TEXARKANA MAGAZINE
Kahlayah Rehkopf
Linda Lily
Martha Prieskorn
T hroughout history, cowboys have tended cattle beginning at sunrise and ended the day covered in dust from head to toe. The horses, though exhausted from the long day, would have gladly continued to ride the range. After a dinner around the campfire, cowboys and ranch hands longed for a hobby more entertaining than the monotony of the workday. Putting their horsemanship to good use, these fun-loving cowboys invented their own kind of entertainment. They took the normal daily maneuvers of their horses and turned them into healthy competition. After all, the majority of the horses’ waking hours were spent traveling the vast countryside, cutting and herding. All that time together firmly established a close bond between horse and rider. With just a simple movement in the saddle or a gentle pull of the reins, cowboys could get their horses to spin, move from side to side, run in a smooth motion, and stop on a dime. They took their
unique skills and began competing based on the abilities of each horse and rider. This became quite the evening revelry. This competitive tradition of the Old West has become known as reining. Keeping close to its roots, reining is a sport where riders continue to guide their horses through intricate patterns of spins, circles, and sliding stops. The popularity of this western performance horse industry is at an all-time high due in part to the television series, Yellowstone , whose writer, Taylor Sheridan, is himself a reiner and horse owner. When competing in the arena, the elite skills of riders and the athleticism of horses are put to the test. To see the rider atop the horse, it often appears to the spectator that the rider is just sitting in the saddle and the work is left to the horse. However, the rider, making the slightest unseen movements with his legs or hands, secretly but confidently controls the horse. After the completion of the pattern, the rider is given a score from the
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SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT
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