Cattle Sorting at the Silver Spade Ranch

This past Friday, Lorenzo and I tacked up Drifty and Irish, loaded them to the horse trailer, and headed to the Silver Spade Ranch just outside Banks, Oregon, for a cattle working clinic.
The goal was to expose our horses to herd work in a safe learning environment. Like most outings, there were other lessons, too.

As Silver Spade proprieter Nick Donohue was reviewing the clinic format, the cattle were brought into the arena. Behind the horses. Irish wheeled and commenced to bucking -- big, rolling motions that met my heavy handed corrections.

Nick hollered directions as riders and horses scrambled to get out of Irish's and my way. It wasn't pretty. At the end of my gelding's fit, I grinned at all the other riders and asked, "Who would like to be on my team?" No one volunteered.

To his credit, Nick recognized my nerves and worked to help ease them and my worries. He also set up several positive cattle encounters for Irish, laying an excellent foundation.

The biggest breakthrough came when Nick suggested that I work with his partner in crime, Jessie Donohue. It didn't take long for Jessie to size both me and Irish up. She pointed out some things I could do better and gave me an exercise created by master horseman Buck Brannaman, an exercise designed to get a horse's mind focused on the work at hand. I turned Irish's neck and head ninety degrees one way and did a quick shift in the other direction again and again and again until Irish was listening. It was simple, elegant, useful and brilliant.

Instead of trying to contain a thousand pound animal, I simply put Irish's energy to work. Best of all, the technique allowed me to ride through my gelding's nonsense without fear or anger or worry. If Irish misbehaved, we went directly to the exercise.

I'd like to say that Irish was angelic after our time with Jess, but it just isn't true. If Drifty and Lorenzo disappeared, my gelding screamed at the top of his lungs and began to egg beat and pranced. If the cattle were being moved, Irish balled up to buck.

"Turn him !" Jess hollered. "Now the other way! Again! Again! Again!"

And I did. Over and over and over and over.

Thank you, Nick and Jessie!