Hello and welcome to the extended version of the Horseman's Corner podcast. I'm your host Brian Hale and today we have New Mexico horsewoman Tray Pelster. Let's get right into that interview.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your area if you don't mind. I live on a ranch. My husband and I just moved here not very long ago.
It's been about 10 months ago so almost a year. There's about I want to say like 500 head of cows. Red Angus is what he runs.
We live in the mesas down here on the Colorado New Mexico border. We're in the middle of nowhere. Where we live is down on the dry Cimarron River and there's a lot of natural springs down in here.
It's very beautiful in the spring and summer. We could definitely use some rain just like everybody else I feel like right now. We have a lot of natural water down here on this dry Cimarron River where we're at specifically.
If you go more towards like Branson it's pretty dry over there. It's flat and dry and then you start getting back into the mesas again. For the most part it's pretty rough country.
Where we live in specific it's like we live in the middle of mesas. Basically down on the meadows of the mesas. My husband's boss has a lot of land around and we split the mesas actually into different pastures.
Some of the cattle like your first and second calf heifers will stay kind of on the shelf of these mesas. They live kind of on an up and down situation. They just mountain goat these mesas.
Most of the old cows in the summer will go on top of the mesa and that's like flat and then a little bit of terrain here and there. For the most part it's pretty flat. Then in the winter time they come down to our house and that's on the bottom of the mesa.
It's really pretty and it's pretty rough but it's just a really cool country to get the cowboy in because it's something we haven't been in yet. We've probably moved eight times since my husband and I've been together just experiencing different ranches and different things. Pretty much all of our first calf heifers we calved out this year have had zero calving issues.
We just kind of let them out in a pasture kind of by the house. We could still go check on them but they're not in a pen. We just kind of let them calve out on their own.
It's a wonderful experience because we have been to a lot of places where they like pin up their heifers and watch them day and night. It's a lot to take care of just one couple on top of carrying all of the cows. You have to almost hire somebody else to help you.
It's a lot. So are you done with calving? Not quite. We're almost.
We have all of the cows down here. That's about 500 head. I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure it's about 500 head.
My husband will go work with his boss up in Branson and that's about an hour and a half from our house. So on the days that he has to be up there helping his boss I will kind of take over and like if I have to feed I'll feed with the kids and then like go look for strays. Sometimes he'll be over in one pasture and then I'll go and take the kids and we'll go into a different pasture and we'll just kind of team up and work together that way.
Pretty typical ranch wife, ranch husband situation. So I'll help him whenever he needs it and then if we can find somebody to watch the kids and we need like to doctor stuff I'll go out and help him doctor cows or calves and or remove cows and calves or what have you. So but mostly I will start or ride some of our horses because we kind of try to keep horses under us.
So we've just got two new babies right now. One of them's a coming two-year-old and one of them's a yearling. So I'll start them this spring hopefully and it'll kind of go from there.
Sounds like fun. Are you excited for that? I don't know. Coming off of a broken leg.
I've done this once before so I broke my left leg in a horse wreck four years ago when I was actually pregnant with my first child. And so that after the fact like after breaking your leg it's definitely different. It's scary and also nice to get back on a horse.
How'd you get started in horses anyway? I don't know if I really got started. I was kind of immersed in it my whole life. My dad he trained horses for the public and also for my grandfather who was actually he raised his own Appaloosa but he did the reined cow horse and cutting and he showed them at a world level a nationals and world level.
And he also went to with several of his horses with his stud and his mares to the NRCHA which is National Reined Cow Horse Association to the finals. It was kind of impressive at the time because they were Appaloosas and Appaloosas are just not horses you generally look at. My grandma was a firm believer and if you're going to learn how to ride you're going to do it right.
Even though my dad was a working ranch hand and a cowboy he was ready to ride correctly but he wrote English for a short stint there. So I showed him English and roped for pretty much my whole life. He roped in breakaways and then ranched on the side.
My dad trained horses and so a majority of the horses that he had weren't necessarily super kid friendly. My grandpa gave us quite a few of them. They would retire from the show pen and then they would just come to our house.
And so I rode them a lot. When I got older my dad was kind of horse poor as far as kids horses were concerned. So I from a fairly young age I got put on some younger horses and I just started training on them.
My number one hero which I'm sure he probably does not appreciate. But you know my dad had two brothers there was three of them and they lived in the middle of nowhere Wyoming. And you know my dad started starting horses for my grandpa when he was nine.
And they would get 50 head of horses in every year and by the end of the year they would sell those horses. And that's how they made a majority of their money. That's how they funded their cattle operation was getting this Bermuda in.
And then you know and he was the old time cowboy. I mean he did it all. He went on the wagon.
You know he worked for the T.A. Ranch in Wyoming and a lot of these historical places in Wyoming. And he was a very very good hand. And in Colorado I have met people who were cowboys under my dad at 20 years old.
My dad was a cowboss at 20 years old. And he's just this phenomenal hand. He's this phenomenal cow horse you know horse person.
He's a horseman. And he's it's like nobody knows the extent of how wonderful he is with a horse. And when I went in to do this professionally and train horses professionally my father actually told me no.
I want you to go do something more suitable. You know he didn't want me to have to struggle like that. And it was funny to me because my whole life he raised me to be a hand and to be just as helpful and just as good and just as much of a hand as all the men out there that I worked with.
And I've had to compete with men my whole life. And my dad always treated me like another hand. And that helped me in so many ways.
And I would like to think that I am the hand horse hand or ranch hand that I am today because of the support and love that he has given me. And he's built this wonderful thing with these horses. And I just want to be able to do that back for him and show him that he did some good in this world with the one thing he loves is his true passion.
And it's amazing to be able to do things get to do things with your dad you know or just in family in general. But that man is the reason that I push myself every day. My father and my family and God of course.
So my dad's name is Chuck. Chuck Hyatt. Sounds like your dad really gave you a solid foundation to get started.
I like to do a lot of groundwork so I don't have to deal with as much crap on top of them. And I have the time to spend with them. When I was training horses under people you have 30 days so you spend across the board from a lot of my trainers on average about a week week and a half in the round pen and then you just get on it.
And so you learn how to take shortcuts and you learn how to do it quickly. And I would rather start them on the ground for about a month and just see where they're at. I was raised on Hancock's and that slow stardom on the ground thing.
They don't buck near as hard. It's mostly a scared thing or a fight I don't trust you situation. And a majority of the time I've found that Hancock's I get a bad rap for things because they're smart and they're smarter than most people.
But if you can teach them that this is not a fight or flight situation that you can trust me and they won't want to try anything when you're on their back. So I've had great success with starting them slow on the ground and just covering all your bases and moving with the horse. See my dad he's a firm believer in starting them three or four but I am like 125 pounds.
So from learning from like horse trainers honestly I like to start them at two. Some horses with exception just because they're not mentally ready or they're not physically ready. Sounds like you really have covered a lot of disciplines.
I showed them English and ropes for pretty much my whole life. Team rope and breakaways and then ranched on the side. Which side were you on on the team roping? I did a little bit of both but I had a really wicked head horse at the time.
So I mainly was a header but I like to do both. So I did a little bit of both. So you just grew up in it when you say you were immersed in it.
Yeah my dad trained horses and so a majority of the horses that he had weren't necessarily super kid friendly. My grandpa gave us quite a few of them. They would retire from the show pen and then they would just come to our house.
And so I rode them a lot but when I got older my dad was kind of horse poor and as far as kids horses were concerned. So I from a fairly young age I got put on some younger horses and I just started training on them. Do you train for others or do you just train your own horses? Yeah so I used to train for others.
I used to train for my dad and then just people around are in Wyoming. And then eventually I went to college and did it in college and then I started working for several people just different disciplines. I actually had a guy do pleasure horses.
He was my horse judging coach for the college. I had two scholarships one to show horses for the college and one to actually horse judge for the college. So my horse judging coach was actually a pleasure trainer for paint horses and he would ask me to come out and help him quite a bit.
And I actually went with him some and just kind of learned some things. And then I trained for a ranch horse versatility a guy out of Hershey, Nevada. And I also interned with him for my breeding horse breeding degree.
And that was a lot of fun. He bred his own horses and went to the AQHA world and did that. And he was quite successful in the ranch horse versatility.
His name was Brian Lee and he was a wonderful man and he really gave me a chance to learn how to do this on my own without my dad. Something I'd never really done before. Then I went on to work for Jeremy Knowles and I got the chance the opportunity to ride with Matt Cook and Darren Miller and the Ringed Cow Horse World.
And I did that for about a year. My husband and I moved just across ranches and I started taking outside horses in from the public, from people who knew me. And I actually day worked with my husband on the ranching side.
And that's how I paid for college. I roped and I roped just as I could and then it just got to where I was broke. And so I started showing horses for other people and I found it fun.
And I started day working and training ranch horses because that was what was practical and I found it more fun to a degree. And I love being a cowboy and being able to work with my husband and men on certain levels and being able to hold my own on the ranch. And I took pride in that because that's how my dad raised me.
But I'm the only girl in like five or seven generations. So I didn't really get the special girl treatment. I was just kind of like immersed into it.
Cousins are boys. And so I just was kind of, if you're going to cowboy with us, we're not going to say like, we're not going to give you special treatment. You're going to cowboy with us and it's going to be hard work.
And so I just learned that from a really young age and it really helped me out later on in life. My husband and I have moved from place to place to place. I worked for a cutting horse trainer in Sugar City, Colorado for four, four, four and a half years.
I guess it'd be four years. And I was, I really enjoyed the cutting industry. I did it a little bit when I was younger with my dad.
Got out of it just because we didn't have the horses and I was really into roping at the time.
Stay tuned for more on part two of the Horseman's Corner Extended Edition with New Mexico horsewoman, trainer, and cinch maker, Tray Pelster.
You're listening to the Horseman's Corner.
