Dear Friend and Horseman,

Welcome to the Cow Work Cheat Sheet, Part 2.
If you missed the video in Part 1, go watch it before continuing on.

Part 2 consists of written material which lists some of the biggest mistakes people make when working their horse on cattle.

You can print it out and take it to the barn with you as a reminder of what to do when working your horse.

Okay, let’s get started.

I remember well the first time I ever rode a horse that was trained to work cattle. It had such an impact on me that I’ll never forget it.

At the time, I was working for a huge cattle ranch as their colt starter. I was just beginning my career training horses and I really didn’t know much. But, I had a burning desire to succeed at my chosen profession and worked hard to learn all I could.

This cattle ranch was always short on cowboys and one day the cow boss asked me if I would work with the cow crew that day because they needed extra hands to help with gathering and sorting some cows and calves.

I said sure, I’d be happy to go along but I wouldn’t be much help riding one of my 2 year olds. He pointed to a palomino mare out in the pasture and told me to use her for the days work. He also warned me she hadn’t been
ridden for over a year.

I caught the mare, saddled her up and turned her loose in a pen to see what she’d do. She crow-hopped a bit but that was it. So, I climbed aboard and away we went.

The pasture we were to gather, was huge and contained around 200 head of mother cows plus their calves. The plan was to drive the whole herd into a corner, then separate the “dry” cows (these are cows that didn’t produce a calf) from the “mother” cows.

Separating or “cutting out” the dry cows from the herd this way was a tricky business.

One wrong move, one mistake, could spook the herd and send them scattering in all directions. Thus wasting all the time and effort it took to get them rounded up.

Because of the skill involved, it was usually the “cow boss” (foreman) who did the cutting.

On this ranch, the cow boss was a man named Walter Matlock. What a good hand he was!

To this day, Walter is still one of the best all-around hands I’ve ever seen. His horses would rope, head or heel, cut cattle, stop on a dime and spin like a top.

The man knew horses and he knew cattle.

I watched Walter quietly enter the herd and ease out a dry cow. When the cow would turn to get back to the herd, Walter’s horse would counter each move with a “bigger”, “faster” move and contain the cow in a small area. It was mesmerizing to watch.

After watching Walter cut cattle for 20 minutes or so, he asked me if I’d like to give it a try. You betcha, I was dying to! Trouble was, I’d never done it before and didn’t have a clue.

My focus had always been on learning how to train a reining horse. I didn’t have much experience working cattle.

He told me, “just ease in and drive out that “brindle” colored cow. Once you have her clear of the herd, drop your rein hand, sit relaxed and keep both your eyes focused on the cow. Trust the mare and let her work on her own”.

Well, I did as he instructed and when I dropped my hand to signal the mare that she was on her own, man, did she ever go to work.

This little palomino mare dropped straight down on her belly, crouched and ready to spring. Each time the cow moved, the mare would leap to head the cow and then drag her butt in the dirt, blocking the cow’s
every attempt to rejoin the herd.

By far, it was the most fun I’d ever had on the back of a horse. Actually, the word “fun” doesn’t accurately describe it. “Exhilarating” would be more like it.

I learned later, that palomino mare had competed at the NCHA futurity a year earlier. She had done well, made the finals and placed 5th out of 700 entries. No wonder she was so good.

Over the years, I’ve met a lot of folks who have experienced riding a cutting or a reined cow horse or a ranch sorting horse and gotten “hooked” the same way I did.

Unfortunately, some of them haven’t had the benefit of receiving good instruction. They encounter problems when riding their cow horse.

In reality, learning to ride a cutting or cow horse isn’t that difficult. If you can master a few basic principals and practice those principals until they become “muscle memory”, you will have success pretty darn quick.

Below I’ve listed some of the most common mistakes riders make when working a cow.

Biggest Mistakes Made by Cutting Horse, Reined Cow Horse & Ranch Sorting Riders

#1. Rider’s Body is Tense & Stiff Instead of Loose & Relaxed.

Its imperative that you ride with your body totally relaxed.

Trying to ride a cow horse while your body is stiff is the most common fault you will see. It’s also one of the worst faults a rider can have.

Why? Because body stiffness causes a MULTITUDE of problems.

Here are just a few…

A. Causes the horse to miss the stop when working a cow.
B. Causes the horse to round the turns instead of sitting down and rolling over his hocks.
C. Causes the rider to fall forward and lose his balance.
D. Causes the horse to lose his form and style on a cow.

Bottom line, if the rider can’t sit in the saddle relaxed, nothing goes right.

This is definitely the MOST COMMON MISTAKE riders make when working their horse on cattle.

The cure is to condition your muscle memory to keep your body relaxed, loose and centered while you ride.

Read the above line again.

It is by far the #1 CURE FOR FIXING RIDER PROBLEMS.

#2. Failure to “Cleanly” Separate a Cow from the Herd.

In other words, failure to make a decisive move which cleanly drives the cow away from the rest of the herd. If this isn’t done correctly, you end up with a jumbled mess of cattle running everywhere. And once that happens, it is much more difficult to get the job done.

This happens a lot to folks who compete in ranch sorting but it happens to cutters too. On a cutting horse, you want to cut a cow in the center of the arena with your horse “faced up” and “even” with the cow.

This means before you drop your hand, the horse needs to be looking directly at the cow you want to cut and be positioned on the cow correctly. Not placed out-of-wack, too far to the right or left
of the cow.

Many beginning cutters will experience “tunnel vision” and get focused on running cows. What they need to do is slow down and focus on STOPPING the cow they want.

#3. Rider Takes His Eyes Off the Cow & Looks at the Horse’s Head.

This is the quickest way I know of to get thrown off the back of a horse horse when working a cow. Many riders are unable to “feel” the position of the horse’s body so they take their eyes off the cow and look at the horse to check what he is
doing.

This is a huge mistake.

See, the rider’s “timing” and “balance” comes from watching the cow. Whenever a rider takes his eyes off the cow and looks at the horse’s head, he is no longer aware of when the cow is going to stop and turn.

I’ve seen plenty of riders hit the ground because they took their eyes off the cow just as it stopped and went the other way. The horse went the other way too but the rider didn’t. Usually, the rider isn’t even aware they are doing this.

Plus, you can’t just look at the cow out of the “corner” of your eye. You MUST turn your head and look at the cow with BOTH eyes.

Stop here right now… so I can make an important point.

After reading what I wrote above, about taking your eyes off the cow and looking at the horse’s head… 99.9 percent of riders make this critical mistake. Yet they will swear up and down they aren’t. A video of them working a cow, always proves they are totally unaware. I see it time and time again.

#4. The Rider Not Correctly Sitting the Stop.

This one mistake is responsible for horses “missing” their cattle than any other thing I can think of.

When the cow is running across the pen and then stops and goes the other way, it’s imperative that the rider sits down in the saddle to help his horse. This “sitting down” does two very important things.

1.
It tells the horse that its time to stick his butt in the dirt and apply the brakes.

2.
It also allows the rider to maintain balance during the hard stop and turn.

The “sit down” consists of the rider rounding his lower back, tucking his pelvis under him and trying to sit on his jean pockets. It’s also important for the rider’s shoulders to be positioned directly over his hips… Not
leaning too far forward or too far back.

Unfortunately, many riders “hollow out” and arch their back. Making their spine rigid. The result is usually the horse not stopping in time with the cow and the rider losing his balance by falling forward.

#5. The Rider Leaning His Upper Body Towards the Cow.

Okay, this is one of the rider mistake I see the most at the shows. And it’s a mistake that MUST be corrected if the horse is ever going to work correctly.

See, a horse will “follow” the rider’s body weight. If the rider is leaning towards the cow, the horse will travel towards the cow. This causes the horse to round his turns instead of sitting down and coming
over his hocks.

This leaning will also cause the horse to “leak” up the pen and lose his proper position. Leaning can also cause a horse to get out of sync with the cow. All in all, this “leaning rider syndrome” causes some pretty ugly stuff to happen.

What causes the rider to lean in the first place? It can be a variety of things. Maybe the rider doesn’t trust that his horse is going to turn with the cow and he is leaning in an attempt to get the horse to turn.

The leaning can also be caused by just plain old nervousness or fear. Many riders have “stage fright” when they first learn to work a cow.

The cure is to condition your muscle memory to keep your body relaxed, loose and centered while you ride.

Read the above line again.

It is by far the #1 CURE FOR FIXING RIDER PROBLEMS.

#6. Putting Too Much Pressure On Your Horse To Work A Cow.

Lot’s of folks are clueless about this… or they don’t understand what pressuring a horse means.

You see this a lot at the weekend ranch sorting events.

The riders are asking their horse to go in and handle a cow even though the horse doesn’t know HOW to work a cow.

This really shakes a horse’s confidence and causes a multitude of problems. Problems like fear of the herd, anxiety about cattle and in some cases, rearing, running off or bucking.

You have to TEACH a horse how to work a cow. And you have to teach him slow enough to gain CONFIDENCE that he CAN do it.

#7. The Rider’s Lack of Essential Horsemanship Skills.

A lot of people think that because cutting horses work on their own, all the rider has to do is just cut a cow and hang on. Well, nothing could be farther from the truth.

Yes it’s true, cutting horses do work on their own but the rider has a HUGE influence on how well that horse works. A cutting horse rider needs to be more of a “jockey” than a mere “passenger”.

That means you will have a lot more success cutting if you are a knowledgeable horseman. The rider who knows how to stop and turn a horse over his hocks and position a horse’s body with leg cues, will have a tremendous advantage over the rider who doesn’t.

Same goes for riding a reined cow horse or ranch sorting horse. If you don’t know how to use your hands, legs and body, you really shoot yourself in the foot.

If you’re interested in acquiring that knowledge, I suggest you invest in my “Performance Training Package“. This package covers everything you need to ride and train a horse to do good stops, turns, lead changes, collection and much more.

The package also includes instruction on how to use your hands, legs and body position to achieve the absolute best results.

Okay, that wraps it up for part 2.

Larry Trocha
HorseTrainingVideos.com

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