Notable Non Pro Jecca Ostrander

NOTABLE NON PRO

Jecca Ostrander lives the cow horse lifestyle and found that cow horse competition fits her to a tee.

By Larri Jo Starkey

In the Nebraska Sandhills, under a bright blue sky that stretches for miles, a woman casually builds a loop as she rides her chestnut horse. Her hands are practiced, and her horse lets his ears rest as he waits for her to finish the familiar activity.

She swings her loop, once, twice, four times before sailing it out to settle around the neck of a calf. The woman’s son comes in behind her and ropes the heels, stretching the calf out for vaccinations and branding.

There’s no fuss, and the process is smooth and efficient. The family is doing ranch work, just as it has done for six generations.

What’s new is that the rope horse is a stallion with more than $160,000 in earnings and several championship titles to his name. The woman is among the top 60 Non Pro riders in the National Reined Cow Horse Association. And the Box O Ranch from Gordon, Nebraska, doesn’t just run cattle—it also breeds top Quarter Horses.

“I think, in my own name, I’ve raised horses for more than 40 years,” says Jecca Ostrander. “I bred horses before [Cash and I] got married, and we’re looking at our 40th year of marriage.”

Ostrander was born into a multigenerational ranching family.

“My grandmother on my mom’s side, my Grandma Ruth, lost her husband to a hay sled accident when my mom was 8 and her brother John was 5,” Ostrander said. “In that era, women did not run ranches. It was just not done. Everyone told her to sell it and go on, and she did exactly not what her husband told her.

“My mom watched her mother ranch and run the operation,” she continued. “Then hire and get out of bad situations because they didn’t hire well.Then my mom married a rancher from the same area, and they bought a piece of ground when they were very young and worked the rest of their lives with it. My brother is on that place, and I married into another very established ranching family in this area.”

Ostrander’s great-aunt, Margaret Hawkins, still barrel raced competitively at age 82. Ostrander’s uncle, John Lewis Jensen, is a steer roper who was inducted into the Nebraska Sandhills Cowboy Hall of Fame in 2021. He’s also Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association Gold Card holder.

ADDING COMPETITION TO THE EQUATION

Ostrander grew up on a horse, steeped in ranch lore, and raised her own chil-

On the Willow Creek Ranch in Gordon, Nebraska, Jecca and Cash Ostrander (right) work daily with her son, Stetson, and watch their grandchildren learn to love ranch life.

dren in it, who have raised their own children in it. She has team roped and barrel raced and done everything on a ranch horseback.

But cow horse competition was new to her.

“We had shown at the Black Hill stock show in ranch competitions up there,” Ostrander said. “I had shown at ranch horse competitions in Torrington, [Wyoming]. So, we started with the boys in the youth classes and then I started showing.”

About the same time, the American Quarter Horse Association introduced the Ranching Heritage program. Ostrander and her husband, Cash, looked at their own breeding program and decided that kind of competition would exactly fit them and their horses.

“I actually flew to Fort Worth for the first show they had down there in 2012 and watched it,” Ostrander said. “I had never been to Fort Worth before. Went

by myself. Took in the festivities of the stock show. I came away going, ‘You know? We can do that.’ ”

So, they went to an AQHA Ranching Heritage show in Rapid City, South Dakota, with Jecca showing her horse, despite her nerves.

“I was second in the Amateur, and then that kind of took off,” she said.

She then went to the National Western [Stock Show and Rodeo in Denver, Colorado,] and then another stock show and the next thing she knew, a friend talked her into showing at AQHA shows that weren’t ranch shows.

“My girlfriend Susan Nelson has always been an avid AQHA show person, and she was like, ‘Let’s you and me take off and go to the Estes Park [, Colorado,] show this summer and we’ll camp,’” Ostrander remembered. “We froze to death, because we were in an uninsulated trailer with no electricity. Slept under horse blankets and ‘Burnt’ won the boxing. We placed in ranch riding. And I got bitten by the horse show bug.”

Burnt is Boxo Heavens Blue (SNW Heavens King x Snippy Card), a homebred gelding who came along about the time Ostrander needed a consistent mount for her showing adventures.

COURTESY JECCA OSTRANDER

The ranch raises athletic horses suited for the show arena or branding pen.

Together, Ostrander and Burnt went from show to show, from the AQHA Level 1 Cattle Championships to even larger shows, winning or placing everywhere they exhibited. Eventually, they found their way to the Snaffle Bit Futurity® in Reno, Nevada, where AQHA was conducting a Ranching Heritage Challenge as an auxiliary event.

SHANE RUX

From a World Championship in 2018 to the branding arena on the ranch, Opus Cat Olena has been an amazing addition to the Box O program.

That’s where Ostrander found NRCHA.

COW HORSE COMPETITION

“Let me give you the scenario,” Ostrander said. “It was the first time I had ever seen a Snaffle Bit Futurity. I’m in the back chute, because I was the only one in the AQHA Ranching Heritage Amateur classes. All of the big names are in that chute watching and waiting for me to get done so they could have fun with the steer roping. That was my introduction to NRCHA guys. But I was enthralled with the cow horse.”

Her friend Kristy Miller encouraged Ostrander to compete in NRCHA classes in nearby Colorado. Ostrander was fired up to go, and she had a great horse that she had bred herself.

She ripped through all her eligibility in one year.

“I did not know that I would money out of Novice, Intermediate and Non Pro,” Ostrander said. “I was new enough to it that I didn’t understand. I think it was in 2018 that I regionally won Non Pro, Intermediate and Novice regional buckles, and ‘Savannah’ (Boxo Heavens Valentine) won the hackamore buckle. That was a big year.”

She made friends along the way.

“I tell people that Jeremy Knoles is the guy who puts up with me as a Non Pro,” Ostrander said. “He’s the one who is pretty patient. We have become such good friends.”

The cow, she said, is the difference that makes NRCHA competition so endlessly perplexing and forever fun.

“No other discipline takes an animal that you cannot predict and works with it,” Ostrander said. “You’re taking what is sent to you and working with it. Good, bad, indifferent. Sometimes you’re given a new one, but if you handle it well and can get that first turn, usually your second one is going to come, and it’s going to roll and be so fulfilling. But I think the difference in this discipline, not only is it three sports in one, but it’s the fact that you’re having to work with whatever is sent down the alley to you is a big deal. It can be a pud. It can be too feely. It can blow snot in your face. You see it all.”

ENTER OPUS

Ostrander was happy with Burnt. He was a stellar show horse, always willing, always agreeable. The Ostranders had purchased his sire, SNW Heavens King, from Stan and Nancy Weaver, and they were pleased with the colts they were getting—and they still are. But they needed a junior stallion.

The Ostranders had known Matt Koch through his years working for Wagonhound Land & Livestock Co., when he was competing regularly at the Black Hills Stock Show. They gave him a call.

“Matt was working at the Wagonhound,” Ostrander recalls. “I told him what I thought I could afford, and he sorted off two colts for me to look at, and Opus Cat Olena was one of them. The other colt, I really liked him. He was out of a Smart Mate mare.”

Ostrander couldn’t decide.

“I said, ‘Well, Matt, let’s watch them travel,’ ” Ostrander said. “And Opus did what Opus does. He put his head on the ground to lope around, and I’m like, ‘We’ll take that one.’ ”

Opus Cat Olena (WR This Cats Smart x Opus Chic x Smart Chic Olena) was officially part of the Box O herd. In 2018, Koch rode “Opus” to the AQHA World Championship in Junior Working Cow Horse, and they followed that up by placing at nearly every NRCHA premier event.

“That AQHA thing was a stunner,” Ostrander said. “The following February, he was Reserve Open Hackamore at the [NRCHA] Celebration of Champions, so honestly, he did his Derby years, and we showed him in the bridle before I brought him home and took him to a branding. Matt had roped on him at home in the pasture—you know what Matt does with them. So, when I go trotting off to a branding, I think, ‘Well, here he is, an awesome horse,’ and we dragged calves.”

To her mind, it just made sense to use a horse for his intended purpose.

“Opus is a Lamborghini,” Ostrander said. “Riding a bridle horse of that caliber is super easy, but you also have to keep things soft and controlled and breathe so that you’re not over-emphasizing something. It is amazing to ride something that is that trained, but the thing with Opus is he’s that willing. Opus craves what he does. He thinks fun is about to be had.

“I keep calling him my unicorn because I’ve ridden a lot of really, really good horses. I’ve been blessed,” she added. “The Lord has blessed us. There is nothing wrong with Burnt. There’s

Ostrander has shown several homebred Box O horses in NRCHA and affiliate events, showcasing their versatility.

nothing wrong with Savannah. I was incredibly successful with them, and yet this horse is even a notch above them.”

THE FUTURE

For Ostrander, the future is tied to the past, in carrying on a legacy of ranching for her children and grandchildren.

The ranch needs good horses, and the grandchildren need good, safe horses to ride on the ranch. That reality informed Ostrander’s decision to geld Opus Cat Olena’s full brother, Boxo Opus Magnum.

“We had intended him to be a stud, but he’s not as friendly as Opus, and with these little kids here, we decided we were not going to put up with it,” Ostrander said. “I’ve put up with difficult horses in the past. I know what I’m getting into. So, he can be a gelding.”

“Magnum” is now Ostrander’s new show horse.

“My heritage is a big deal,” Ostrander said. “My faith in where God has us is a big deal. The AQHA Ranching Heritage program itself—we would not be here if we hadn’t stepped into that Heritage program, because that pulled us into NRCHA.”