I don’t want to come off with a ‘Woe is me’ attitude here, but I thought you might be interested in the run of trouble I’ve had with my horses lately. I own three using horses (one pony for my son) and that’s it.

About a month ago, our 11-year-old, Tuff, that we just bought, that we knew had some lameness issues, came up lame. We weren’t surprised and had a game plan to treat his navicular. Then, about a week later, my good 4-year-old, Turkey, came in from the pasture lame on his front right. I figured it was a stone bruise or sprain of some sort, so I gave him a few days off and didn’t worry about it. When he didn’t get better immediately, I picked up Deuce, my 7-year-old who was recovering from an old injury at the family ranch. When I turned him out in April to recover from what I suspect was a deep muscle tear, he was about 80 percent, so I figured if he was any better at all, he’d be more sound than anything else I had. And he was.

So I left for the 4^th of July weekend for a working vacation with the family thinking I’d have two sound horses upon my return and one, Tuff, getting closer.

While away, we got a call from the young lady taking care of our horses that Deuce had somehow gotten a puncture wound. It didn’t sound too bad, so we decided it could wait until we got back. Upon our arrival, he was three-legged. We rushed him to the vet and discovered the wound went to the bone. Turkey, meanwhile was no better. So we took him later that week along with Tuff to get a diagnosis and to begin treating Tuff.

The vet found that Tuff’s navicular wasn’t bothering him, instead it was his right knee—probably from compensating for the early stages of the navicular. We injected it and put him in egg bar shoes and isoxsuprine. He seems to be improving.

The news on Turkey wasn’t good, however. After several nerve blocks, it became obvious that his injury was one of two things: Either a cartilage injury in his hoof that could be treated with an injection or a collateral ligament tear that could mean a six-month to a year recovery or possibly career-ending.

Deuce, meanwhile, was not improving so our vet began to worry that he might have a tendon sheath infection. Since then, she has begun to think that it is not that, but instead a bone bruise that is keeping him from being sound.

So, I have three lame horses. I needed to try to get a look at the yearlings I’m in charge of and I needed to put out mineral so I got in my work truck (which had just been at the shop for 2 months for various ailments) and got to the middle of the pasture and the transmission went out.

What a week.

That’s how it used to be. Lately, we haven’t had the regularity.
Well, now that I have an office job and just look after a handful of cattle on the side, things have changed. Now, I work in the office all day and slip out after work to check cattle. The last 5 years or so, that hasn’t been a problem. The afternoon thunderstorms, while still occasional, were rare and easier to spot coming. I’ve been lulled into taking a quick glance to the skies and heading out for the late afternoon/evening.

And that’s exactly what I did yesterday. After church I waited around the house for a call, then headed out. I just had a small bunch to see, but it takes a lot of riding to find them in this particular pasture. The horse I was riding is coming off an injury, so I just took it slow. I rode east for about a half hour, had found about half the cattle and started to hear some rumbling. I looked over my shoulder and seemingly out of nowhere a thundercloud had appeared. It looked too high to rain on me and I thought it would pass me over before it started letting rain down. It was making a lot of noise—mostly in-cloud lightning—so I stuck to the low spots and kept checking. Then, all of a sudden, the lightning started popping.

I knew of a spot pretty close by to hide, so I trotted my horse down a gully and scooted up under some oak brush—kind of behind a rock—held my horse and started to wait out the lightning storm. A couple of the peals of thunder were loud enough to make the rowels on my spurs rattle a bit. For about 30 minutes it was a constant rumble of thunder—to varying volumes—with no rain. Then the rain started.

It was a nice, soft, steady rain and I was dry as a bone under the oak brush. I couldn’t get my horse to come under there with me and I wasn’t looking forward to sitting on the wet saddle, but I figured I could handle it.

Then the hail started.

It was just little, pea-sized hail, but it still stung my horse when it hit him. For about 15 minutes it hailed off and on and rained softly.
Then it started blowing. As I said, to this point I was pretty dry. When it started blowing in sideways I got wet. My horse suddenly decided that crawling under the oak brush with me was a good idea. All the water that had accumulated on the oak leaves started falling on me as the wind shook the branches. Like that Charley Pride song, the rain was dripping of the brim of my hat and it sure was cold. Then it started running down the back of my shirt. Let me tell you, I was sure shivering. That whole time, probably another 30 minutes, the thunder never stopped.

At one point, I looked down at the cattle trail in front of me and I felt like Pea Eye and Gus in Lonesome Dove when they were trapped by Indians under the bank of that little creek. That cow trail was plumb dry when I started, but in the midst of the storm it was full and running. (Not a river, I know, but it was sure interesting to watch it change.)

Finally the rain stopped but me, my horse and my saddle were soaked to the bone. It was still rumbling, but I was too cold to sit there a minute longer, so I swung on the saddle and trotted off. I found most of the cattle, grazing contentedly, and long trotted back to the truck, jumped in and cranked the heater. Running the heater on June 28—only in Colorado!


Old Deuce was sure cold and wet and so was I.


That little cow trail was dry as a bone when I sat down to get out of the lightning. It was full and running by the time the storm was over.

This past weekend I was in Abilene, Texas, for the Texas State High School Finals. It was a good rodeo, I saw some of the future of the sport. A few names to look out for, I think: bareback rider Bill Tutor, steer wrestler Kody Dollery, saddle bronc rider Sterling Crawley and heeler Cooper Vandiver. In the tie-down roping a kid who’s more dedicated to team roping, Billy Bob Brown, won it all.

Anyway, while there I ran into Joe Beaver watching his son Brody in the cutting. Brody didn’t have the best run in the Finals, but he did qualify for the NHSRF in Farmington. Joe told me he was planning on rodeoing through the Fourth and if he wins  $10-15K, he’d keep going. He also said his hips hurt.

The real story, I thought, was about an ultimatum he gave himself earlier this year. In Tucson, Tuf Cooper drew a calf and tied him in 9. In the second round, Beaver drew the same calf. He decided that if he could tie the calf in 9.5, he’d keep rodeoing. He figured with a long score, if he could stay within striking distance of the youngsters, it’d be worth the effort.

He nodded his head and ran the calf down the arena, roped him and tied him and thought to himself, “Man, I might have come close, that felt good.” Turns out, he tied the calf in 8.8. Figures. Joe Beaver is a competitor. Give him a challenge and he’ll rise to it.

So, the next question is, Will Joe make the Finals?

What do YOU think?

Maybe the bulk of you readers out there don’t care how I do my job, but in the 9 years I’ve been covering professional rodeo, things have changed drastically in the way we report stories, and I thought some might find it interesting.

As much as I try to get done in person, the bulk of my reporting is done over the phone.

When I first started at the PRCA, cell phones—while not rare—weren’t nearly as used as they are today. Cowboys had them, but their numbers were always changing. Back before you could keep your number, these pros were constantly switching companies, trying to get better coverage and better deals. So, when we needed to talk to someone, we would call their home. Their wife (or mother depending on how old they were) would take a message and in a couple days we’d hear back.

Slowly, we got to where we could count on their cell numbers, and once you could keep your number, reporting became much easier. The hardest part, getting ahold of these Western gypsies became so much easier. Stories could be turned around easier and more quotes could be included in stories.

Now, we’ve taken another step: texting. Texting has become a great way to communicate with cowboys. They’re always on the road or lounging around a rodeo grounds somewhere. Texting is a great way to ask a quick question, set up an interview or ask an easy follow-up question. I get more done easily with this form of technology.

The big question is, what’s next?