Wrangling at the Spotted Horse Ranch (Hugh)

Until recently, I did not know what “wrangling” was, nor what the “Wrangler” name meant on the back pocket of poor quality jeans. Now I know. The job of a wrangler, at the Spotted Horse Ranch at least, is to look after the horses, lead trail rides, and lead packhorses up to the various backcountry camps.

But this is complicated by the way that they do things here. The horses are not kept in stables, or even put out to pasture on fields around the ranch; they are sent out into the 750 acres or so of National Forest which surrounds the ranch. Each evening at around 4pm, the horses are gathered up in the corral, have bells put around their necks, and then sent out across the river and out into the Forest with a wrangler at their heels.

The next morning, two lucky wranglers get to rise early, at about 5am, and go and find the horses and bring them back in to the ranch so that folk can ride them (or use them as pack animals, etc. etc.).

Having got to know the wranglers a little on our first few rides, I ask one of them, Wes, whether any guests ever get to go wrangling. He doubts it very much, but sees no harm in asking the boss, Christian. I pluck up courage in due course, because I think this sounds pretty fun, and receive a cautious “yes”, in that 3 or 4 guests go out each year. He says that he will ask the wranglers what they think about my riding, and then potentially I could go later in the week.

Somehow or other, I get the go-ahead, and so 5am on Friday morning sees me waiting at the yard, dressed in thermals + two layers, jeans, boots gloves and my trusty cowboy hat.
It is pitch black and there’s a heavy frost. My company is to be Dakota, a very jolly soul from Michigan, who is brilliant with the kids and also knows a thing or two about horses. I am useless with the tack etc., so she saddles up my horse Whiskey for me, and we are off, at a slow walk. It really is completely dark, but I am assured that Whiskey will look after me, as he knows the way well enough. He has apparently not wrangled for a while, but used to do it “plenty often”.

We head up the steep bank above the ranch and through the low aspens at a slow walk. Soon enough we hear bells (or Dakota does, I don’t hear anything until we get pretty close). I can just see a few shadowy shapes, about 8 or 9, trotting around in a flat clearing in front of us. Whiskey is a real loud mouth and whinneys at his pals; they all whinney back. You really get the sense that these horses are semi-wild, although they are perfectly well schooled. Dakota and I trot on to the end of the clearing, and then break into a lope back up, driving the horses before us with cries of “git”, “git”. I guess that is “get” rather than some pointless derogatory term, but being English I am not very good at this. It’s enough to hold on, let alone yell things out loud as well. The loose horses all react pretty well, however, and soon we are caning it along behind them, along single track trails through the trees. There is no slowing down, you simply have to keep behind them, driving them along, and if they run, so do you. And they do really leg it, all the way home. They slow at one point, to go through a stream and some very thick trees, but then they are off again, at full pelt. Because we are at the back, once our horses get across the stream, they seem to charge along even faster to catch up with their mates, and it’s all quite exhilarating. The one really scary point was seeing two large aspens straddling the trail ahead, while charging along at a full gallop. I’ve passed them since, and when you walk your horse past, you generally have to be ready to budge your horse one way or another to prevent one or other leg being knocked. You don’t get an opportunity to do this at full gallop, but somehow Whiskey looks after me, and we didn’t touch on either side. I can’t imagine what would happen if you did – I doubt whether you would be doing any jogging kids up and down on your knee again.

Once these 9 were sent down to the ranch, we turned around for the rest – we were looking for 23 or so in total. We found another 3 almost immediately, and sent these on their way, but much to my relief, did not chase them down to the ranch along the route between the aspens.

The pace of things then quietened down significantly, and we spent the next 90 minutes or so wandering around looking for more horses. It got very cold, and I wished I had brought along more layers. But the sun finally rose over the mountain, and by 730 we had got high enough to get little warmth from it. At about the same time, we bumped into Wes, who was covering a different area, but he had found nothing.

We rode along for 30 minutes or so, then he split off and went looking amongst the low and middle aspens. We moved higher, right up to the ridge above the ranch, probably 400 or 500 metres higher, and tracked back along at this level. I knew we had to find these horses, but this was not looking promising for the Goodfellow skill set. I have done plenty of hunting in my time, but most of the running is on the flat. There are a few fences and hedges, sure, but you can see these coming in good time and lash yourself on. Out hunting with Jonas with the Ledbury, I was prize entertainment for them all - the whole field would get over the big hedges and then turn to watch me go over. I generally stayed on, in some fashion or another, but it was always quite a good show for everyone else to watch. But now, if we found the horses up here, we would be facing a good 3 or four mile run, and all of it downhill. This was not going to be comfortable.

But right on time, as these thoughts were percolating through, we heard the sound of bells. It was now 8am, and about the time that the wranglers generally turn around and go home, hoping that the horses have been found on the other flank by the other wrangler. We blundered off the trail, and soon found them a little to our left. Again, we yell “git” enthusiastically, and I potter about on Whiskey trying to make myself useful and get behind a few of them. It’s interesting to see the horses together in a group, because they are all different characters, with leaders and followers, friends and enemies, and it seems that once you have persuaded the leaders to move, then they all go together. And so they did. It loot a while to get them going, but soon enough, off they go at a healthy canter, with us caning it along behind.

It was definitely pretty hairy, but probably the best fun that I have ever had on horseback. Basically you are doing what you are never ever allowed to do, which is to charge about like a lunatic. When I first wanted to go hunting, I remember being told that I shouldn’t really go along until I was happy to canter downhill. “Well how do I learn?” I would ask, to be told that to learn I had to go hunting.

On this occasion, there could be no concern about riding style, it was all about holding on. And that’s what we did. We ran back to the ranch, taking all of 10 minutes over ground which would normally take at least an hour. Eventually, we career into the fields opposite the ranch. Dakota went off to fetch a couple of runners, and I chased the rest over the bridge and into the corral. Sarah and Jemima were there to take some pictures, and I did my best to look the part.



Unfortunately, my “git”s weren’t too great and the horses wandered slowly across the bridge, in contrast to their usual charge, but I’d had a serious amount of fun and was dosed with adrenaline up to the armpits.
Trail-riding was going to come a very distant second place after this.