Choosing a Working Cow Horse

Video Transcript

"Just about any horse that's not afraid of a cow can be somewhat helpful in learning how to read and track cows. But there's no question in our sport, we really appreciate when we can come upon and purchase one that has the good breeding and the cow sense, or in other words, is very cowee. We're a little different than the cutting world where it's all about style and being judged, which we appreciate and do our best to ensure that our cow or cutting horses maintain a lot of those qualities. But what we look for is a horse that's very bold and brave, and not going to be intimidated by the challenge of a strong cow. So our cow horse still needs to be that quick and turning on the hind, but also, is allowed to get a little more aggressive, a little bit faster in its efforts to control that cow. So we're about to embark on learning more about how we put this good cow horse to work against the time clock where the sixty second clock of our team penning and ranch sorting sport. You can see that this horse has that inherit quality that I say kind of presents similar to a policeman with two loaded guns feeling to that cow. Another horse without that coweeness, that quick footed movement that matches and mirrors the cow's movement, another horse might not perform quite to the detail that we need it to. So we first go out and try to achieve the purchase of a good cow horse, keep those cow skills alive, keep working them on the cows, but we also let them get just a little bit more aggressive in their efforts to challenge those cow moves when we need them at the brink of a second."