A laundry list of background questions:
• How long have you had him?
• How often have you been roping on him? Every day for a month?
• Have you ever let him get fresh?
• Has this horse ever bucked? If I stay off him for three months will he be a little cold-backed?
• How much has he been hauled?
• Where has he been hauled? To USTRC ropings? Rodeos?
• Has he been used outside the arena? Worked on a ranch?
• Has he ever acted up in the box? Ever just ran off?
• Does he crib?
• Does he haul well? Does he paw the ground tied to the trailer or "buddy up" real bad?
• Has he ever been hurt, sick, or unsound?
• Has he been clipped? Is he good to shoe? Hard to catch?
After the fact
No matter how great a horse you buy or how well he takes care of you, Smith cautions, you need to work on what you're doing, too.
It always benefits a horse to do some riding without roping-including scoring. If you do start to have problems, Smith says, find a great horseman and ask him to watch the way you ride your new horse and look for what you could be doing wrong. Pulling too hard? Not using enough bit?
"Everybody develops their own habits," says Smith, who is always striving to improve his horsemanship. "You have to train yourself to ride all horses different."
Don't forget that what makes a horse good comes from you, Watkins says.
"Once they have good horses, people love them and pamper them and don't do the things that got them to that point," Watkins says. "My horse is good and I love him, but he's a horse and I'm going to ride him like a horse and use him like a horse."
Half the time it's those overlooked practice horses that turn out the best, he says, because they are used more-they know better than to cheat and they get gridiron tough.
So there it is-words of wisdom from those who have been around this particular block a time or two. Happy hunting.
