START STEER STOP to

Brad Barkemeyer’s background in roping helps him start a cow horse in the box with confidence.

STEER STOPPING BRINGS AN EXTRA EDGE to some of the reined cow horse industry’s most exciting events—the World’s Greatest Horseman, the Super Spectacular and the new World’s Greatest Non Pro. It showcases a cow horse’s savvy in the roping to create a truly versatile event. For Scottsdale, Arizona, trainer Brad Barkemeyer, it blends the experience he had early on as a rope horse trainer with his current focus on cow horse.

“The roping and the cow horse coexist so well because of the fundamentals,” he explained. “The foundation is the same. They must be willfully guided. They must have some cow instinct and they need to be able to control speed; they must be able to go slow and fast depending on the cattle. That piece of it is so relative, it makes the transition between the two events very simple.”

Starting a cow horse in the roping box can be challenging. In his program, Barkemeyer begins roping on all his horses during their 4-year-old year.

“I’ve found that the ones that are extremely cowy have a little more trouble initially,” he said. “Number one, just seeing a cow in the [roping] chute and being close to it, they feel like they should be getting away or ready to react at any moment when that cow moves. To desensitize them to that process is tricky on the ones that have a lot of cow instinct. The ones that are a little more laid back, maybe aren’t as electric in say the herd work or the cutting, they take to it a lot simpler because they don’t care as much as far as the cow moving and responding to their getting in their comfort zone.”

Here, Barkemeyer walks through his process of introducing a horse to the roping chute and steers and coming out of the box, so that it has a solid foundation when the rest of the steer stopping work comes into play, like rating and stopping the steer.

STEP 1: GOOD INTRODUCTIONS

When Barkemeyer introduces a horse to the roping box, he starts by working it down. A fresh horse, with a fresh mind, is less likely to calmly accept a new situation. He initially introduces the horse to the chute and roping box without cattle.

“You’re battling mental and physical freshness with the new stimulus. I warm them up good, just like normal, like you’re getting ready to go for a ride or a work,” he said. “Then walk them into the box. I like to let them kind of go at their own pace and if they’re real scared and tentative, I make sure that they keep moving and just keep forward motion.”

The goal with keeping the horse moving forward around the box, around the chute and down the pen is to show the horse it can move its feet and be less scared, he says. While doing this, Barkemeyer doesn’t hold a rope to avoid adding to the new elements of the situation.

“If you’re trying to introduce the rope and the cattle and the chute all at once, it’s just overwhelming,” he said. “The confinement of the boxes and the chute and the smell is different than when we’ve worked cattle in an arena. I know that they can tell that the cattle have been there and so the cowy ones, especially, I like to show them that environment before I introduce cattle to it and that makes it a little smoother process.”

When the horse gets comfortable, Barkemeyer loads the steers. He walks through the box and down the chute again. While forward motion is key, if a horse stops to smell or assess, and isn’t cowing down or spooking away, he allows it to stop. He focuses on keeping its body relaxed.

“It’s easy to stay tense and tight, ready for them to jump sideways. But the rider needs to be relaxed and pretend like everything’s okay. A rider’s energy transmits through to the horse and once you sit up there, pet on them and they’re standing still but you can feel them shivering underneath you because they’re not sure what’s coming next,” he said. “But just reassuring the horse that everything’s okay in that environment goes a long way.

“I like to walk them on both sides of the lead-up alley, so they see cattle from both sides. They start to get comfortable with the cattle being in that confined space and hearing the cattle and the horns hitting, the fence. Those are the different noises that they’re not necessarily used to,” he explained.

STEP 2: STEADY IN THE BOX

For many cow horses that are only going to steer stop, some people only work out of the left-side box, or the heading box. However, Barkemeyer likes to balance the horse by working both sides. The first time he takes a steer out of the chute and follows it out of the box, though, is from the heading side.

“The separator, the thing that determines the great ones from the others is how they handle the pressure of being in the box,” he said. “If they don’t mind the noise, they don’t get anxious for the start. Those box fundamentals are what either speeds up or slows down the training process. The ones that are a little more anxious like a racehorse, when the gates open, they want to just go, those take a little more time.

“As a trainer, you must be a little more consistent and slower with those ones so that they learn that they don’t have to give you 100 percent every time they leave the box. It’s all about control and being patient. The ones that are a little scared of the movement of the chute or the cattle leaving, those ones just take a little more time than the others.”

Barkemeyer spends time ensuring that the horse is willing to stand quietly in the box with steers in the chute. He often has an assistant rattle the gates, or open and close them, to allow the horse to hear the noise, and Barkemeyer’s goal is for the horse to be calm through it all.

The aim is to walk the horse calmly in and out of the box. Barkemeyer holds his rope and often swings it while walking in and out. He also walks the horse in and turns both toward and away from the chute before backing into the box’s corner.

“There’s so many things that we do [in cow horse] that are patterned and consistent that speeds up the training process,” he said. “Adding roping makes a more versatile, more user-friendly horse that anyone can get on. It’s not just me riding it all the time, somebody else needs to get on and be able to push different buttons but get the same result. So, to introduce the horse to the box, I’ll go in both ways.

“The main things that needs to be stressed is forward motion in the box. That is big, especially once the horse kind of learns that’s a place where they can get a little anxious and get a little nervous,” he continues. “Keeping the horse moving forward as you’re turning them around and preparing them to back up into the corner, it’s critical that you’re able to get forward motion back at any time so that they don’t get stuck backing up and want to stay.”

When Barkemeyer can drop his reins and the horse stands, he knows it is comfortable in the box. It may walk out on its own, but he regroups and takes the horse back to the same spot.

“I’m going to go right back to that same spot and then relax again where I’m not forcing the horse to stand still or really try to confine them into that perfect place,” he said. “They learn that’s a place where they can relax as well as get ready to go.”

STEP 3: WORK THE GAS PEDAL

The repetitive scene in the steer stopping preliminary of the World’s Greatest Horseman event is a horse leaving the box nose forward, neck level and zoning in on the steer. Barkemeyer says that the cue to leave the box is one like cueing a lope departure in a reining pattern, and one that should look as controlled. However, he starts teaching the horse the process of leaving the box with a steer at a walk or trot, not a lope.

“I try to keep some steers around that walk or trot. If all your cattle run fast, you still have to leave slow and you’re going to get a horse that rushes after the steer,” he said. “If slow cattle aren’t available, it is important for me to set a consistent, controlled pattern using a Smarty roping dummy to come out of the box. Having a good foundation and a good experience at the beginning is important, and me catching [the steer] is the least important piece. It does not matter; it’s all about keeping that horse confident, leaving the box nice, rating into a good spot and having that build confidence. And then the catching piece comes later.”

When he begins to teach a horse to leave with the steer’s departure, Barkemeyer uses his rein hand as a cue.

“It’s not a jumpstart. We want to go from a standstill into a nice, controlled lope sometimes with collection, sometimes on a loose rain, but it’s not a surprise,” he explained. “I train a horse to understand that my left hand is the gas pedal. If I throw that left hand down, that’s the signal for my horse to squeal the tires and get going. But if I ease down with my left hand, they should feel that contact at the bit and they should be collected and lope off just like you’re starting a reining pattern.”

Ultimately, the goal is to have a horse leave the box from a standstill to a dead run, stretched out flat and reaching for each stride. Barkemeyer reiterates that the perfect picture doesn’t start by having a horse jettison after the steer from Day One.

“If the horse is lunging from the start, it costs you time and creates missed timing,” he said. “You want to be in time with your horse when you’re leaving the box. So that stride being consistent, flat makes it easier on me to focus on catching.

“A pretty critical piece in the judging portion of the steer stopping is in the box score. The horse must stand still and be ready to leave when you want to. But how they leave is a critical piece of that score. If a horse elevates or lunges, elevates the front end and then leaves a little sideways or choppy, that’s going to detract from your score in the box for that maneuver score.”

Slow is fast, as the adage goes. Taking the first steps to start a horse in the box and learning to rate a steer will ultimately earn points in the show pen.

“It might take a week’s worth of going to the box, sitting, or sitting on the horse while someone else is roping, to get a horse comfortable,” Barkemeyer said. “If you start a horse right in the box, you’ll have that versatile athlete that can do it all in the show pen.”

Above: A horse’s inclination is to jump forward when the steer leaves, because a cow horse knows to catch the cow, but Barkemeyer wants to teach it to leave in a controlled manner.

Below: Here, the horse is leaving before Barkemeyer’s left hand has dropped. He’ll let the horse go, then calmly walk back in and reset the horse in the corner. He wants the horse to be able to wait on a loose rein before he asks it to lope off.