Bad Start on a Good Colt
- July 9, 2025
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- Jan Swan Wood
Posted in: Featured, Horse Training, Ranch Life
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 olds that needed more
riding too, so it kept us busy. Fortunately there were yearling heifers on pasture that were being run as
replacements for sale late fall, so we had jobs for the colts when they went outside.
Most of the colts were by a Skipper W bred stud and out of old foundation type mares. Some were a little salty but got it out of their systems when they got outside and went to work. We concentrated on the ones meant to be in the horse sale and had them all riding nicely by the time it came and all but one sold. We continued riding her for the ranch.
Also on the place was a three year old buckskin gelding that belonged to the owner’s teenage grandson. The colt, Bucky, was out of an old Bert bred mare and by the Skipper W stud. He was a nice looking colt but had the sourest attitude we’d ever encountered. The boss decided that we ought to ride that colt too.
We knew about his history, so we weren’t thrilled at the prospect. The grandson at 16 was a thick headed, spoiled brat who couldn’t be told anything. He knew less than nothing about starting colts but had tortured this buckskin colt for about four months and created a fire breathing dragon. Bucky was over being jerked and kicked and spanked. His outlook toward people was sour as swill.
What the kid had done was all done in the round pen. For months he’d spanked and spurred this colt
around and around that little pen, pulled on his mouth, and aggravated Bucky, until Bucky flat had enough and bucked the kid off. Not one ride went out into another pen or the arena, which was also an option. Nope, just round and round that round pen until Bucky uncorked. Small wonder Bucky was mad clear through.
He needed a fresh start, that’s for sure, and not in the round pen. My husband Al drew the job of putting that first ride on him as I was healing up an injury, so he packed his rig out into a big pen that opened out into either the arena or a pasture to where the heifers were running. His plan was to get him saddled and step on and try to herd him out through one of those two gates, depending on Bucky’s reaction.
I was on my broke horse Kelly, and helped him where I could as he saddled Bucky. Bucky had been
saddled at least 100 times, but his opinion of it was not positive. He’d bite, kick and jump away from a
saddle, and when not, he’d stand in a sullen posture, grinding his teeth with his ears flat against his neck, muzzle and chin wrinkled.
When he was finally saddled, he was turned loose to trot around the corral and get limbered up. He was humpy but didn’t really buck and I was able to get him to loosen up and even lope with the saddle on in the bigger pen. Warmed up, there was nothing else to do but to step on, so Al did. Bucky crouched and
froze in place.
Al didn’t want to do any of the things that had created the problem, so he had me just ride by, bumping Bucky a little bit to encourage movement. Tail clamped, ears pinned and mad, Bucky moved out, but it was pretty clear the timer was ticking on this little bomb. Al asked me to open the gate out into the pasture and herd him outside, so I did.
Bucky wasn’t too sure about that, but it sure beat looking at the inside of the pen, so he moved out next to my horse. He grabbed himself a time or two but didn’t offer to run off or buck, which seemed like big progress at that point. We decided to give our horses a little job to do, so as we came to some heifers along a fence line, we started gathering them up and moving them. We didn’t have any place to take them, but it was giving purpose to being out there for Bucky. His ears weren’t pinned, he wasn’t clamping his tail anymore, he was moving more relaxed and letting Al guide him a little bit with the soft hackamore.
The heifers were fat, sassy and gentle, and as Bucky and Al approached one she playfully hopped in the air and made to sashay between Bucky and the fence. Al didn’t move a muscle as he was just letting Bucky move and look at the heifers. When that heifer tried to duck past them, Bucky jumped sideways and stopped her. He was as surprised as Al! I was watching as the light came on in Bucky’s eyes, his ears were up and working and he was working his mouth. He was hooked! His focus was then on the heifers and not on the rider.
Willing to move out on his own, Al started pushing each heifer along and Bucky was eager to move them and then go get the next one. What a change in demeanor! Ears up, unless asking a heifer to move, Bucky was clearly enjoying himself. He was getting lots of encouragement from Al too, and after the initial suspicion passed, seemed to like the rubs on the neck he was getting.
We pushed the heifers around the fenceline and through a gate that was open and stopped. Al stepped
off of Bucky and let him stand for a few minutes. His whole look was different. His ears were up and moving, eyes were bright and soft, and his nostrils and muzzle were relaxed. He sure didn’t look like the
sour colt that had started the day off mad. He got lots of rubbing on the face, neck and hip on both sides without any offer to defend himself. Al stepped back on and we made a circle out around the main
pasture, trotting and finally loping. Bucky rode like every first outside ride colt, as he wandered some, but he was sure happy.
Figuring to quit on a high note, when we got back to the corrals, instead of riding him inside, Al stopped him, asked for and got a step or two back, then let him stand for a moment before stepping off.
He was led into the saddle house to unsaddle like a broke horse and there was no problems with him.
Keeping the grandson away from Bucky was the next mission, and we managed to do so as the kid was still pretty sure Bucky was a PRCA bronc after getting bucked off. Al rode the colt all fall and until the heifers were sold, without any more problems. His attitude was positive and his progress was fast and
forward from that first outside ride on. We left there that winter so never knew what happened to the horse. Hopefully his life kept getting better. He was a good one that sure could have become a really bad one.
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Posted in: Featured, Horse Training, Ranch Life
About Jan Swan Wood
Jan was raised on a ranch in far western South Dakota. She grew up horseback working all descriptions of cattle, plus sheep and horses. After leaving home she pursued a post-graduate study of cowboying and dayworking in Nebraska, New Mexico, Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota....