Writer: Kay Ledbetter, 806-677-5608, skledbetter@ag.tamu.edu
Contact: Todd Vineyard, 940-627-3341, tvineyard@ag.tamu.edu
DECATUR – The first Texas Cinch Ranch Sorting National Championship School and Fun Beginner Sorting Event will be hosted May 27-28 at the National Roper’s Supply Arena in Decatur.
The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service in Wise County is jointly sponsoring the event with Cinch and Total Equine Feeds. Other event cooperators include a number of American Fellowship of Cowboy member churches in Texas and the 40-Something Cowgirl’s Association in Breckenridge.
“We are excited C RSNC has chosen Decatur as the site for their first educational school and companion beginner sorting event in Texas and to partner with us,” said Dr. Jennifer Zoller, AgriLife Extension horse specialist in College Station.
“The NRS facility, numbers of serious education-minded adult horsemen, size of the Texas 4-H horse program, our local/area horse community and the availability of top professional resource persons from Texas A&M and the area, were the reasons for the Decatur site selection,” said Todd Vineyard, AgriLife Extension agent for Wise County.
The event will kick off at 6 p.m. May 27 with Dr. Ron Gill, AgriLife Extension livestock specialist and internationally recognized beef cattle behaviorist in College Station, presenting a live demonstration on How to Read Cattle.
B.F. Yeates, a former AgriLife Extension horse specialist and American Quarter Horse Hall of Famer, will show and narrate a documentary film, The Quarter Horse Industry in Texas in 1938 featuring the King, Four Sixes, Waggoners and Hudgins ranches, plus legendary horses Old Sorrel, Peppy, Hollywood Gold, Chicaro Bill and others. The film will also feature some of the first stock horse shows, races and events in Texas prior to the formation of the American Quarter Horse Association.
The cost of the May 27 program is $10 at the door with no preregistration required.
May 28 activities begin at 8 a.m. with a Cowboy Church service led by Cowboy Pastor Todd Keller and his family.
The school will begin at 9 a.m. with hands-on skills classes for both adults and youth.
To preview the event, including a “Ranch Sorting Kids Camps” video and full program, go to http://bit.ly/2r1oGhD. Preregistration can be done online at this site before 4 p.m. May 26 for $60. After that time, persons can register for $75 at the door. Stalls and housing are an additional charge.
The classes, ongoing concurrently all day, will include the following presentations and speakers:
– Working Cattle Horseback, taught by Dave Wolfe, president of the Ranch Sorting National Championship, Wellington, Colorado.
– Riding and Training Skills Needed by Persons Working Cattle, Morgan Moreno, Texas A&M University ranch horse team coach, College Station.
– Strategies Used by Top Ranch Sorting Competitors, Dean Allred, top Ranch Sorting National Championship competitor, Waller.
– How to Know If Your Horse is 100 Percent OK for Practicing and Competition, Dr. Doug Householder, former AgriLife Extension horse specialist in College Station, and Zoller.
Non-registered persons are welcomed and encouraged to audit any or all classes all day.
A special demonstration, How to Improve Balance, Softness and Suppleness in Your Horse Through Body Pressure Point Manipulation, will be given by Australian horseman Gary Wells. Selected registrant’s horses will be used in the live demonstration.
“We are enthused to reward school graduates with a C RSNC graduation certificate, a complimentary one-year C RSNC membership and a monogrammed C RSNC trophy shirt,” Wolfe said.
The highlight of the event will be the 6 p.m. Beginners – Novice Horse and Novice Rider – Sorting Class, open to any beginner, even if not in the school classes all day. Eight buckles will be awarded to the top sorting teams in four divisions – Overall, Cowboy Churches, 4-H members and Over 40 Something Cowgirls.
The entry fee is $15 per person per run with a 50 percent payback in the overall.
Interested persons can also call Vineyard at 940-627-3341 for local information.
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