Immediately following the last week at the Alvord, Martin was whisked away to France for 10 days worth of Ranch Roping, Cattle-working, Horsemanship, Colt-Starting and the like. The first day he had French cowboys roping and tying off on 1000 lb critters, (why waste time with the basics when you can jump in with both feet.) The clinics all went well, nobody was hurt or maimed and there are a couple students that are signing up for three months in TX so I think we can consider that a success!

Meanwhile, I stayed home so I could show my horses at the NV All-Around in Winnemucca the first weekend of August and ended up Reserve in the NV All-Around 4 event….so close, better luck next year.

Then I packed everything, turned horses out at Jordan Valley, OR and wandered my way to Missoula, MT via Cascade ID where we roped and doctored yearlings with the Davis’ and swam horses in the Payette river. I picked Martin up in Missoula where we had another highly successful A-Pen/ Versatility clinic in Arlee at Charlie Hanson’s ranch with Tammy and Patti, the two craziest sisters you ever met as our host. We had a lot of fun and I would venture to say everyone was excited about the improvement in their horse.

As soon as we were done, we were off to Redwater, Alberta to meet Blair and Tammy Gigian, who own the Rocking G Ranch, and were introduced to us by Don and Randee Halliday. We knew we had a lot of horses waiting there for us but not a lot of other info…. except we are suppose to be meeting 6 of our best riders from all over the world, there to help us.

Starting Line Up For TEAM ROUGHRIDERS 
• Cindy “Durable” Dennis from the Land Down Under came to TX for a month last winter, was one of the chosen.
• Luis Moya, now living near Reno, NV, came to one of our clinics about 4 years ago and has helped us with colt contracts all over the US. He always keeps things rolling and everybody laughing!
• Mike Goyins, a bad-ass hunting guide/PRCA bull rider/colt-starter/and team captain wherever he goes, from Helena, MT. Came to TX for 6 weeks last winter.
• Kyle Sherriff, the soon to be PRCA bronc rider, who has spent the last two winters with us in TX and the chicks dig him.
• Kyla Prunty, the most sought after cowboy-girl I know, is in partners with her sister and Grandmother on their family’s ranch in Northern NV where they used to raise bucking horses for rodeos, so you know she’s forked and can get by a rough one.
• Andrew Doust, is also from the Land Down-under and spent the month of July with us at the Alvord roping and branding 1000 head of calves, quite a feat for an Aussie!

So that was the crew we had organized and when we all got there, we met Corey, Jess and Buddy from Canada who after a few days caught right up and were a handy addition to the team.

Starting Line Up For TEAM HORSE 
70 head of everything from A-Z and 2-14 yrs old. We had a 14 yr old mule, a warm blood, a couple of three yr old thoroughbreds on 9 quarts of grain, a 7 yr old stud recently cut but barely halter broke, and it trickled down from there. Most of these horses were bigger than our saddle horses and 3/4s of them were not halter broke, but they were colorful!

We had 6 horses we brought up to work on which turned out to barely be enough horse power to get through that first week.

The first day, Friday the 15th, we saddled and rode 28 head. The second day we did the first 28 plus another 12 head to equal 40 horses. We then spent 2 days on all those and on the 5th day started another 20 head. By the next weekend, Sat. the 23rd, all 60 horses were being caught, saddled and ridden out in the big arena. Pretty Amazing!

Western Horseman editor AJ Mangum came up the last weekend to see the last ten started for a public demonstration and to interview Blair and Duncan, who was also one of the breeders that contributed 30 head to the “Team Horse” roster and helped to bring us up there.

By Tuesday the 26th they were tracking cattle on the colts and in the next few days would be roping on the majority that would go on to be ranch horses, and finally finishing up on Friday, the 29th.

Out of the 70 plus a few head, there was one horse that had a hernia which acted up and we left him till next year but all the others were riding quiet and a lot of them ready to do a job at the end of 15 days.

It was a huge success and fun was had by all. Blair treated us great and was so happy that we have already scheduled for next August and 100 head of horses, which means we are going to have to add a few more to Team Roughrider!