Remember my recent post where I talked about my friend LeeAnn and her new baby? This is her husband, Bennie. He trains and shows cuttin’ horses (I know that’s not the way it is spelled, but it sounds good that way!), and he asked me to take some shots of him working one of his horses when I was out at their place for the newborn shoot. It was a lot of fun, and surprisingly challenging. I didn’t think that ANY being could move faster than a three-year-old boy, but man….! These horses are fast! They are trained to keep cattle together and not let any of them wonder off from the herd. Bennie has a mock-up calf attached to a wire at one end of this arena, and he operates it by remote to make it go back and forth along this wire. Every time he pushes the button, it changes
the direction of the calf, makes it pause and then move, etc. He teaches the horse to stop on a dime and turn in the direction of the calf, as if it were trying to keep this calf from escaping the herd. Its absolutely awesome to watch. He trains and competes his own horses, and other people also hire him to train and show their horses.
