Trotting Lessons
- October 28, 2024
- |
- Jan Swan Wood
Posted in: Featured, Horse Training, Ranch Life
This was back when I was on the ranch in northeastern New Mexico in the early 80s. The bunkhouse crew and I worked together pretty often when the new bunches of pasture cattle were being broke to cake. The steer calves were weaned when they arrived at the ranch but had no idea what to do when turned out into the big pastures for the winter and needed cake broke. So, we’d gather them by sections, bringing them all toward the cake ground and windmill where someone had stayed with the cake feeder and blown the siren call on the pickup, to teach them to come to the call for their cake. It
also helped them to learn where the water was.
One of the pastures that we gathered that way was called the Dick Steele pasture. It was 36 sections, which is 23,040 acres. It was relatively flat and had mesquite and cholla evenly distributed over most of it. There were some clearings and that was where we’d cake the calves once we had a rough count. To say that it took some riding to gather that pasture would be an understatement. With the cover of mesquite and cholla, it was really hard to see the calves at all and we sure put the miles on the saddle
horses, all at a walk or trot due to the sand rat tunnels that would cave in and make a horse fall at a faster speed. We also doctored anything that needed it when we got them to the feed ground. We’d gather bunches of 300 head or so at a time, then move to the next one and hope that we got most of them to feed grounds by the time we were done for the day. As I recall there were about 2000 calves in that pasture alone.
I had gotten paired off with one of the bunkhouse crew one day as we headed away from the feed ground. Big Jerry was a giant of a guy who had been raised in the slums and on the docks of Atlanta, Georgia. He was no more a cowboy than I was a geophysicist, but I liked him, and what he lacked in knowledge he made up for with try.
We were on our way to the backside of an area before turning back and bringing any calves we found and were trotting to make better time. I could sit the trot on the horse I was riding, but if we went any faster I’d stand up in my stirrups. Poor Jerry. He was having a heck of a time at that trot. The honest old ranch horse he was riding, Chongo, I daresay, was having a worse time. Jerry probably weighed 240 and was about 6’5” or so, and his bouncing around was really giving Chongo a working over and I could actually hear his hiney hitting the seat of the saddle. But, as is the cowboy way, it wasn’t my place to say anything.
Finally, Jerry asked me if he could ask me a question. I said yes. He said “Ma’am, you are sitting plumb comfortable on that horse and you make it look so easy. How in the world do y’all do that?” So, I asked him how he sat in a rocking chair. I asked him if he went with the rocking motion or did he slam his back against the back of the chair as it rocked? He said he went with the motion. So, I explained to him how he could do that on his horse. It took him a while, but he finally got with the motion and then I told him to
relax his legs and let his feet move with Chongo’s stride and that made it even better.
Pretty soon he was able to sit Chongo’s trot, which seemed to be quite a relief to Chongo, who relaxed his ears and tail. We speeded up and I showed him how to balance over the withers of the horse (I don’t post at a trot) and by letting his legs take the bounce, could ride a faster trot without pounding on his horse and soring his back. He got the hang of that pretty quickly too. By this time he was grinning and enjoying the ride at last. I swear Chongo was too.
When Jerry had come to the ranch, via Greyhound bus and hitchhiking, he’d never been on a horse, probably had never touched one. He was there when I got there, so I don’t know this for a fact, but it would seem that no one had taken any time to try to teach him anything about riding. He rode an old flat cantled saddle that had hung in the saddle shed for years, probably the only one with stirrup leathers long enough to accommodate his long legs. His hat was one that had been found in the bunkhouse, so
not spiffy either. But, he had try and wanted to do better. Fearing the ridicule of the other guys, I suspect he was afraid to ask them.
He’d been dishonorably discharged from the Army for brawling and punching a drill sergeant out, so it’s probably as well that he hadn’t gotten humiliated by the bunkhouse crew. His short fuse and red hair might have been too much and they might not have survived so it worked out fine that he asked me.
I kept coaching him on his riding when no one else was around, and he improved each time. He always thanked me for taking the time to explain things. I really liked Jerry and got a kick out of him, and was glad to help where I could, but I’ll confess that I did it as much for the sake of the honest old horses in his string as I did it for him. Those good horses had a hard enough job just keeping the gunsels from falling off.
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....