ADMIRABLE ASSISTANTS: JASON SEYMOUR

Showing horses in all-around and ranch horse competition created his desire to train cow horses.

BY JENNIFER DENISON

Life doesn’t always plow a straight path—there are turns, backtracks, detours and even dead ends that eventually lead a person to find his or her calling. That was how Jason Seymour landed his job as assistant trainer to Kelby Phillips in Weatherford, Texas, less than a year ago. Coming from a ranching background, he was confident that no matter where he went, he could always train horses.

Seymour and his wife, Kelsi, moved from the Western Slope of Colorado to Weatherford in 2020. Since he was a youth, he had an interest in training cow horses, so he called cow horse trainers in the area to see if anyone was hiring but couldn’t find any job openings. One of his friends mentioned that cutting horse trainer Geoffrey “Spud” Sheehan was looking for help, so Seymour contacted Sheehan and started working for the trainer in January of 2021, riding cutting horses at Silverado on the Brazos.

Though he didn’t have experience riding cutting horses, he enjoyed it and learned from the experience. However, in the June of 2022 Sheehan moved his training operation and Seymour transferred to Kelby Phillips’ program, which is based out of the same barn.

“When Spud left, Jason wanted to stick around the area and approached me about a job,” explained Phillips. “He’s one of those employees that’s awesome. It’s hard to find people like him you can trust. I feel like I could leave for a month and not talk to him, and everything will be taken care of.”

Showing Potential

Seymour and his three siblings grew up on their family’s ranch in Montrose, Colorado. They spent their childhood riding horses and bicycles down dirt roads until they were old enough for their father to put them to work on the cattle operation after school and on weekends.

“I’m the fifth generation on my family’s ranch in Colorado,” he said. “We have a feed yard, cropland and a mother cow herd. We always had six to eight ranch horses around all the time, and we had a few show horses. We didn’t ride every day, but we pulled them out when we needed them.”

In high school Seymour played football and basketball, and showed steers, hogs and horses in 4-H. He also exhibited horses at weekend shows and a few American Quarter Horse Association events.

“I showed a double-bred Two Eyed Jack horse in all-around events, and he was pretty tough to get shown,” recalled Seymour. “In 4-H there was a ranch horse class, and that was my first taste of working cow horse. The only reason the horse knew there was a cow in the arena was because I was pulling him that way; he didn’t know a whole lot. In 2012, I told my mom I didn’t want to show him anymore and we found me a 5-year-old gray mare, Smart Whiskey Pistol, who had been trained and shown by Darren Miller.”

Seymour sought assistance from horseman Aaron Ralston in Parachute, Colorado, and within a couple of months he qualified the mare for the boxing at the American Quarter Horse Youth Association World Championship Show.

“Aaron helped me get started and showed me all the cool things we can do with horses,” he said. ”He was the first trainer I’d ever worked with. Before him, I tried to figure it out on my own.”

After graduating from high school in 2014, Seymour attended West Texas A&M

University in Canyon, Texas. Under the coaching of Zeb Corbin and then Obbie Schlom, he showed his mare on the ranch horse team and in Stock Horse of Texas events. This fostered his goal of someday training cow horses. While in college, he met his future wife, Kelsi, a Texas native who was attending Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas.

When he graduated from West Texas A&M University in May of 2018, he worked on ranches such as the Poison Spider Cattle Company in Casper, Wyoming, and then for his father. In 2019, he and Kelsi married, and a year later the newlyweds moved to the Lone Star State to start building their lives together and to be near Kelsi’s family in Glen Rose, Texas. The couple now has a 2-year-old daughter, Saige, who is just as crazy about horses as her father.

“She has a pony and spring rocking horse she rides,” he said. “She throws her hat in the air and hoops and hollers. She always wants to ride horses with me.”

Shown here exercising Duals Lucky Charm, Seymour started out last summer riding the 2-year-old horses in Phillips’ barn. He continues to do that, as well as advance some of the 3-year-olds.