new box camera has a continuous picture button so you can get these action sequences…pretty cool to see the horse’s movement!) Well-never mind. The gallery feature doesn’t allow the pics to blow up, so I guess just use a magnifying glass…

: She can bury a stop!

She can turn!

Her go on the second cow was a lot better because my coach (Troy) told me to let her take more responsibility for herself. That worked! (Remember she doesn’t take direction all that well, and when it was all on her, she stepped up. It was a rush.)

Looking forward to Texas panhandle reined cow horse shows and Appy shows with cows, too, because we heading (fingers crossed) to Appy World in 2015.

(Cow work is addicting!)

Me and LT (and Cometa and Dusty) are headed to the Red Cliff Ranch today to gather cattle. You can’t have too much fun with cows!