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Authors: Buck Brannaman, William Reynolds
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Finally, about the time Mel was ready to go, Roany took a big old deep breath. His respiration returned to normal. His batteries were recharged. We tipped off the hill and hadn’t gone two steps before Roany started bucking. And I mean bucking. The hill was steep enough so that he was clearing about fifty feet at a jump. As Mel cheered me on, Roany and I bucked all the way to the bottom.
I learned my lesson about the dangers of standing still, of not having my horse’s legs under my control. For the rest of the day, we stayed at a high trot, and I survived it, even with Roany bucking all day long.
Roany was quite a project for me. The first hundred days I rode him, he bucked every single day. After a few months, however, I wised up and started spending some time aroundRay Hunt. Thanks to the techniques I learned about hooking on and getting a horse to move his feet, Roany gradually improved. I finally got him to the point that I could swing a rope on him and get some ranch work done.
One day we were up in that same country where we’d been gathering cattle that first day. Roany had stopped bucking and was serious about his work, but being a kid, I couldn’t leave well enough alone.
I was bored because there weren’t any cattle to rope at the moment. I wanted to rope something, so I roped a little tiny sagebrush about the size of a small potted plant. I dallied off and pulled it up out of the ground. Little did I realize that this tiny piece of sagebrush had roots about thirty feet long. I pulled and I pulled, and the rope was stretched to twice its length when that little piece of sagebrush finally came loose and flew right up under Roany’s tail.
Roany clamped his tail down so tight that you couldn’t have pulled that sagebrush out with a pickup truck. And off he went. He didn’t buck me off, but he used me plumb up. Plus that little stunt of mine probably set me back a few weeks in his training. I had been really getting somewhere, and then I pulled a trick like that. I learned another valuable lesson that day, that time about me.
The day came when Roany was sold. I knew it was coming. We raised horses to sell, but Roany and I had been through a lot together, and it was a sad day for me. All I could think about were the times on the way to the barnthat I’d say, “God, give me one more ride with Roany. Just don’t let him kill me today.” The next day I’d say, “God, I know I said I wouldn’t ask for anything else yesterday, but it’s me again.” Then we got to be partners, and pulling my saddle off him in the sales ring made me sad to see him go out the door and off to a new life with a new owner.
An old man who lived near Deer Lodge, Montana, bought Roany. He roped steers on him and used him on the ranch the rest of his life. They got along great. Roany had a good home, and I’m glad because he was an important milestone in my career: he was the one I was going through hell with about the time I first was exposed to the kind of riding I do today.
Another memorable lesson during my time at the Madison River Cattle Company came when I was working with a very troubled horse named Ayatollah. Needless to say, like his namesake, he was a bit of a terrorist: we’d been through quite a few bronco rides. Ayatollah would buck you off if you cleared your throat, so you didn’t have to do very much to get yourself into trouble.
I’d been trying to get him to do a turnaround, a move where the horse brings his front feet across while pivoting on a hind foot. It’s a quick and efficient way to move away from something fearful and a very natural movement for a horse in the wild, but encouraging a horse to turn around while you’re sitting on his back can be a bit tricky.
One day, I was watching Ray Hunt do a demonstration at the indoor arena at Montana State University. A couple of guys had brought him a colt that was kind of a setup; they wanted to make Ray look bad because he was pretty
Finally, about the time Mel was ready to go, Roany took a big old deep breath. His respiration returned to normal. His batteries were recharged. We tipped off the hill and hadn’t gone two steps before Roany started bucking. And I mean bucking. The hill was steep enough so that he was clearing about fifty feet at a jump. As Mel cheered me on, Roany and I bucked all the way to the bottom.
I learned my lesson about the dangers of standing still, of not having my horse’s legs under my control. For the rest of the day, we stayed at a high trot, and I survived it, even with Roany bucking all day long.
Roany was quite a project for me. The first hundred days I rode him, he bucked every single day. After a few months, however, I wised up and started spending some time aroundRay Hunt. Thanks to the techniques I learned about hooking on and getting a horse to move his feet, Roany gradually improved. I finally got him to the point that I could swing a rope on him and get some ranch work done.
One day we were up in that same country where we’d been gathering cattle that first day. Roany had stopped bucking and was serious about his work, but being a kid, I couldn’t leave well enough alone.
I was bored because there weren’t any cattle to rope at the moment. I wanted to rope something, so I roped a little tiny sagebrush about the size of a small potted plant. I dallied off and pulled it up out of the ground. Little did I realize that this tiny piece of sagebrush had roots about thirty feet long. I pulled and I pulled, and the rope was stretched to twice its length when that little piece of sagebrush finally came loose and flew right up under Roany’s tail.
Roany clamped his tail down so tight that you couldn’t have pulled that sagebrush out with a pickup truck. And off he went. He didn’t buck me off, but he used me plumb up. Plus that little stunt of mine probably set me back a few weeks in his training. I had been really getting somewhere, and then I pulled a trick like that. I learned another valuable lesson that day, that time about me.
The day came when Roany was sold. I knew it was coming. We raised horses to sell, but Roany and I had been through a lot together, and it was a sad day for me. All I could think about were the times on the way to the barnthat I’d say, “God, give me one more ride with Roany. Just don’t let him kill me today.” The next day I’d say, “God, I know I said I wouldn’t ask for anything else yesterday, but it’s me again.” Then we got to be partners, and pulling my saddle off him in the sales ring made me sad to see him go out the door and off to a new life with a new owner.
An old man who lived near Deer Lodge, Montana, bought Roany. He roped steers on him and used him on the ranch the rest of his life. They got along great. Roany had a good home, and I’m glad because he was an important milestone in my career: he was the one I was going through hell with about the time I first was exposed to the kind of riding I do today.
Another memorable lesson during my time at the Madison River Cattle Company came when I was working with a very troubled horse named Ayatollah. Needless to say, like his namesake, he was a bit of a terrorist: we’d been through quite a few bronco rides. Ayatollah would buck you off if you cleared your throat, so you didn’t have to do very much to get yourself into trouble.
I’d been trying to get him to do a turnaround, a move where the horse brings his front feet across while pivoting on a hind foot. It’s a quick and efficient way to move away from something fearful and a very natural movement for a horse in the wild, but encouraging a horse to turn around while you’re sitting on his back can be a bit tricky.
One day, I was watching Ray Hunt do a demonstration at the indoor arena at Montana State University. A couple of guys had brought him a colt that was kind of a setup; they wanted to make Ray look bad because he was pretty
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