As Heard On

2022 SNAFFLE BIT FUTURITY® OWNERS INCENTIVE FUND

Thank you to these supporters contributing to the added money purse for the 2022 National Reined Cow Horse Association Snaffle Bit Futurity® , presented by Metallic Cat!

Larry & Kathy Barker Best Kept Secret Ranch Bet He Sparks Bet Hesa Cat Syndicate BMW Quarter Horses Brazos Valley Stallion Station Call Me Mitch D Lazy K Ranch Double F Ranch / Roy & Sherri Fischer Dual Smart Rey / Strawn Valley Ranch DuraPro Health Fults Ranch / Alvin & Becky Fults Gardiner Quarter Horses Hartwood Farms Hat 6 Ranch Honeysuckle Rose Boutique Hooray / Eric & Wendy Dunn Ann Matthews Matthews Cutting Horses Milum Performance Horses Kit & Charlie Moncrief / Moncrief Quarter Horses Ophir Creek Ranch Red Arrow Ranch LLC Rocking Nine Four Ranch Carol Rose Royal Wealth Planners / Bryant & Carrie King Steve and Lori Roseberry Spahn Law Firm PLLC Stuart Ranch War Ponies, Elite Paint Cowhorses Woodglen Investments

AS HEARD ON

Don Murphy and Andrea Fappani discussed reined cow horses on Fappani’s podcast, “Along For The Ride.”

National Reined Cow Horse Association Hall of Fame member Don Murphy lent a hand to new-to-cow-horse competitor Andrea Fappani, who is a National Reining Horse Association $7 Million Dollar Rider, when he decided to go down the fence. The lessons learned were more than only on horseback—they were also heard in Fappani’s podcast, “Along For The Ride with Andrea Fappani,” produced by Jim Essick.

The two horsemen discussed everything from the evolution of cow horse into the divisions and classes today to the challenges in obtaining cattle, and changes in equine conformation and breeding in today’s performance horse industry.

The point that got Fappani listening was Murphy talking about the right position to circle.

“In the old days, when they boxed the cow, and how I still teach at clinics, when you box the cow it is like holding a cow at the end of a corral with a gate in the center and a gate on either end,” Murphy explained. “You’re supposed to show the judge you can go to the gate on either end and shorten up and hold [the cow]in the center. The long fence is like if you’re in a 1,000-acre pasture and you’ve got to get a stray out … you’ve got to go down the fence, turn the cow on the fence and hold it on that fence to get it out the gate, and shorten it in the center.

“In the old days, we did at least four turns so that you were done in the center of the pen. You had to circle in the middle of the pens, not on the ends. If you were on the end, you had to get the cow to the center [to circle]. It is because when you were through—and this was a little before my time—there was a 6-foot gate on the side of the grandstand, and you had to put the cow out the gate when you circled it. It was a control deal … That’s where it came from and most people don’t know that.“

“There is a lot more to it,” Fappani laughed. “I had no idea!”