Working Is Not Learning

These clinics are where you start becoming a real cutter. Learning the culture, stories (and we’ve got stories…), history and way we do things. No one could ever tell you, or anyone, how to do what in every situation. You can’t learn somebody how to be calm in an emergency, but you can learn them being calm is the way. You can learn that, no matter what other disciplines do, cutters do it different. You will get in the habit of learning how we do things. Hint: There is a reason. Just because your guru doesn’t know it, does not mean it’s “just because.”

All our rules, written and unwritten, are really very old. That “Golden Rule” thing? Cutters. The central theme, the very foundation of the South Texas cattle industry, which all cutters should study, is this: The herd belongs to everyone. Make that one thought your filter for everything in cutting. Whatever you do, do what is best for all. Whatever you do, make sure it is best for the NCHA.

“They drop their hand and it’s all the horse,” is the biggest lie told about our sport. If you think you can get what Ed Dufurrena, R.L. Chartier, Morgan Cromer, James Payne, Lloyd Cox, Austin Shepard, John Mitchell, Michael Cooper, Clay Johnson, Casey Green, Lee Francois, Kathy Daughn, Phil Hanson, them Flynns, them Rices, them Galyeans or other such people get from a horse then you are very ignorant of this sport. When we drop our hands, the goal is to do what they do. Become one thing. A centaur. Near perfect communication with the utmost respect for the other’s decision. Not even a hint of second-guessing. In for a dime, in for a dollar.

Cornbread Thinks: Clinics are a shortcut to this place, this life, this whole thing that is cutting.