Almost Back in the Saddle & I can’t wait!

Hi Folks! I have to apologize for the delay between my blogs, but I had back surgery.  They fused two vertebras and did something else to two others, then added rods, nuts and bolts and whatever else they could find to through in there too. It got so complicated when the Dr. was telling me what he was doing that I told him that it didn’t really matter, I didn’t care how he had to do it, just to fix it! My Dr. is J. Patrick Johnson – he’s a friend from the Rancheros Vistadores Club that I belong to. He’s a Montana Cattle Rancher and Stock Contractor. He has bucking horses and bulls at the National Finals Rodeo, and in his spare time he’s one of the best Spine and Brain Neurosurgeon’s in the country so they say.  I believe it.  So on November 21^st I had my surgery. Now its’ getting close to 2 months along, and I’m feeling really good!  I’m a little sore now ant then, but maybe he’ll let me ride in a month or so, and at least I’m pain free and totally energetic, it has really changed my life and I appreciate the capacity these fine guys have.

So while I was recovering from the big surgery, I’d been down and not really in the mood to do a blog – not much really to talk about. But here we go I’m back in the groove now.

Horse show wise, 2011 was a really fast year for me, and it was really fun!  It started at the California Rodeo in Salinas and showed Turbo in the Hackamore class and was champion there.  With 20,000 screaming people at the same time all the World’s Champion Rodeo Cowboys are competing in the adjacent pen to the Cowhorse pen. It’s about as exciting as it gets, it’s the big deal.

Then went on to the Paso Robles Snaffle Bit Futurity, I finished ½ point from the lead for Reserve Champion with Sparky, my wonder horse.  Then I took him to Reno and a lot of you saw him there. That Sparky has his own fan club; he’s got more fans than I do for sure. He deserves them, he’s as good as it gets. He was riding in the top end of Reno all the way along. In every section he was at the top or near the top, we finished up either 6^th or 7^th, not sure. Sparky won between $55 – $60,000 for Luke and I between the two shows so we made our entry fees this time!  Turbo has had a pretty lucrative year as well.

Somebody told me the other day, they said, Les, every time you get a new horse, you say it’s the best one you ever had. I thought about that, the truth of it is, as you become older, more seasoned, and get more wisdom, you become a better horseman.  So consequently you’re supposed to have a better horse every time if the horses are good horses. You’re capacities are higher so that makes it look like your horses are better year. That’s the way I feel about Sparky, he’s as good as any horse I have had for sure, but my capacities, dedication and commitment to make him what he could be and maximize this horse’s capacity were 100% and I felt like I rode better than I ever had; not because I’m more athletic, but because I know more about it. That’s exciting and fun.

In November I went to Utah and gave a clinic for my great friend James Dixon, in the Moab, Utah, very beautiful, all the rocks are giant, with peaks that holes in them that look like needles. That’s where they filmed the movie Thelma and Louise. Red Cliff Lodge where we hold the clinic is a 5-Star Resort – it is just a class act. We do a clinic there every year and this year was very special. I made a couple of really good friends there – Lori and Kathryn, they’re both Park City residents and I hope that they will be friends forever.  These gals came to the clinic and it couldn’t have been any more fun, I tell you, I really enjoyed working with them. They are both fine and rare people.

Then I came home, had the Creston California 4-H Club over, I was happy to work with them. We had a bit lecture and taught all these people about bits and spurs, and a lot of things that I wished I had learned when I was their age.

Then I was operated on November 21, so through all of December I’ve been recouping at home. It’s quite a reality check when you live by yourself and all of a sudden you’re helpless, you can’t even roll over in bed.  And you think who is going to take care of me, and you really hate to ask anybody to give up their life style and daily work to help you. Then out of the blue, it’s funny how that happens, some really rare people and great friends stepped up to help me out:  Mary Jane, Beth, Jamie and Glenda. Those gals came and took care of me, and I don’t know what I would have done without them.

Here we are now, it’s the first of the year, and I’m booking new clinics, so anybody that’s interested, I’ll probably have some open dates.  I’m sitting at the table with all these papers in front of me, I’m about to put them together like a jig saw puzzle. So if you’re interested in hosting a clinic, you’ll want to be sure to get in touch with me at 805-343-9205.

Sparky is getting fat; he’s waiting for the next event. He’s kind of a cash cow now – he wants to go win some to win some money somewhere, you can tell just by looking at him.

I just found out about a little derby in Red Bluff and it might be alright, not sure yet.  The entry fees is $1500 and take away pay is $12,000 if you win.  That means you are paying more than 10% of what you could win for your entry fees – compared to Reno where you pay $2000 entry fees to win $100,000. The percentages aren’t really there, so maybe we’ll just go for fun, we’ll see.

In Arizona, the middle of March is the Snaffle Bit National Rein Cowhorse Stakes in Queen Creek, Arizona. If my back heals up in time which I’ll know pretty soon, I’ll load up my ponies and go to Arizona to go to the Queen Creek Stakes and rope for a week or two as well. That would be my dream, who knows if that would happen or not.

The Fast Time Bits are quite a subject these days.  Fast Time Bits are a speed event bit. There are 6 different bits and they’re calculated to really create a better horse performance and control. They give you the tools that a high performance competition speed event needs. So if you get a chance, take a look at my website for the Fast Time Bits, and believe me they really do work.  I sold 140 of them in 5 days at the ACTRA Roping Finals.

The most exciting thing in my life today, is that I bought a 2 year old; he turned 3 at the first of the year, a full brother to Sparky. He looks a little like Sparky but he’s a lot prettier, a little bigger. This horse is an eye catcher, he’s a show stealer. I bought him to keep, then when I had the back operation I decided that I don’t need to keep him, I will take him and show him for whomever. I’ve got a couple of people interested maybe; he’s a big time deal. Cody’s riding him for me, so I go and help every day or two.

Then I’ve also got to sell one other that I hate to get rid of and that’s Millie. Many of you know Millie from the Cow Horse U programs where she was a star!  She’s now 11 years old, and a really nice bay mare.  I’ve roped on her for 4 years, plus when she was younger I showed in her the Snaffle Bit Futurity where she got a check in the herd work and frisky in the dry!  She works a cow really good and she makes anybody look like a star. Plus she’s really gentle.  I put a boy on her a couple of days ago – she hasn’t been ridden in 3 months – and I asked him to gallop her off.  It was like he had been riding her every single day, not a hot bone in her body, she’s as sweet as they get. She had some problems a few years back with her front end but I haven’t seen sign of any problems lately and I’ve used her a lot – but since I don’t know what we’d see in an x-ray these days I’m only asking $3,000 for her – which will be a heck of a deal for someone – so call me if you’re interested! I pasted a picture of her below.

I’ve just got to trim the fat and get rid of a few horses.  I don’t mind riding them, but since I’m working on my own when I’m home, by the time I go and saddle 5-6 horses in one day,  put leg boots on them, then ride them, then unsaddle them, it just takes too much time!

So anyways folks I hope all of you had a happy new year – stay healthy and good luck!

If you’re not fan of our LesVogt Facebook, you’d better join up as my New Year Resolution is start posting to it more often.  Make sure you’re on the main page (http://www.facebook.com/LesVogt)  though as that’s were I’ll be looking for you.

August Update

We had one of the top scores in the reined work!

Well folks happy to be able to visit with you here, sounds like I don’t do it enough for some of you.  It’s been a really fast and busy summer, working very hard to perfect my skills and my horse’s abilities to try to maximize their capacities. I’m really putting my all into it and it’s paying off. We work really hard every day to perfect new techniques, ideas, concepts and add them to our program if they prove to be good.  We are really on the cutting edge, maybe the bleeding edge, with our training program.  Some of the stuff we do doesn’t really work very well, but boy, there is a lot that does and that’s the stuff we keep and I share with you at my clinics.

We went to the Snaffle Bit Futurity at Paso Robles, last week and my little Sparky had a great show – in fact going into the fence work we were in the lead of almost 100 riders!  Unfortunately I drew a cow that didn’t give me a chance to really show him off, so we ended up a half point behind my good friend Jake Gorrell  at the end.  Sparky really worked hard for me and I couldn’t be happier with his performance!  He feels like a real show horse – like he almost gave me more in the show pen that he does at home and you can’t ask for more than that.   So now we’re desperately trying to buy some slots for the Snaffle Bit Futurity! Usually never a problem this time of year, but for some reason this year they are few and far between!

Another big thing that happened lately is that I showed my 5 year old Hackamore horse at the Salinas Rodeo, a 20 horse class, and we WON! That made my 21^st win at the Salinas Rodeo which is more than anybody else.  They do the finals in front of the grandstands during the rodeo right out there on the track.  To win at Salinas is pretty exhilarating. You can feel the electricity from the 20,000 fans. People even follow you out of the stands to congratulate you!  It makes you feel like it’s a really big deal, never gets old. The conditions are tough, the ground is bad, you’re on a track, the cattle are usually wild and don’t manage real well. You’re next to the rodeo arena which is real western in itself, you never know if a broncing bull or roping steer or something might hit the fence on the opposite side of the wall just before you get ready to turn your cow going 30 mph. Everything changes there, you can’t make a game plan, you just have to be reactive and you have to really go for it.  Its real gratifying to beat the kids, so I’m pretty proud of that win, it put me on a roll.

It’s funny, Turbo’s registered name is Nic it and Sparky’s name is Nic it Smartly, so I have two Nic Its, and at school they’re both wonderful. Sparky’s been the most fun horse I’ve trained in my life, he’s so ready to show it makes me real concerned.  It makes feel like I should do something, but anything that I do now would be wrong I’m sure, because he’s ready now!

The other day I went to the hospital too.  About 3 weeks ago something bit me on the elbow, a bug or something, and it was just a small bump, didn’t amount to anything for two and half weeks. Then I bumped it on the fence, not too hard, but it must have activated the poison or whatever was in there, because I got a pretty bad staph infection overnight!  I thought if I put some ice on it, it would go away.  But someone said to me that they had a friend that died from something like it, so I went and they put me in the hospital. They found that it was some sort of infection that was resistant to most medications but they found something that worked on me. They wanted me to stay for a few days, but I told to do what they could, because unless it was life or death, I had to go ride, so we came to an agreement. So they agreed to let me out the next day.

I went to see my friend Luke Jones in Iowa to help him with his horses, he has some good horses.  He has five Snaffle Bit Futurity horses this year that are all good enough to win. I expect Luke to be a star this year.

Now this is a very touchy time of year, more horses are ruined or crippled at this time of year than any other time of the year, so you’re suppose to have them broke ready to go by June, July at the latest.  If you don’t you have to do something very different, like get rid of them. If you have your horses ready, then it’s no big deal if you’re smart enough to let them cruise.

I had some fun at a clinic I gave in New York, very nice people and had nice horses.  Barry and his wife were wonderful hosts. I got to see the Erie Canal on the Hudson River, and a lot of very interesting stuff.

I went to a family reunion in Lake Tahoe, really enjoyed that, there were about 46 people, all related, a lot of younger ones, I didn’t know before, but got to at this reunion.

Also I’ll be looking for help at the Reno Snaffle Bit Futurity.  We have two helpers already but we would like to have one more. There’s no wages, but we need someone to help clean stalls, groom horses, saddle and unsaddle the horses, so if you want to come to the futurity and have something to do, let me know. If we have 3 helpers no one will be stressed. If you are interested, please contact me at 805-343-9205.

That’s about it, watch for me and the results.  Thanks for reading!

Summer update and the (too) high cost of showing these days

Hi folks, I hope you enjoy reading my blogs as much as I enjoy doing them.  I use them to express myself in a lot of ways just pass my thoughts along to you; I hope you understand that some of the things I say are just my opinions.  They’re based pretty much on what I’ve learned or read or what I’ve done.

First thing I want to talk about, a week before last I went to see my friend Dean Tuftin’s ranch in Bend Oregon for a private clinic. This clinic was set up by one of the world’s greatest team ropers, Marty Becker, again another really wonderful friend. At Dean’s I was to help him design and learn about how to apply a really good working horse program as far as creating rope horses that could go either way – that is, they could be great reining and cow horses or great rope horses.

He has quite a breeding program.  He has two main sires, one of them is a really good horse that’s by Shining Spark out of Miss Smarty Chex which I believe makes him a full brother to Smart Shiner that Carol Rose – he was real popular. Well I rode the Shining Spark and he’s really great, a nice size, a pretty horse, and he can do a lot of magic things.  You wouldn’t particularly pick him for a rope horse unless you had the vision that Dean does.  He has Topsail Whiz mares and others of like quality. If you were designing a working Cowhorse or reining horse program you would probably be right on track with what Dean is doing, his horses can go either way. He wants to have access to the knowledge to allow him to create horses that can go either way, not to mention, these horses are simply gorgeous.  I mean the prettiest bunch of horses I’ve seen.  They’re flawless!  Just sweet –  the kind of horses a trainer like me would love to have to go show.  Dean wants a 5-star deal.

His ranch is second to none that I’ve seen in the United States.  I’ve been to a few Thoroughbred farms in Lexington and Kingsland, Kentucky, and I’ve never seen one as nice and certainly not one as well designed. These horses have a wonderful home.  Dean is absolutely wonderful, he’s really accomplished, he’s a fine gentleman, and you would never have dreamed that he had access to some of the things he does or is who he is. Two of his accomplishments are that he was Country Music Singer/Songwriter of the year for Canada, (he’s Canadian and has dual citizenship).  He had a chance to go on in Nashville, and decided that it was not his direction, but is very successful and in high demand.   Dean is in his 40’s and his next goal was to win a World’s Team Roping Championship, so he connected with Speed Williams and rodeo’d for a number of years.  He rode hard for at least three years that I know of and he almost won as a World’s Championship Heeler – he was second by a narrow margin.  He had set a goal for himself, but he also gave himself a deadline, so when he reached it he quit, but he didn’t quit roping by any means.  He’s an A+ player, but he didn’t want to go down the road any more. He has a very nice family, two young daughters and a nice wife.

If I’ve talked a lot about Dean, well you’re right! He’s easy to talk about. He’s the kind of fellow that once you meet him you instantly like him, he’s very unassuming, generous and a very  busy guy, of all the instructors I’ve had, Dean actually took more time, he videoed, explained what he wanted me to do and sure tried to shape up my heeling and fine tune me. He’s a great teacher, a wonderful guy, and I can’t tell you how impressed I was with his horses.   Anybody looking for young horses to go either way, whether its rein cow horses or as a roper, Dean Tuftin has the nicest bunch of horses and he’s certainly on the right track, you’re going to hear a lot more about him. He’s going to make rope horses that could have been show horses depending on how he wants to get them trained. I had a fine time working with him and his team, everybody there was fun and enjoyable.  Maybe the best clinic I’ve ever had, couldn’t have been any better.

Then I came home for a few days, and on Memorial Day, got on the plane again and went back east, to Damascus Pennsylvania.   My friend Stuart Ryback  and his wife Liz, of Ryback Stables put a Cowhorse clinic on for me there and we had a really nice bunch of people.  The people in this clinic were like sponges, they really wanted information and absorbed it, treated me wonderfully. I stayed in an 1860’s Victorian style house that was turned into a bed and breakfast, they kept it as it originally was, and the wood had been well preserved and painted. The porch had lots of rocking chairs and tables, with an overhang, and the home overlooked a pond. That area this time of year was like going to the magical garden, it couldn’t have been any prettier, and it was just gorgeous.  We had a great time, worked cattle and hopefully these people got what they needed they certainly got better as I saw them.

One of the subjects that I wanted to talk about today is a little bit touchy, that is the cost of showing horses these days and the motives that I have, and I don’t think I’m that much different than most people. The reason I want to show my horses is because I really enjoy training them, enjoying making a product that I’m really proud of in a way that’s really traditional: a super Cowhorse.  By the time a horse is trained, it’s become an extension of me, it’s my passion. I love my encounters with my horses every single day.  I sure look forward to it, it makes me smile and I play the radio loud on the way home while I eat my Fritos and drink my Gatorade and tap my toe all the way – riding is the high point of my day.

There’s nothing else that really seems to send me like that these days, so I need to ride these horses, that’s just what makes me tick. Not just to ride but to school, communicate with them and try to create something that’s just as good or better than the next guy, something I’m proud of. So of course you would like to go and exhibit your horse and there’s some regional clubs with entry fees that are fairly low, and Quarter Horse shows and the same thing applies, and both of these types of shows are flourishing.  Regional shows around here, like Valley Cow Horses, have shows that start at 7-8am and go until dark and they can’t finish at that.  They’re overwhelmed, just overloaded with entries. Why? Entry fees are low, $100 or under.

So my goals are to show my horses, visit a little and to have fun.   Just showing the horse that I’ve developed over years, and maybe getting some prestige, recognition and satisfaction as a result. So having done what I’ve done and been where I’ve been, it’s fun to go to the lower level shows. But I also like to play hardball and go to where the competition is for sure.

Well the National Reined Cow Horse Association, as I understand it has a membership that kind of flexes between 2800-3200 (this figure comes from the staff at the Association office). My wife, when we were married in the 70’s, was the secretary.  She didn’t get paid, but we didn’t have any other employees either, and she did a newsletter too.   It wasn’t as fancy as this one we have now, but it had all the right information and the club seemed to have a lot of money.  The entry fees were lower and we had a lot of weekend shows, with $100-$200 entry fees.  All the good ole boys, the guru’s, the heroes of the day, they all showed up every week and we had a lot of fun.

At this point, people like myself, who own their own horse, they pay their own entry fees and expenses, there are other clubs that are flourishing. Average person want so to have fun for a reasonable price.  There are other groups that seem to keep the prices down, and they are flourishing in terms of participation, and the events pay well because more people participate

Roping the entry fees are much lower and there are probably 150,000 ropers.  The team penners and  team sorter groups are really flourishing, even in tough economic times. Then we have the mounted shooters – as I understand it the association I read about has only been active for 3 years and they have as many members as the National Reined Cow Horse Association.  We just seem to be stuck.  People are very interested, I deal with them every week, but the bottom line is that most of them cannot afford to play.

Here is what it costs me this year so far to show – let’s talk about this if you were the average customer and what kind of money you have to invest to play in the major NRCHA or NSHA shows.   These are pretty close to the real numbers as I took them off the entry blanks. I paid $2900 all-in for the Hackamore Classic in Paso Robles.  I was lucky there.  I didn’t have a very good show, but I won my entry fee back.  So for the Classic – $2900; The Derby – $3200 (which was cancelled but I had to send in the fee one week after I came home from the Classic); then a week ago I got a letter with an entry blank for the Paso Robles Pre-Futurity (that’s the National Stock Horse Association)  for $4336.

The Classic and Derby entry fees were for one horse, and the Pre-Futurity was for two horses.  Then you add the Paso Robles Derby which is at the same time as the Pre-Futurity an there’s another $1968.  Add the Reno Futurity and for my two snaffle bit horses, it’s $7180 including stalls; then on top of that I have $1522 plus a finals fee for the Reno Hackamore Class.  So far that already comes to over $21,000!

Now I don’t get it, we pay in those entry fees, then between $34-47 for a video fee, (however if we buy a video we don’t get any credit and the video could cost $100 or more, so I’m trying to understand where that $47 goes). Then we have an $8 National Rein Cowhorse Association fee, but I’m fine with that.

Then we have the stalls.  At Paso Robles (where a high percentage of these shows are) when Igo to a lot of ropings there, and we pay about $30-35 per stall. Then a week later, we go to a major horse show there, we’re supposed to pay $175 for exactly the same stall.  Wow!  Then at the Reno Futurity we have a tack room fee of $250 too! And here’s one I really don’t understand, this is a pet peeve: some of these shows, like the Paso Robles National Stock Horse Association, they charge $35 to plug in my live-in trailer, or if I just haul in and haul out it costs $15 per day for a haul in fee, you don’t really get anything for this fee, except I guess a parking space.

These entry fees I just spoke about are for only four shows, and I don’t pay any trainer fees since I do my own. Then my own expenses are going to be anywhere’s from $6-7,000 by the time I do all of this, so I’m going to be close to $30,000 in to it before I’m done. The motive I have for showing my horses is not for the money, but with the money that’s’ involved to do it’s stressful!  You pay all that money in fees, and if you miss a lead, or you draw bad down the fence, any micro mistake as tough as these classes are, then you’re done, you might as well load up and go home. Your $3,000 entry fee is adios baby, it’s gone.

I can only imagine how someone feels who’s paying a trainer and trainer fees too! And then if you do win something you have to split it with the trainer as well.  The average person, even if they’re pretty well to do, is going to start wondering if it’s really worth seeing that kind of money disappear out of their bank account!

With that kind of stress, the average guy just can’t afford to play. I can’t really afford it but I’m going to do it just because I have some good horses and I want to.  But I’m always stressed about the whole situation because there’s so much at stake.  I’m rolling some big dice and that’s not why I started doing this when I was a kid. I started doing it because I love the sport. We’ve clipped the wings of a lot of people who love the sport, because they just can’t afford to play. If we had lowered entry fees, the prestige would still be the same, the champions would still get saddles, buckles, etc., but we would not pay the high, high entry fees.  I guess I’m out of line and everybody else is right.

Well anyways, thanks for listening! I thought I would put in my two cents, just remember this is just all my opinion but it’s based on a life time.

Hackamore Classic and more

Hello folks! It’s May 18^th, it should be the time of year that the sun should be shining but we’re still getting rain.

The news is, I showed Turbo at the Hackamore Classic.  Turbo was really good and he did his best, he’s such a good horse, he’s easy to show and I enjoy showing him.  Coming out of the herd and had one good cow and two cattle that weren’t too good and he still marked well, and was in the hunt – landing in the top 10 of the whole open division. In the reined work, he was really good in the circles and I thought we should have marked better than we did in that category.  I felt that he gave it up a little, not much toward the end of the rein work as far as going to the bottom of his stops.  And the same thing happened down the fence, he was good but not as good as he could be. I had him checked out, his hocks and everything else were great, but his sacroiliac was sore, so we took care of that, and Turbo is better than ever.  So we placed at the Hackamore Classic and we got our money back.

The entry fee there including my stall about $2,800 – $2,900, it’s a steep hill to climb, to lay out $2,900 for a weekend show even though it does pay fairly well, I’m not really sure, but to just win the open it pays about $15,000-$16,000, but if you draw a bad cow,  you lose that $2,900. Maybe I’m old fashion, I don’t see the point, I thought this was about tradition, preservation, creating a really nice horse and having the time and the place to show it, so that people who like really nice horses could watch us. However, it’s gotten totally out of hand and we’re losing a lot of participants, who can’t afford the $2,900 that I spent.   So I came home from the Hackamore Classic, winning just about as much as I spent – then I took that same money and foolishly added $300 to make $3,200 and entered the Derby which is on June 14^th in Paso Robles, California. 

Had I lost that money at the Classic, I sure wouldn’t be able afford throwing $3,000 for weekend fun. For that money I can go anywhere in the world and have a nice weekend!  However, being me, I chose to roll the dice again, the way it works is I basically gave Turbo $3,000, and I told him as long you’re a good horse and you keep winning it back or making some money then that’s great.  If he gets the breaks I know he’ll win more than that, but without the breaks, there is no horse that can win.  If you draw badly or something happens like the horse slips and falls, one thing or another, then you lose all your money.  Soon as Turbo’s  $3,000 is gone if it ever is, then Turbo is strictly a rope horse except for some of the good weekend deals, such as the $350 entry fee at the Salinas Rodeo.   There I can usually get him in and out in one day and I’m able to win over $3,000. I think the better deal is Salinas.

The Reined Cowhorse Association which has changed so much in the past 10-15 years and with these high entry fees, a good part of the California people who used to partake in the Reined  Cowhorse events, they don’t do it anymore -they’re doing something else that they can afford!  But Turbo and I are going to the Derby and see how we do.

I went to the Rancheros Visit adores  ride recently too –  that is 1,060 guys and their horses and then another 1,000 others that are there as guests, cooks, camp hands, wranglers, bartenders, so it’s a really well done ride, a lot of fun. I took Gary Brooks, Andrew McArthur and Mitch Jacobs as guests; they had no idea what they were in for. The funniest thing I saw was that one of the camps did a skit on American Idol, they of course had someone acting as Simon, had guys dressed up like girls auditioning, and oh my gosh, it gets close to rank at times, they’re a fun group – the boys will be boys.  While we’re there we do some cutting, some reining, throw horseshoes, shoot trap, we even have a cannon shoot.  We team rope a lot and there is a fun event going on all the time throughout the six days.  You find yourself getting tired by the end, but you get to visit with really worthwhile inspirational people that have a lot of character.  I very much enjoy my Ranchero friends and feel blessed to have the opportunity to be part of the group.  I’ve been going for 38 years now.

I did pretty good at roping at the Rancheros, and believe it or not I’ve placed in 4 ropings in a row.  Hey, I think that I am a roper now. Maybe I should quit my day job – no more clinics! Just pick up my rope, put my horse in the trailer and head on down the road – nope, not quite yet.  I’m getting it together and having fun doing it.  I’ve had nothing but the best teachers and tutors on pretty much a daily basis.  I’ve had some world champions and some great guys helping me for about 3 years, and it’s finally sinking in.

My Futurity colts are really coming along good. Sparky my little bay horse, I think he’s a winner.  He’s just got the attitude and ability and the charisma, the appearance and he’s styling.  He does things other horses can’t do and he does many things that you can’t teach a horse to do. He’s freaky in a really good way and that’s what it takes to do well there. I’m not sure how many years I want to do this futurity thing so I hope it works really well for me.  In other words there are a lot of other things I plan on doing. If you’re going to do futurity horses you have to dedicate yourself, because you know if you’re not riding someone else is – and they’ll beat you!

Rango which is the Tomcat Chex is such a nice horse but he has a few little problems that I’m trying to get past and I’m sure he’ll be a really good horse.  I hope it’s in time for the futurity, he tries hard, he’s a speed horse, I mean he can run and get cattle!  We’ve been going down the fence a lot with these young horses lately.  Cody’s futurity horse is super cool, he’s a Dual Pep and I’m going to tell you that this one has the appearance and a way of moving, and he’s got style.  We’ve got some real nice horses this year.

The Double Dollar Team from Utah and I are coordinating in a partnership what we call High Team Bits for Ropers. They’re created specifically for rope horses, and they are a very different bit than has ever been in the roping arena. I’ve been fortunate enough to learn about leverage position and it doesn’t seem like other bit makers really capitalize on that, but I really believe in it.  I’m very happy with the leverage positions, mouthpiece powers and the specific mouthpieces that we’ve come up with after two years of research. Our High Team Bits should be available for under $100 per bit. They’re classy looking, and we’ve tested them everywhere. They should be available July 1^st, so anybody looking for a better bit than you got save your money so you can get one of these.  I don’t care what you’re riding with now, these are better for rope horses – they do some things other bits have never done.

Year end awards, please don’t forget, if anyone needs year end awards, as in custom mad bits or spurs, you need to contact me pretty soon so we can get them going.  I can make just about anything you want, the price of silver has gone up a little so that affects our prices, anyways we’re still plugging along.

Some more excitement! I leave on the 23^rd for Redmond Oregon to work with Dean Tustin. Dean was 2^nd in the world as a heeler at one time. He has a pretty unique rope horse breeding program.  He’s breeding rope horses that could be show horses as well, so he’s going with the top of our show horse lines and looking for the most durable ones and the ones with the most speed. He’s got a lot of them about 20 young horses, I’m going to work with Dean and his crew and get to know them and have a lot of fun roping, I’ll be there about 3 days and will really enjoy that.  So far I’ve worked with Speed Williams, Ricky Green and now Dean, I guess these guys must think I know some secrets, I hope that they’re not disappointed.  After I leave Dean’s I’ve got another one that is kind of interesting, I’m going to Damascus Pennsylvania, to do a clinic there. I have never been to Pennsylvania; I hope I enjoy it like people say I will.

Well that’s the update, thanks for reading!

Spring update

Hi folks!  Long time no speak, I’ve been just a little bit busy and having a lot of fun on top of that.  I’ve had a wonderful group of clinics early in the year; the only problem was it was cold everywhere I went, I think I picked the coldest places in the western half and some of the eastern states.  They were having some of their coldest weather, and I was there.

In March I was in Lubbock Texas, Suzie and that group put on a wonderful clinic, after that I went to Luke Jones’ in Iowa. Luke’s my really good friend, we worked together on his futurity horses last year.  I helped him at the futurity in Reno too, and he made the finals two different times.  We enjoy working with him.  From there, I went to Lyndon, Washington – what a facility they have, big, brand new beautiful climate controlled indoor arena, but of course the heat didn’t work very well, but we survived.  I about wore out my long underwear! I’ve learned to take them everywhere I go.

After Lyndon, I went to Yakima Washington, during the middle of March, Suzie and Roger Hart and their family put on the clinic, they’ve put on two a year for over 15 years.  I have no idea how Suzie does it, she fills them and she would over fill them past the maximum of 15 riders, (which is the most I like to have in a clinic), she sure would do it.  Suzie had a little medical problem to deal with this year, but she’s doing great and recovering, and she’s in great shape and will be with us for a long time.  That bunch is like family to me and I appreciate everything they have done and I hope to continue for a lot of years.

In April, I had planned a trip to Australia for the first half, they had such a huge drought for so many years, but then it rained so much, they got a little more than they were hoping for, that it flooded part of Queensland (which is where I planned to go) so we cancelled the trip for this year and hopefully we’ll make it there next year.   My friend Andrew McArthur, who is a funny, quick witted guy puts them on for me.

Then we went to Stillwater Oklahoma, for a clinic that Cheryl and Fran put on.  That was fun because we worked with team penners and team sorters there, and that was a new deal for me.  It was very interesting, good people, great facility and they all had really nice horses.

Turbo’s getting ramped up, he’s now my Hackamore horse, he was my Futurity horse,  he’s 5 now, and I have to say they sure change every year between age 2 and 5, you see huge changes.  As a 5 year old, he’s more of an adult horse, he’s more durable, stronger, has more energy and stamina and can do more, there’s just a lot more horse there.  I’ve got him ready to show in the Hackamore Classic put on by the National Rein Cowhorse Association, in getting him ready, I’m all about learning and teaching. On Wednesday of last week I loaded Turbo and my two Futurity horses and I spent Thursday thru Monday in Bakersfield, California at Sundance Feed Lot. My friend Robert Bias runs the feed lot and they have the finest facility you could ask for, big arenas with beautiful dirt for cutting and literally thousands of fresh cattle. I parked my live-in horse trailer there, he has stalls, and Doug Williamson lives right around the corner, so Doug and I got to work together.

Doug is about my age and I really respect him a lot, he’s been through the same storms, and it’s not all about what you learn to do, but also what you learn not to do.  So if you don’t do anything wrong, I guess you’re doing things right.  Over the years, Doug and I have been through a lot together, we have been good friends and becoming even better friends.  We are going to rope together at the World Series Final during the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas Nevada.  We roped and had fun.  He sure can rope; I couldn’t have a better partner.  Doug helped me work on my herd work (I think he’s the best) I feel a lot more confident now and I’m sure that Turbo does too.  So Turbo is pretty close to ready, he’s using himself pretty hard and I’m excited about showing him this weekend in Paso Robles at the Hackamore Classic.

I took my two Futurity horses, Rango and Sparky.  Sparky might weigh 8-900 lbs and Rango’s not much more but he’s gangly, he’s little and a great horse! He crawls around on cattle and has a low crouchy way to doing everything he sure can stop and doesn’t mind it. He’s very uncomplicated, and I really enjoy him.  The other horse is by Tomcat Chex, and I sure like the way he feels on cattle.  He’s more complex and can get difficult, but I think I can talk him out of his difficulties.  A lot of the best horses I have had were somewhat quirky and difficult, but these days I don’t feel like working so hard to achieve the results.  Now I’m into the easy horses like Sparky, hopefully Rango will come along.  I like them both a lot.

I’ve had some good experiences roping with Turbo, now that I’m healing with him. I haven’t been doing much of that in the last couple of weeks, just concentrating on using his energy to get ready for this show.

Guess what folks, Cody is getting married May 21^st, that will be fun, and we’re all really excited. That’s right after the Rancheros Vistadores ride in the Santa Ynez Valley, which is May 6-12^th, I go on that every year and have a great time. See people and make connections I couldn’t do anywhere else, a lot of wonderful people.  There are about a thousand guys who are members and thousand more waiting to be members and a thousand more waiting to take care of the guys who need taking care of, help take care of the horses.  There’s a lot people, horses and activity, we do everything from team rope, shoot canons, throw horseshoes, and a lot more fun activities.

Having said that, you’re pretty current on me. If you’re wondering why I haven’t said much about roping, well in my opinion it’s terrible right now and I have to do some work on it. I think I’ve abused my shoulder while practicing so much, but I’ll keep working on it.  I take LubriSyn for my shoulder on a daily basis, and I know it helps, it makes my shoulder better. I do give it to my horses, and I do feel it enhances their performance. If you’ve got a few more aches and pains than you’d like to have maybe you should try some too – we sell it on the website now.

I have my silver bit & spur business and I do a lot of awards for associations, if anyone is interested, give me a call at 805-343-9205.  If you have yearend awards, I can do most anything you may have in mind.

Also folks, don’t forget about my private clinics, I do about 6 of these a year.  Private clinics is where you come to the ranch and work one-on-one with me, we can work out the times that are best for you. We have the best facility here you could possibly ask for. If you’re interested and want to have fun, call me!

Thanks for reading this and I hope everyone has a great day!

Roping lessons with Rickey Green

Since my last blog I told you about the trip I was going to take to Texas to meet up with Rickey Green and Speed Williams, so here’s a quick update on what happened.  At Rickey and Kelly Green’s I met  with two bronc riders Casey Sisk and Cody Taton. Casey is leading the first round of the bronc riding at the Ft. Worth Rodeo, Taos Muncy the 2008 World Champion Bronc rider gave us a couple of tickets to the rodeo, that was  very interesting.

While I was at Speed Williams’ met my new friend Marty Becker from Oregon. Marty is riding one of the all time great heel horse’s named Chili Dog, Marty is really a good roper but most of all a gentleman and super nice guy with a lot of class. I look forward to our friendship in the future.

The day after the rodeo I went to watch the calf roping at the quarter horse show, which had 130 entries.  I had a great a visit with Robbie Schroder and his wonderful, wonderful wife Joan.  I had the pleasure of meeting their friend Tommy Houston, who is a legend in the quarter horse world, and cattle rancher. He’s been around a long time in the Weatherford area.

At the rodeo I bumped into my old friends Jake Rodriquez and Bob Tallman. Bob was the announcer and he was proud to exhibit his 2 grandkids who were the center of his conversation.

While  at Rickey Green’s, who did I see on the other side of the fence, well it was Clay and Brian Cooper’ s Rickey’s neighbor and friends mine for the last couple of years.

The trip was full of fun things and fun people.  I definitely learned to heel a little better, which is a pretty complex sport, it can either make you high or make you cry, but right now we’re having fun doing it.

Well that’s the update on my trip. Now I’m getting Turbo ready for the spring shows, not sure which ones yet. The Futurity Colts are getting better every single day and Cody and I are having a lot of fun.  Cody’s colt looks really good.

That’s it for now folks….

More on bits and Turbo’s new training program

Well here’s my take on the Denver Annual Western Trade show, the largest in the world. Under one roof there was about 10 acres of booths that were about 10-12 feet wide and 10-12 feet deep some places that were 4 stories. It was incredible; you could see all the new fashions, styles, types of tack and everything that is going to be coming out this year. It was interesting and I got to be reunited with a lot of old friends.

The thing I paid the most attention to was our bits and spurs, of course there is nothing out that is exactly or close to our Performax line, we’re still light years ahead as far as technology and knowledge in constructing the better product that has meaning – that is you’re not stuck just guessing to try and come up with a bit that resolve a problem or maximize your horses’ performance. You can actually calculate it by a chart that we have on www.lesvogt.com that allows you to make intelligent decisions. This keeps you from buying bits that you really don’t need.

The other thing that I wanted to look at was the silver bit and spurs lines that are out there. What I see is that we don’t really have any competition in that area – our custom bits and spurs in our silver line, are made so much better. In the past year the price of silver has doubled and almost at tripled in cost and if the quality of the product is any good, the price had to go up too. Our custom line, Les Vogt’s Silver Bits & Spurs, is thicker silver with thicker silver inlays and overlays. Most of our competition has gone to thinner silver so they can keep the price down. The way you can tell, is that ours has have deeper engravings, and if you have thinner silver, you’ll cut right through your engraving if you cut very deep.

We also have calculated leverage positions, so we place the bit on the cheek piece perfectly for the horse it’s being made for, so that it’s a predetermined fact how this bit is going to actually perform. With all my years of success with horse training I have a lot of experience with these bits and spurs, and understand how I can make your bit or spur work better than any others. You can find a gallery of bits and spurs on www.lesvogt.com, just click on the silver bit and spur logo and you can take a gander at more than 500 pieces.

I have some very exciting news too: I was approached by Aaron Ralston who has a television show, “Ride with Aaron Ralston”, and he’s asked me to be a participant on his show on a bi-weekly basis. I’ll keep you posted on how that works out.

Turbo, the wonder horse. In case you have been wondering where he is, he’s sort of been on vacation, he’s put on a bit of weight and gotten hairy. He’s been taking the back seat since I’ve got these two Futurity horses which are really doing well and happy with both. We have Rango who is a big red colt with four white socks and Sparky is a plain little bay horse until you get on him, then he gets a lot bigger and prettier when you’re riding. Because the colts have been taking most of my time, so Turbo has sort of been on vacation. So I decided that he needed to spend time on roping, so to start, we’ve spent about a week to 10 days on the heel-o-matic machine, made by Cactus. Turbo took to that and now we’re taking him out of the box on slow cattle, and he’s really enjoying the roping. And I figure there’s really is no reason for a horse to stand around and wait while you’re roping on other horses, so I’ve been keeping him busy all the time. I wish I would have known how much good it does a show horse to rope on him many years ago, I think my horses would have been better, and a heck of a way to keep him fit and happy.

Here’s my brand new deal, so listen up. What I’ve been doing with Turbo is saddling him up, warming him up as I normally do, using my cloverleaf and other warm up exercises. I might rope a couple of steers, and while the other guys are roping, I might run him across the pen and fence him once or twice, might even stop him, then I might rope a couple more steers. For example, last night there was an old steer hanging out at the catch pen that hadn’t gone in the stripping shoot, so he’s hanging out at the corner of the arena, after I roped, I galloped down there and sent him down the fence and hammered him once each way. Then I galloped down the other end of the pen and roped another steer, after that I galloped some circles, did some speed transitions, and a lead change, then I roped another steer. Then there was another little Mexican steer looking at me, so I sent him down the fence again. What this amounts to is, I got to rope, I got to go down the fence, and I got to do my rein work. My horse never knew what I was going to do next, and that’s the lesson, he should only be doing what I ask him to do, nothing more or less. Makes it pretty hard for him to predict when I don’t even know what I’m going to do next. That’s my new gig, I really like it, and I’m on to something really big, listen for chapter two.

Thanks for reading folks!



New Year’s Update

Hi folks, I’m going to catch you up since the last update.
In December, I had a wonderful time; I didn’t do much as far as clinics go, because that’s more of celebration time and the National Finals Rodeo. I definitely went to the event, but didn’t watch the rodeo. If I can’t get front row seats, I would rather watch it at home. I did go to the trade shows and saw some different Vegas shows while I was there. The reason I go to the NFR is mainly for the trade shows, to see the current trends, who’s selling what, and if the vendors are actually selling. I talked to quite a few of the vendors, they said their sales were way down, a large part of them blame it on the economy and they won’t return to Cowboy Christmas next year.
I also went to the ACTRA – American Cowboy Team Roping Association Finals this year, don’t think I’ve mentioned this before in my blogs, but I didn’t win much. I roped pretty fair, I learned a lot and my horses worked great. I got a call from someone that’s a really a good team roper. I didn’t know him, he said you’re black mare was the best heel horse there. I was flattered, he was a high number roper and I was very flattered, then he said that the guys he was with were a little disappointed that Les Vogt didn’t rope any better than he did. My comment was “I wasn’t real good but you should have seen me last year, I was worse”. So anyway I’m getting better and I’m having more fun than anyone there and that’s what it’s all about. This is one thing I do that I don’t have to prove anything to anybody. While I was at the ACTRA Finals, it was really flattering to be one of their main sponsors again this year. We were the official bit and spur maker for the ACTRA so we furnished all the official bits and spurs, and we made some really fancy products for them that had a tremendous amount of positive input.
Christmas time, December 23, I did an exodus; I left California and went to Cave Creek, Arizona. I’m not really a Christmassy person, because I don’t have much family around here or little kids, so I take off. Well why would I go to Cave Creek. Well, roping is the sport of choice there. There are many thousands of ropers from around the United States. There are a lot of ‘snow birds’, people who live in the snow country from Canada and back east. There’s an average of 4-5 roping arenas per square mile, maybe even more than that, everybody ropes. Every restaurant you go to there are ropers, so it’s a common interest and everybody is very interested in getting to know each other so I made a lot of new friends. They come from every walk of life, I think people who go there are all living in a fairy tale land, course that included me; it’s all work and no play. In the morning you practice then go to a jack pot somewhere and you’ve got a choice between 5-10 a day. I chose to trot to the closest one to where I was at. You don’t have to even load your horse. There would be anywhere from 200 – 300 teams in each event. I think I had one of the best times of my whole life.
And New Year’s I don’t even think I hear anyone say “Merry Christmas” or “Happy New Year”, they just said “how did you rope today?” or “Good Luck”. Everybody is pretty motivated and it’s just fun. I’m very fortunate to have that opportunity.
Just got home from Arizona last week and so this week we are getting ready for the Denver’s Western and English Trade Show, it’s the biggest in the world. Its where all the manufacturers such as I all have booths, the retailers who have stores show up and they try to make a deal. That market has been way down. This year I didn’t go to the expense of having a booth, I’m just going to show up and see what the market is doing because the last time I went was a real money loser. We’re selling a lot more ourselves, over the internet, than we sold to stores at Denver.
I’m booking clinics for 2011; the bookings are up, up, up. I think people are interested in self-help projects, learning to do it yourself rather than hiring a trainer or put a horse in training. So our books, videos, DVD’s are definitely are in demand. Best yet all of our on-line products are working well, from the handmade, engraved, silver line and the Performax line which looks just like silver and is a really nice line. The sales on those products are up.
Even though I’m not working during these leisurely months, I seem to keep really busy. I got a couple of really exciting phone calls. One call was from Sped Williams in Texas, who has won more team roping championships than anyone in history. I also got a call from Rickey Green who is one of the leading instructors of team roping in the country. Both people are interested in what I might know as far as performance horsemanship goes. On January 21st, I’m going to hang out with these guys and do a little video work and helping them with their performance horsemanship and in return I’ll get some really good input from the best of the best of the team ropers. I am serious about team roping; I seem to get obsessive at least.
While I was in Arizona, I gave my colts 10 days off. I’ve got Rango who is a big red colt with 4 socks and a blaze, bright red with a flaxy mane and tail and Rango is like his name sounds, he’s fancy and a good horse. Rango is at least 15 hands or more, that’s pretty big for turning 3 but he’s clever footed. And then there is Sparky, he’s a little plain bay horse. He’s got a short stride, and Rango is bigger and has a bigger move when he gallops, they’re like Mutt & Jeff. They are both really fun and exceptional horses. I hate to brag on them at this point, sometimes they don’t pan out, so you don’t know for another 3-4 months from now really what you’re riding. I’ve been moving mine along a little faster than normal because I’m booking a very heavy load as far as the clinics go, but I also make it so that I can ride on the Friday morning before I depart on the weekend clinic and come back early Monday morning so I can ride Monday afternoon. Most of the time I get my 5 days in on them, so I gave them the 10 days off when I went roping and I came back to better horses than I left. The colts needed that, I didn’t know, but I was guessing that was the right thing to do.
In case you’ve been wondering about Turbo… Turbo the Wonder horse, he’s doing just great, got fat and hairy. Haven’t ridden him much since October, maybe twice, been concentrating on Millie and Gracie, the heel horses and then on Rango and Sparky who are the Snaffle Bitters. So Turbo has been kind of looking through the bars of his pen wishing it was him. You know he looks more like a heel horse every day so this past week I’ve been galloping Turbo and having a lot of fun with him. Sometimes you forget how much fun a horse is until you get back on him. Turbo is a machine, he is really fun, he’s matured, and he’s stronger than ever. He’s a big butterball of hair; maybe I can get someone to clip him for me. I’ve been using Turbo following the heel-o-matic, an automatic steer we pull with a four-wheeler and it hops along so we can teach a heel horse position and gets him used to roping, and it does a lot in the primary stages of creating a rope horse. I’m having fun with him, there’s no reason he shouldn’t be a rope horse as well as a show horse. I plan to show him this year in the Hackamore Classic and the Derby.
Last week I had the privilege of receiving a call from Mitchell Jacobs, an attorney from Southern California. Mitchell wanted to come and ride and I told him like I do most people, that I don’t do private lessons, but I do private clinics. That means it’s a little more expensive than a lesson because it has to last a day. So Mitchell came for 5 days and he was here every morning at 8-9am riding horses with Cody Morrow (my sidekick, partner, protégé, intern, my friend), all morning, then after lunch I would show up and ride with Mitchell for about 2-3 hours, that was plenty to digest. The reason I’m mentioning Mitchell is he’s a fox hunter, that’s the sport he likes to do, however he is interested in performance horsemanship too. Mitchell was undoubtedly the best student that Cody or I had seen, let alone had.
Mitchell is very intelligent, very comprehensive, he has the unique capacity to activate and physically accomplish what was just explained to him with such accuracy. I’ve never seen anyone to make progress like that; he did as much with his personal horse in 4-5 days as most people do in 6 months to a year. Unbelievable, but was sure fun to work with that level of a student. Both Cody and I have made a really good friend, and now Mitchell has invited us to go fox hunting, and we’re both going to go. Our jumper friend, Will Simpson has invited us to ride jumping horses. Will jumps horses at 8 feet; don’t think I will go that high, I’ll settle for 5 feet. The last time I went I jumped 4 feet. I think I might even go a little more than that, but Will thought it might be a little dangerous, but I’m willing to go for it. So we are pretty excited with our new adventures of fox hunting and jumping.
I’m also getting ready for the PTRA and the National Finals which will be the end of February. The entry fees are $1250/man, which means it will be very lucrative to win, and its a nine roping which means its low numbers which is good. I’ve got 2 partners,

Les and Manuel with Saddles they won this summer

and Chuck Tarbell and both of them are big time headers. The three of us have been partners in different events have won either reduced or no entry fee chances to win the $80-100,000 prize. If I won even $5,000 I would be thrilled. So we are going to try and get those winnings and needless to say I’m working as hard as I can – and that’s part of my trip to Texas is to learn as much as I can about roping before I go.
I’m excited to say that Luke Jones, my friend and protégé, he’s getting ready for the World’s Greatest Horseman. Last year I coached Luke at the Snaffle Bit Futurity in Reno. He made both the intermediate and open finals, so I’m going back in March to check his colts out. He’s doing well in the Quarter Horse show world and he’s off to the World’s Greatest Horseman, somewhere around January 21st. So I want to wish Luke Good Luck!
Cody Morrow has a really special colt, a young gelding, really flashy and really pretty and does really good stuff. Cody has him up to date as far as a snaffle bitter goes. Cody needs either a partner or buyer, – this horse needs an owner. Cody bought this horse himself, he saw the light at the end of the tunnel, he saw the potential in this horse, he needed a stepping stone. I convinced him to buy the horse and an owner would come along. So if anybody is out there that is interested in having a really good time and an investment with an honest and reliable trainer with a ton of character and talent, that would be Cody. I recommend that you email me at reachlesvogt@yahoo.com and I’ll set the deal up for you and you’ll have some fun.
The final thing that’s exciting in my life is the bits project with Greg Kessler from Holden Utah who produces a lot of rope horses. He’s been very well known in the rope horse community, but probably best known for being the father of Quinn Kessler, his young son who’s probably as good a heeler there is in the world today. But Greg Kessler puts on the Double Dollar Sale during the NFR in Las Vegas, which is mostly a rope horse sale. We’ve endeavored on this new project which we feel is sorely needed in the rope horse world. There’s a lot of horsemanship that’s missing from time to time with certain ropers. And one of the things that is missing is knowledge or access to well designed bits, bits that are designed to do certain things, or create certain responses or help with different problems. We have done a series of bits, and are in the process of developing them. They’re called High Team Bits, they’ll be out soon. They’ll be exciting not only for ropers but I think a lot of them will work well for reiners too, but they’re not Cowhorse bits. They’ll be nice bits and a good deal so keep your eyes out for them on our website.
So have a great day and may your horses all stay sound, and I have to say I hope you stay sound too.

Bye…

October Update

Well, it’s good to be home from the Snaffle Bit Futurity, it was fun going there. I always get a little bored hanging out there for 14 days, seems like quite a long time, to sit on a bale of hay, so to break the monotony I changed bales of hay and that seemed to work pretty good!

One of the exciting things that we did while at the Snaffle Bit Futurity was to visit Jack Basset from Washoe Valley in Nevada.  Jack owns D Bar M Western Store, the finest western store that I know of in the Reno area, they have western clothes and tack and many specialized items for sale.  Jack built a new house and arena out in the Washoe Valley.  This is just a little tip of heaven that he’s siphoned off to be his own.  He’s got one heck of a nice place.  This new house he’s built, is made of different types of stones, for the deck he’s used part of the actual water line to Virginia City from back in the 1800’s which is an old riveted water line. He used this for pillars inside and out. He’s got beams, doors, window sills, sinks, chandeliers, his cook stove which is a wood stove, all from some other place, and everything has its own story.  The house is just one big story book and it’s just beeeutiful and it’s so big that it echoes.  It’s just Jack and Judy now, they don’t entertain much, and it’s been his project and he’s very happy with it.  His arena is wonderful and the cattle were great, he let us school out there and you can’t do any better than that.  Thank you very much Jack!

I saw my friends Lee & Tracy Smith who live next door to Jack (which is about a 1-2 miles away) they have been friends of mine since we were kids, it was good to see them.  Speaking of Lee & Tracy I’ll tell you a little about the National Rein Cowhorse Hall of Fame banquet, which was very exciting this year.  I had the honor of being of course the rider of Chex A Nic, a wonderful horse owned by Lisa Blumenthal and Pat Pinkard. I showed this horse for 13 years and the horse won for 13 years, he was a wonderful horse and they were wonderful owners also.  This horse paid his own way for the entire time I rode him, he had his own bank account and paid all his entry fees and travel expenses.   He was quite an independent horse and I’m sure if he had choices he wouldn’t have had it any other way, he was absolutely great.  That put me in a very unique position as far as status goes in the Hall of Fame, as now I am the only person that has actually three claims to the Hall of Fame.  That would be King Fritz, Chex A Nick and myself.

Chex A Nick and I were voted by Performance Horse Magazine readers to be the all time greatest reining and working Cowhorse team.  That’s a really big honor, can’t beat that, and I’m pretty happy getting three spots in the Hall of Fame and the All Time Greatest honor.  It’s pretty hard to go higher, all I can do now is go down, that’s kind of scary.

The Hall of Fame banquet was really fun.  Before the banquet they have the old timer’s reunion, we probably get about 100 people there.  Anybody can go, what it amounts to is guys that were showing horses in the 60-80’s and they tell the stories when there weren’t so many rules and laws to worry about and there weren’t so many police to arrest people back then. They weren’t serious about arresting, course there was a lot of partying going on at every show and when there’s partying a lot of things happened that were pretty interesting and funny.  But those stories surface now because the statute of limitations, so now they tell the stories.  They are really funny and very interesting. Bob Ingersoll and Ronnie Richards were the emcees, the Day’s host the reunion, and it’s very nice of them to do that.  So we went to that, then went to the Hall of Fame banquet, there didn’t seem to be as many people as in the past. But that didn’t matter we still had fun.  The high spot of the evening were of course the people that were honored, and going out to accept the award again for Chex A Nix.

Then my friend Carl Gould was honored, he was great to watch, he was pretty choked up. His 90 year old mother was with him and his lovely wife and other members of his family were there too.  He’s well deserved to be in the Hall of Fame.  Great fellow and great cowboy and great horseman, and we welcomed Carl.  Then one of the highlights of the evening was Tommy Sondgroth. Tommy and his wife could not be present because of some physical problems, but a few days later everything worked out fine and I think it was because of everyone’s prayers.  I accepted Tommy’s award for him, we all said something nice about him, which wasn’t hard to do.  He’s just a great horseman, and he’s been an inspiration to me all my life.  They had a video clip of Tommy which was about the way he thinks, it was about how when he hangs up the phone to someone, he never says goodbye, he says “I love you”.  It was a very touching story how he and the late Greg Ward came up with this, and it was probably inspired by his friend Skip Brown.  I’m sure there wasn’t a dry eye in the audience. The fun part of it, at the end of the video, and everyone was leaving; everyone said “I love you, bye”.  He made an impact, God bless him. If you can make an impact in a group of people’s lives, a positive impact, then you know you’ve done something.  Anyways it was great.

We’ve had a few things happen that were really fun. Will Simpson called me, Will is one of the great jumping horse riders in the western United States. Nobody out here has accomplished what he has.  Will’s won just about every Grand Prix – he’s really hot, I mean he’s the man out here at least. On top of that he held the puissance high jumping world record for 13 years at a crazy height of 7’ 9.”  Also, Will was a member of the U.S. Gold Medal jumping team in the 2008 Olympics that were held in Hong Kong.  There has never been a Gold medal winner from the western United States, except for Will. So that gives you a little history of Will’s accomplishments.  I’ve known him for 20 years, we’ve worked together back then on a project and we’ve been good friends ever since.  Well he and a friend of his, George Ludwig, came over and he brought this horse, and stayed for 2 days.

The horse had some problems that Will thought I could help him with.  It was so amazing that even though we come from different styles of riding, our approach and theories of horsemanship are exactly the same.  We were always on the same channel as far as the things that worked or didn’t, the way we thought the horse was thinking or reacting or the solutions to the problems might be.  So we tried to think about what we’d do to fix this horse’s problems the western way not the jumper way.  This horse wasn’t relating to the jump course anymore and he was just a little spoiled.  He had a bit of an attitude problem here and there.  But Will kept telling me this horse wasn’t just the best horse that Will has ever ridden; he says he is the best horse that he’s ever seen.  The horse is potentially worth $5-8 million, if you can imagine!  He’s a beautiful French warm blood, a Selle Francais.  He’s drop dead gorgeous and he floats like he’s on a cloud, moves like a deer.

We ended up doing some fun things with him, he was a little bit spoiled and needed to be handled so I gave him another job.  First we worked the flag, that is the mechanical cow.  Cody did that.  He rode the horse first and got him limbered up.  Will does a pretty good job with his horses actually.  They are softer in the neck than most jumpers, and stayed pretty bridled up, and Will does it for all the right reasons. Then we took him to the round corral with the western saddle and Will worked the buffalo with him.  He worked good and hard, and in the end he seemed like a happy, horse especially compared to where he was the first day. I told Will he was on the right track for sure, asked him what he was thinking. We figured that he’d done so well, he’d keep him off the jumping course for a while, give him a new life and let him forget any of the problems he had before.  We got to film a lot of it and hopefully he’ll be on our television show on the RFD-TV, or at least on YouTube.   Will and George are great horsemen and friends, and it was quite an honor for me to give an Olympic Gold medal rider a lesson.  I’m totally flattered.

Next I get a call from Speed Williams, he’s won multiple champions in the team roping as a header, he’s one of the most famous ropers ever lived. He said he would like to learn some of the things that I know as far as my approach to horsemanship. This is such a compliment to be getting calls from the greatest of the great in other activities and other disciplines. We would like to get together and develop a program that works for both of us as far as my performance horse techniques applied to rope horses.  We’re both excited about it, and I’m going to take a trip to Speed’s place in November and we’re going to have a ball.

I’m so flattered and honored to be working with horsemen like Will Simpson and Speedy Williams.  That’s as good as it gets, you can’t get a better compliment than that.  I’m very humble about it, and very, very excited to see where it all leads!

This year’s Snaffle Bit Futurity Project

Les here with an update from Reno at the NRCHA snaffle bit futurity and  I’ll tell you what’s been going on here the last week. We had a camera man show up for a couple hours three or four different times and he’s filmed our three team members.  Their guys I’ve work with a lot to get their snaffle bit horses ready, they’re all about 30, and they’re all good riders, good hands, and they understand my program. Their names are Travis Young, from Montana (Travis is who I bought Turbo from), Cody Mora, who lives by me and helps me rope, and Luke Jones from Iowa.  All three have websites and you can Google them, and all three are just great guys.

So, I’m the coach, they’re the students, and I’m here with them to coach them through all 3 events.   They all 3 have nice horses.   what we’re doing with the camera man is we’re filming the prep work and the schooling that we’re doing  here a the show.  Most of it’s been at our friend Jack Basset’s place.  Jack owns D Bar M Western Store here in Reno on 4^th Avenue.  And it’s quite a store.  I went  to visit and he’s sure got the right stuff.   He’s really picky.  He know what cowboys and cowgirls want and need, and that’s all he’ll put in his store.

Jack furnished us with cattle and let us use his beautiful new ranch. I mean he cut a piece of the heart out of heaven!  It’s unbelievably beautiful out there in Washoe Valley.  He showed me his new house and it’s all made of stone.  If you were a king, you couldn’t have a more western house or more beautiful one.  It’s incredible. Big, beautiful, and made of stone.  Plus a great arena!  Everything there is going to be there a long, long time

So we filmed all of the team getting ready for the herd word and then we did the fence work there too. We had really good schools we explained a lot about the preparation, getting ready to school, how to school, how we make a plan, and how we want to think.  Those are very valuable experiences not only to us but to you folks too.  We had conferences with the camera rolling where we put our heads together and decided what were the best schooling options for horses, and the riders, so we weren’t’ shooting in the dark. We sure did improve every horse. It was a very, very enlightening, not only for them, but me too. These guys are plenty smart, so we were learning from each other and analyzing where we were, and where we needed to go.

Tomorrow we’ll know a little more about how right or wrong we were about our predictions, and how all our planning paid off. Down the fence, of course so much of your success depends on how you draw – that is what cow they turn out for you.  But the winners will be capable, or should be capable, of recognizing a good circumstance, then jumping in and taking advantage of it, and hopefully these boys will get a chance to do just that.

P.S.  Luke had a great go down the fence on one of his horses and has made the finals in both the Intermediate and the Open Divisions!  Way to go Luke!