When we walked into the Pitt Stop yesterday to get hamburgers, one of the riders was wearing spurs. An old timer looked up from his booth and said, "Spurs?" and my friend said, "Well you can't be a cowboy without spurs, can you now."
The old timer thought for a bit and kind of beamed back, "I haven't worn a pair of those in years!"
I hardly ever ride with them and maybe that's a mistake, but here's some basic spur wisdom from HorseChannel.com:
Spurs are no substitute for good riding skills. By no means will they help make you a better rider.
“You have to know how to ride a horse correctly before you put spurs on,” says Sherryl Crawford of Lipan, Texas, who grew up running cans, trains her own barrel horses and also team ropes. “If you don’t really know what you are doing as far as riding or training a horse, and you’re also spurring him, you’re just going to end up with a big problem that you can’t fix.”
“Spurs are a good tool if you use them correctly; they’re not for looks, and they’re not to be used as a weapon,” says Earnest Wilson of Tolar, Texas, who is a well-respected Paint Horse trainer with 46 years in the business...
Spurs should be applied with steady pressure—pressing the spur into the horse’s side, not poking him. You can increase the pressure as necessary, but if you poke or jab the horse he’s going to lurch or jump. Then you risk grabbing with your legs to hang on, and grabbing his mouth, too. That will simply scare your horse.
Ride on,
LSP
Nice looking spurs.
ReplyDeleteI think that to be a true Texan, you have to jingle when you walk and wear a proper cowboy hat. Since I'm not much of a hat person (more of a baseball cap kind of guy even when I was a professional cowboy), I don't know that I'd fit in with genuine hill country Texans. You also need a revolver in a holster and perhaps a saddle gun, which MUST be lever action...or a shotgun that must be a coach gun.
Once you and the kayoose (horse) get to know one another, knee pressure replaces heels and spurs are not necessary.
I mostly wear a baseball cap to ride in and find leg works just fine. Still, good to know how to use spurs and some animals are trained with them, so. Not that I'm any kind off expert.
ReplyDeleteLever? For sure, and I like their mechanical aspect.
If I rode with spurs, I'd surely die (and deserve it, for not knowing how). HOWEVER. I do think I want to strap some onto my fancy boots and just wear them about Dallas.
ReplyDeleteI like the thought of the jingle, and I also want a license to open carry a revolver. All of that needs to happen.
Dallas is like one big, robust (in a silicone sort of way) nightclub. Someone needs to add perspective.