Time to Clear Up The Big K- Or “A Minion with an Opinion”

Funder said: I love Big K stories. You make him sound like such a Buddhist guru.


This is when it really hit me, I have to balance out the stories about The Big K. He was definitely my guru for many years. We had a deep and complicated relationship based completely on horses.

The kidlet told me there were rumors flying constantly about what our relationship actually was. Which is absolutely hysterical on so many levels.

All K and I thought about or talked about was the horses. Our mutual obsession was what turned us into people who could read each others minds and finish each others sentences. Of course as all you horsaii know, working through training a horse makes you work on yourself.
As I learned to control my hands, legs and emotion I became a much stronger person. As I became stronger I developed an opinion.

A minion with an opinion is a bad thing when it comes to trainer/mentor – minion relationships.
The level of training I had climbed to was awash in abuse. Abuse towards horses. Abuse towards people. The trainers I met and worked with did things to their horses I couldn’t handle. Horses in my world were investments, commodities, tools, nothing more.

The horses were worked hard and early, we started two-year-olds on January 1. Which meant they were often 18 months old or so.

Colts and fillies were kept in box stalls, isolated from each other and under lights 24 hours a day. They were never turned out. They were in their stall, tied to the rail or being worked.

There was no room or time for kindnesses. Again, towards the horses or each other.

When I first started riding with K he was just coming up in the reined cowhorse world. He had top tenned at the AQHA Worlds and won a few major Colorado events.
He was smart and thoughtful and taught me a lot about riding through issues and how to read my horses.

As he rose in the ranks the pressure of his position began to change him. It began to change me too. I developed a very strong line I wouldn’t cross. It caused a deep rift.

K can be a very hard man. He can be impossible to understand. He pushes himself, his horses and the people around him to the absolute mental and physical limit.

I’m spending a week with him next fall. It will be the first time I’ll have ridden with him as an equal, instead of someone he needs to mold. It will be interesting.

I’ve written about many of the things K and I talked about but I’ve avoided the darker side.
I still haven’t decided how much I’m willing to write about those parts.

K and I have made peace after a very bitter split.

I’m wary, but he seems to have found himself again. We have begun to talk the way we used to, which is great.
But from where I stand and from what I’ve seen, I would never, ever leave a horse of my own in training with anybody. Other than myself…

I’ll toss anybody who wants to ride up on one of my horses, but nobody trains on them except me.

I didn’t go stomping off in a fury and refuse to compete either. I love reined cowhorse, I love cutting and I love the history and technique behind developing a spade bit horse.

I love learning.

I love training my horses.

I can’t morally do to a horse what I saw being done in order to win.

I would have never become the caliber of trainer I did if I hadn’t ridden with the people I did.

See what a Mugwup I am?

I am glad The Big K and I are friends. I’m working out the latest mental knot he gave me and it’s a great problem. I’ll share it eventually. But we have a wall between us now. We’ve talked about it. I built it and I’m not of a mind to take it down. It’s a point of sadness between us.

I’ll compete again. I want to see if I can win on a horse I’ve trained with what I’ve learned and the moral code I’ve developed. I don’t know if I can, but it keeps the future interesting.