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By Paul
Gerald
First there was the Myth . . . The Myth of the Cowboy. He rides the range alone, a symbol of independence and romance, working hard but living free, perhaps yodeling a lonesome tune as the sun sets over the prairie . . . .
Leon Harrel helps people become cowboys, but he doesn't fool around with mythology. He helps people do actual cowboy work-you know, getting on a lean, fast horse to sort, drive and pen real, live cattle. And even if you've never been on a horse in your life, Harrel declares that within a few days he'll have you cutting and sorting right alongside the true professionals.
As for myths, people usually realize they like the reality of the cowboy even better than the romanticized version. "You don't have to sleep on the ground, for one thing," Harrel comments. "You can go back to the hotel in the evening and take a hot shower."
If this sounds like your kind of adventure, then Leon Harrel's Old West Adventures just might be for you.
Harrel has been around horses all his life. He started out riding racehorses, but he didn't like the racetrack scene-liking it even less after he was married and had four kids. Then he discovered the high-speed, adrenaline-driven adventure called cutting. Neither he (nor the sport) has been the same since.
For you non-cowpokes out there, cutting is simply removing one cow from the rest. It's simple, but it ain't easy. And Harrel became one of the best ever at it, winning seven National Cutting Horse Association world championships and being inducted into its Riders Hall of Fame in 1991.
Then he did something most riders don't do. He decided to give away all his secrets.
"I didn't do it as a moneymaker," he says. "I wanted to give back to the sport, to progress the sport of cutting."
So he turned his 350-acre spread near Kerrville, Texas, into a teaching ground. And for the last six years, he's offered two-, three- and five-day clinics that will turn participants from "never-done-it" greenhorns to "can't-wait-to-do-it-some-more" cowpunchers.
"People have an inner love for the horse," Harrel says. "There's just something about that horse that intrigues them. Maybe it's that mystique with the cowboy, but there's a little Roy Rogers in everybody. Then they find out how easy and simple and fun it really is."
The ranch staff picks you up in the morning at the Y.O. Resort Hotel in Kerrville and takes you out to the ranch. They'll show you how to get on and off the horse, get you riding safely and will then introduce you to the cattle.
"Some people are totally afraid," says La Donna Harrel-Becker, Leon's daughter. "Our goal is to get them comfortable riding. Most people, once they lope for while and get the stop down, then get in the arena with the cattle, will go ahead and try."
What they try is the "cutting horse dance."
"A horse's job used to be to go into huge groups of cattle to cut the calf from the mom," Harrel-Becker explains. "On foot, there's no way you could keep the calf away from the mom, so the horse is trained to jump back and forth between the two. At first people have some anxiety, then they begin to settle down. Once they get used to it they're saying 'Please, just one more cow.' "
It helps that you're learning from, and on, the best. "Our horses run from $20,000 to $100,000," Harrel-Becker says, "so you're riding the best of the best. And with my dad there, it's like you're starting with Larry Bird instead of your local high school star."
One person who made the trip to learn-and came back with twelve people from his company for a team-building clinic-is Art Fetter of Chino Valley, Arizona.
"We had people from France with us who had never been on a horse," Fetter says. "But Leon started out showing people how to saddle up, and we got everybody on a horse by late morning of the first day. Then we did a little bit of pole bending (weaving through poles on a horse,) which-if you haven't ridden a horse-sounds easy, but it isn't."
Just a couple of days after those humble beginnings, Fetter and his group completed an honest-to-goodness cattle drive.
"We drove about 25 head of Texas Longhorns a couple of miles," Fetter says proudly. "We took 'em across a road and held up traffic and everything! We had a blast. Most everybody, by the end of the week, was riding full out.
"We had some long days and spent probably six hours in the saddle every day, some more than that. People hung in there and were nursing some sore tushes (and various other things) by the time the week was over, but in spite of all the blisters we still enjoyed it."
Fetter says the secret to cutting, especially once the "cutting horse dance" begins, is to "drop the reins and let the horse do the work. It's really a matter of staying on the horse. When you get those quick stops and turns and things like that, the horse could go east while you're still going west."
Other activities the Harrels will get you participating in include team-penning (a competition to see who can get the cows into a pen faster,) team sorting (keeping an uncooperative calf a certain distance from the herd) or just a good, old-fashioned trail ride out into the countryside.
"We've got a big lake and rolling green hills, lots of different oaks and cedars," Harrel-Becker says. "We generally have quite a few deer, antelope, wild turkeys, bobcats, pheasants and doves around, and in March all the babies will be getting born."
Beyond the basic program, it's all up to you.
"Other days depends on your riding ability," she says. "If you're a good, accelerated rider, you can change horses and do harder moves and harder tasks. Each day becomes a new challenge."
Or you can relax a little more. Leon Harrel says he has people who ride half a day and then go shopping in Kerrville or Fredericksburg. For that matter, the ranch is only 55 miles from San Antonio.
At night, most folks go back to the Y.O. in Kerrville-and with a bar, pool, hot tub and sauna, why wouldn't they-but the Harrels do offer meals and entertainment to groups. You can have a real, live cowboy sing-a-long by the fire, for example, or throw horseshoes, learn to rope or ride the "bull barrel."
Harrel-Becker says she sees a transformation in the ranch's clients.
"What we see a lot of is stress burn-off," she says. "Their first day they're getting over their problems and stress and the phone. By the second day, they're like a butterfly coming out of a cocoon. The kid in them really comes out, and then they can apply what they learned to everyday tasks and problems. 'I can move a buffalo around a pen, so I can get WordPerfect documents switched to Word.' There's something that goes on between rider and horse. When the two become one in spirit, that's what you dream of."
And as for those cowboy dreams and myths, Art Fetter says to forget about them. The reality, at least at Old West Adventures, is much better than the myth.
"We didn't have to muck the stalls or feed and groom the horses or a lot of other stuff that a cowboy has to do," he says. "We got to do just the fun part of riding."
Still, a little mythology never really hurt anybody. Fetter remembers just such a moment:
"Our first night, we were walking back into the Y.O., and it'd been a hot day, in the mid-90s. We were dusty and dirty, trudging in from spending seven hours on horseback, and we had our boots and spurs and everything. This couple and their little boy came out of hotel as we came in, and the boy turns to his dad and says, 'Look, dad-real cowboys!' There were no real cowboys in our bunch at all, but we got a chuckle out of it."
They also didn't correct the illusion . . . let the cowboy myth ride on!
"One of these days and it won't be long
Going down in the valley and sing my song
I will sing it loud, sing it strong
Let the echo decide if I was right or wrong"
-Robert Hunter Copyright ©
2000 by Paul Gerald. All rights reserved.
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