May 2008

American Cowboy magazine has for the past few months been featuring articles about the life of an Arizona rancher, J.P.S. Brown. Mr. Brown has lived the life of a rancher in a remote country where a man made his own decisions and stood by them. One thing keeps coming back in each article, "heart." Mr. Brown talks about how you can't breed heart into something, animal or human. I truly believe he is right. The biggest bronc on the ranch might have the most heart of any horse for 10 counties and if you can ride him past his little crow hopping he'll stay under you all day. I remember growing up, some of the older rodeo guys would say "it takes a horse about half crazy to put up with the hauling and stresses of rodeo."

There is an old saying, "you can ride a good horse to death." The reason is because a good horse will never question his rider. He will literally push himself to death to please his rider. A horse with no heart will start to balk when he gets tired or will spook at something that he knows is not right. It's not that these horses don't have heart, they just are not the ones that will obey their rider to the end of the earth. Sometimes heart might be mistaken for trust. These horses trust their riders to lead them.

When Richard King started the King Ranch he went somewhere in South Texas or North Mexico and bought all the cattle from a little town. After buying the cattle he realized these people had no way of making a living now, so he brought them all back to the King Ranch and these people are what later became known as Los Kinenos, "the King's men." These people trusted Mr. King to take care of them and Mr. King trusted them to take care of him and his ranch. I read in a book I can't remember about the King Ranch once that there was a certain old Kineno that led many King Ranch herds up the trail to Kansas. Each year he was notoriously late in arriving to take control of the heard. One year, Mr. King's son was helping with the roundup and wanted his dad to fire the old man when he showed. Mr. King refused and later showed the son how this old man's herd always gained lots of weight on the trail and he never lost animals. In time the son became a fan of the old Kineno. One year the old man was late as usual, but the young King waited for his trusted hand. After much time had passed a young Mexican boy showed up and said "his grandpa couldn't come this year because he had to stay home and die." Now that is heart!

Heart, trust and dedication are all virtues that can't be bred into someone or something, they must be learned, gained and sweated over. In my positive thinking book, "The Gift" there is a quote that says, "Winners will find a way!" This reflects pretty much everything I've stated in this article up to now. The horse with lots of "heart" will find a way to cut off that calf. That momma cow 5 miles from the nearest water trough will find a way to get water. That old Kineno found a way to make his "patron" happy all the way up to his death bed.

Last month I missed my short go calf and came out with a good article. This month I got a no time in the second round when my horse was dragging the calf too much and I missed my hooey three times before she dragged the calf out from under me and I fell off the back of the calf. As I figured I wasn't going to win anything anyway I got up and as I did the judge dropped the flag when I "quit" the calf. If I'd only had ESP, I would have known that had I just tied that calf down, I would have won 3rd in the average. Kind of makes you understand why your parents are always saying "don't ever quit or give up!"

"Winners always find a way!"

Trust is earned, whether it be from your horse, wife or son. They will never trust you if you lead them down the wrong path. Dedication is not a noun, it's a verb. It's something you have to live each and every day. Heart comes from a combination of these two. If you are dedicated and people trust you, then they will say you have "heart". I couldn't think of anything nicer to say about something, human or equine.

Don't ever quit,