Cheryl Rosser and Mac Waddle help you find the right horse for your child.
“Mommy, Daddy, I want a horse, and I want to barrel race.”
Those words are often followed by silence and a deep gulp of air from both parents. It even happens to parents who grew up competing or even those who are still competing.
Finding the proper horse for your child is like buying that first car seat. You want the safest one you can find without paying an arm and a leg, because you’ll need that money for extras, like toys and diapers. With a horse, those extras such as feed, veterinary care, trucks and trailers, not to mention entry fees, make diapers seem cheap.
Here Cheryl Rosser, whose name is synonymous with the procurement of good youth horses, and Mac Waddle, father of successful trio of youth rodeo and barrel racing contestants under the age of 11, share their secrets for finding the right youth horse.
Rosser, Hugo, Okla., got her start brokering horses 30 years ago when her daughter, Sherrylynn Johnson, a National Finals Rodeo qualifier, started competing in play days. Neither she nor her husband, Savoy, had any previous experience in rodeo, but they put themselves in a position to learn and help their daughter be competitive.
“I don’t even ride,” Rosser laughed. “I’ve just been to thousands and thousands of races. We got into it when Sherrylynn did. She got very competitive and always wanted to get faster. So, we kept looking for something faster.”
Today, Rosser is helping countless other children get faster and become more competitive by helping them find the right horse.
Waddle, New Waverly, Texas, got sucked into the realm of youth rodeo and barrel racing about six years ago when his oldest son, Aubrey, winner of the prestigious Ogden 8-and-Under World Barrel Racing Championship in 2005, got interested. His wife, Laura, had grown up competing, but Waddle was a complete newcomer.
He learned in a hurry how to find safe, but competitive, mounts for his children, Aubrey, Garrett and Kaylee. His fourth child, Graham, doesn’t compete. Today, his children are top contenders on the tough Texas youth rodeo circuit and have numerous event and all-around championships to their credit.
Getting Started
Children who are just starting out don’t need an expensive horse, Rosser said.
“You really don’t have to have an expensive horse as long as the horse fits and has the ability to do what you want it to do,” she said. Prices for youth horses run the gamut and depend on what you’re looking for.
“I’ve had 15-year-old horses in here that people want $7,500 for, and I’ve have 15-year-old horses that they want $15,000 for,” Rosser said. “It depends on the horse, what it’s done and what the people want for it. People don’t mind asking an arm and a leg for a horse anymore. The 4Ds have just made horses worth a lot more because you can take a backyard horse and go win some money and a truck. It’s good for the horse industry, but it’s not if you’re trying to find something and don’t have a lot to spend.”
Instead, they need a safe dependable mount that will teach them the ropes.
“I would go with an older horse that would teach the kid something,” she said. “When Sherrylynn was 9, we bought one that cost us $3,500 — which would be like $10 – or $12,000 now — and it knew more than we did.”
Young horses and young riders generally don’t mix. Many first-time horse parents mistakenly think they can buy their child a young horse so “they can learn together.” These parents aren’t familiar with the old adage, “green on green equals black and blue.” Not only is this dangerous, it can sour the child on riding.
Rarely are there exceptions to this rule, Rosser said. About the only time you see a young rider on a young horse is when the young rider is extremely talented and the young horse is extremely solid, as was the case of 8-year-old Sassi Jae Thompson winning the Josey Reunion Championship on the Rossers’ 5-year-old gelding Little Dash Priest.
Goals also come into play. Some children have a strong desire to be competitive while others are just along for the ride, so to speak.
You need to see if your child has the desire and is willing to put forth the effort required to learn and be successful before spending a lot of money on a horse, Rosser noted.
Waddle said he wants to see desire and ability in his children before he spends big bucks on horses.
“That’s our philosophy,” he said. “If we’re going to be in the practice pen until 10 o’clock at night, we might as well have our kids on something that they can win on. Finding a horse is only a small part of the equation. The money it costs to go up and down the road, to keep an arena in shape to practice in, to keep that horse running sound, you might as well be mounted on something that you have a chance of winning with. You never win your money back, but why go through all of that expense if you’re not even going to have that shot at winning a saddle or buckle?”
That’s the position Waddle was in a year ago with Garrett. Unlike Aubrey, who had advanced to stronger, faster horses and had a burning desire to win, Garrett was just starting and was more interested in having fun.
“Garrett had a really high fear factor, so we had to get him a really solid horse, something that he can enjoy,” Waddle explained. “If he was going too fast, he wasn’t having fun.”
What Waddle found for Garrett was a horse that originally came from Rosser. While the horse was capable of running 20-second pole-bending patterns, Garrett wanted to do 30-second patterns.
“You could see this horse wanting to bust loose going down the alleyway, but all the kid had to do is pick up on him a little bit and they’ll trot on down there and do their thing,” Waddle recalled. “Whatever you want to do is what we’re going to do — that kind of horse is priceless.”
This past spring, Garrett decided he wanted to play for keeps, and Waddle purchased him a suitable mount. Recently, Garrett took him the 8-and-Under All-Around Cowboy year-end and finals titles for the American Junior Rodeo Association. When parents don’t have a lot of money to spend, it’s important to put your child in a position to learn to be a better horseperson. It’s those horsemanship skills that will offset the price of horses in the future.
Take the Rossers for example. Neither of Sherrylynn’s parents had competed before, and they didn’t have a lot of money to spend. They bought her a horse that knew more than she did and asked people like Martha Josey for help. What they did have in spades was Sherrylynn’s desire and willingness to work and learn to get better.
“I think that’s what made Sherrylynn such a good rider is that she rode 17 different horses a week,” Rosser recalled. “She learned to use her hands correctly and learned to feel the horse.”
It’s no surprise that Sherrylynn, riding a borrowed horse as well as her own, is among the top-10 professional barrel racers headed to the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo.
Seasoned, but Sound?
“Any horse that’s older and doesn’t have some type of [soundness] issue, hasn’t done anything,” Rosser lamented. “Most of your older horses have something wrong with them. A lot of times, a horse may have a hitch in its get-along, but that doesn’t mean it’s not something that you can live with. I sold one family 19 horses for their three daughters over the years. One of those horses had navicular [disease] and we sold it with navicular. They knew it when they bought it and knew they had to shoe it correctly. The horse fit their pocketbook and it worked well for them.”
Rosser said parents need to learn what these types of ailments are and be willing to learn how to take care of them. Most families that have been around horses know the potential problems and are willing to manage them if the horse fits their child’s needs at the time.
“Then you have people who won’t take a horse if it’s got a blemish like a crack in its hoof,” she laughed. “Most of the time, those are the people who haven’t really dealt with horses before.”
Waddle said he doesn’t know any physical ailment that he isn’t willing to deal with as long as the horse has a good mind and the ailment isn’t potentially dangerous to the child.
When dealing with soundness issues, Waddle also tries to consider the child’s needs and amount of riding the horse will have before making a purchase. For example, his oldest, Aubrey, doesn’t need a lot of practice runs, so he can get by with a horse with soundness issues, while his younger brother and sister, who need more practice runs, need more durable horses.
“Aubrey mostly just keeps his horses legged up and does a little slow work to keep his points and positions,” he explained. “You can do that with a crippled horse. If you have to give them a little Bute [Butazone] before a run, so be it. With Kaylee or Garrett being younger, they need lots of practice. You’ve got to be able to haul them every weekend so they can learn on something more durable.”
Horses with really bad navicular, or arthritis in high-motion joints such as hips or stifles that can be difficult to maintain, need to be watched carefully if ridden by a younger child, who needs the practice time, Waddle warned.
Unfortunately, parents also have to realize that a horse purchased with known ailments may last one run or 20. It’s an inherent risk of purchasing that safe, seasoned campaigner.
