Bad Start on a Good Colt

Jul 9
Jan Swan Wood

Recent Posts

Bad Start on a Good Colt

July 9, 2025
Jan Swan Wood

We were working on a ranch in Nebraska where part of our job was to get a small group of young horses started riding in preparation for a horse sale late summer. The youngsters had been raised there and the unstarted ones were two and three years old. There were a couple of four year […]


A Horse Who Makes Few Mistakes

June 26, 2025
Jan Swan Wood

My son started him for a friend when Boston was three years old. He was still a stud. My friend saidthat when he made his first mistake she’d geld him. He started like a dream and it appeared like he readahead in the school book between rides, as everything was so easy for him to […]


A Boy’s First Time Roping at a Branding

June 12, 2025
Jan Swan Wood

Little cowboys tend to think they’re big enough to do big cowboy things pretty early in life. My sonColin was sure no exception. At three he thought he was big enough to help rope and doctor yearlingcattle and was pretty put out with me because I didn’t agree. When he was five he asked if […]


School Yard Bronc Ride

June 9, 2025
Jan Swan Wood

My Dad told me a “last day of school” story that I sure got a kick out of. Being a ranch boy, he usuallyhad riding to do either on the way to or on the way home from school, so a saddle horse was his usualmode of transportation. On this fine May day, he had […]


Extra Spicy Calf

May 27, 2025
Jan Swan Wood

When I finished high school, I sold my cows and left home, as had my older siblings. I sure missed having my cows but that was how it had to be. When I got engaged and my soon to be husband and I had a ranch job on the agenda, I bought some little dairy […]


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