Cutting??

Today I made the short trek to one of the many fancy stables in the area.  This one is private, one I don't have much opportunity to travel to.  It's one that is owned by a cutter and caters to a select few.  One Jason invited me to come help him work cows at.

You can imagine the look on my face when trailer after trailer pulled in.  Eeeekkk!  There were a lot of big money cutters walking into the pen.  And I wasn't entirely sure what to do.  Normally, I help Jason by keeping the herd centered and push his cow as needed.  But there were so many horses there I didn't know what my role was.  So I sat back and watched, until it was Jason's turn, where I helped him.

Take a moment to visualize the look on my face when the owner of the joint walks his horse up to me and tells me to go cut.  I stumbled over an answer and kept telling him I was just here to help.  He insisted.  So there we were, Bacardi and I had our first "cutting" work.  It's funny.  I spent the weekend watching a Bobby Ingersol clinic (famous cutter-working cow horse guy).  And I watched all these people do things I swore I wouldn't do.  Of course I didn't hold my line.  I didn't make a clean cut.  I didn't stop my horse before turning.  But I also didn't rip my horses face off.  Ugh.  I vow to do better the next time I get onto cows.  I know part of the problem is the cattle were fresh.  Meaning they wanted to run.  I needed a quiet walking cow to help Bacardi figure out her job.  The cool part is she wanted to watch the cow and did some nice turns on her own (with the cow).  Another huge part of the problem is this was my first attempt at trying to cut somewhat properly on a horse that has an unknown background.    It would have been nice to be on a babysitter horse, giving me a fighting chance to think about what I needed to do.  But I'll take the opportunities that have been coming my way and keep working at figuring it out.

It was so much fun!!!  And I can't wait to do it again!!