I married a cowboy, a roping cowboy. And I’m down with that. Actually, I love that. Its what I wanted. But its definitely the type of cowboys (they were more ranchers than cowboy if you get down to it) I grew up with. The rancher’s from my roots were more cattlemen than horsemen. My dad, however, did a lot of riding. He had this mare that was his partner in crime for years. She did her best work when she was cutting a cow. Once she knew what she was bringing in she was locked on. She had an incredible drive and hustle… so intense.
I fell in love with cutting watching and riding this mare. I learned a lot from her- mostly to hunker down in my saddle and lean back to free up her front to move fast and easy. But really, just to hold on…
The boys around here do a lot of roping, and although I love watching them roping and I am highly impressed by their skill, I get really excited to watch them cut. (I get even more excited when I get to do it!) After preg checking all of the cows, they have a pen full of buggers that are being sent home and need to be sorted according to each rancher. This is one of the highlights of the day for me. Those cows are tired and ornery and put up a good, GOOD fight. And that means that the horses put on a good show! I love to watch them put all their weight on their back legs and spin their front around to follow a cow and then launch forward in a totally new direction. Its so smooth and explosive all at the same time. Then there are the times that they have to take off to cut off some cow and have to make a quick, hard stop at an instant. Its pure athleticism. Can you see how I love it?!
Unfortunately, I was busy cleaning up during the majority of the sorting. These darn boys still need to learn how to work around my schedule… But I did catch the tail end of cutting cowboys.
