Sit Tall in the Saddle

I was around 14 when I first started working with horses. I wasn’t born on a ranch, like a lot of the cowboys I worked with. The son of a disabled veteran, my childhood was sometimes a bit hectic, being bounced around a lot. My grandfather was a farmer, so I spent a good amount of time around farming, but my grandfather had no interest in horses. His answer to me when ever I asked for a horse was, “Why would I buy a horse? I spent my whole childhood looking at the ass end of a horse plowing fields. We have tractors now, sure don’t need a horse.” Guess that is one of the problems of having a grandfather that grew up in the depression era.

We eventually bounced up to Sturgis South Dakota, because there was a V.A. Hospital at Fort Meade that my dad liked. Not as big and crowded as the V.A. in Omaha that dad had always gone too. Fort Meade was small enough that the doctors actually got to know your name. Kind of like Cheers I guess.

Now North-east Nebraska, where we came from was farm country, but around Sturgis, well that is ranch country. And ranches well, that means horses. I eventually managed to get myself working a bit on the ranches. Summer work, bit of haying, some helping with fixing fences (a never ending job on a ranch) and odd jobs here and there. And bit by bit I got to be around horses.

I saved up and bought my first horse, Lightning, she was a tall dark brown mare that was as strong as an ox, but she was well trained and steady, just the type of horse I needed to actually work with and learn the ropes of horse riding and caring for a horse. Her only fault being she loved to rub her head against my back while we were chilling to be able to steal my wallet out of my back pocket. Think she liked chewing on the leather.

I practiced hard at learning to use a rope, so that along with Lightning I managed to make myself useful on the ranch as a cowboy, although I never liked claiming that job description, I always referred to myself as a ranch-hand. Guess I thought I never deserved the title of cowboy.

Eventually I got good enough with the horses that the old cowboys decided it was time I start learning to train horses. The first two horses I trained, to be honest I would call the first two “broke” rather then train. Because we did them old school. They were two rank two year olds that had spent all of their lives running free on the ranch. We corralled them and ran them through the chutes. Managed to get halters on them and then hooked their halter to ropes that were tied to old tractor tires. Then open the chutes and turned them loose in the corrals. Then they went about fighting the halter and the rope and the tractor tire. Eventually this wore them out and also taught them that they could not beat the rope.

Finally it was time for me to get a saddle on them and for me to get into that saddle. This is where the fun begins. Well, at least for all the old cowboys watching me get the shit kicked out of me by these two nut cases. But after hitting the ground more times then I care to admit, and more bumps and bruises then can be believed, I eventually started winning the battle with these two horses. By the end of the summer I had the two of them well trained and ready to work as good solid ranch horses.

After these two, the old cowboys started teaching me technics of how to train horses a much smarter way. Technics that if done properly you could be on the back of the horse by the end of the day, with more often then not hardly any real trouble from the horse. The best bit is it involved the horse learning to trust you as it’s friend and protector. Much better technics, but I think the old cowboys could not resist the entertainment of letting the young fellow do the first two old school. Had to prove I would keep getting back in that saddle.

So I cowboyed up and spent the rest of my teens working around and with horses. Loved it. But then being young I decided that the land of the Big Sky country was to small for me. I needed to see some of the world, like a lot of poor boys from where I am from, I decided to join the military with the plan of seeing the world for four years and then heading back to the ranches and the horses.

But life is funny, it throws you curves and before you know it, dreams are replaced, chooses are made and times continues marching on. Almost 30 years later and I have never gotten back to the ranches and the horses, other then the odd times when I happen to be back in South Dakota around branding season and I give a few friends an extra pair of hands with branding. Life has changed, horses are no longer a part of my life, but as I sleep, I still recall the times when I used to sit tall in the saddle and ride the range.