by Tom Brennan

Created on: May 28, 2009   Last Updated: June 02, 2009

Let this "old" cowboy give you a little friendly advice. Never, never, say again, never, be the only one wearing a cowboy hat when something goes wrong at the ranch and all the real cowboys are out of sight. Someone will expect you to do something "cowboy".

Not too long ago, when I first got into this cowboy thing, I was a helper at a big horse training facility. I mostly cleaned stalls, turned horses out, welcomed riders and got them set up, feeding, hauling huge bales of hay...all this to gain experience. Well, one day as I was taking a very well deserved rest with my dirty boots propped up, my ratty but dignified cowboy hat drooped over my eyes, and looking very relaxed, a car drives in the roadway and the driver announced "one of your horses is loose and running up and down the road". Instantaneously, I shot up, did a quick muzzle,mane and tail count and saw that each stall was fully occupied. Then I strode out to the road to see a good looking buckskin running up and down what could be a busy country road at times. He was a danger to himself and any speeding yuppie taking a shortcut on the back roads. The driver asked "want some help?". No thanks, I said. After all I was a cowboy and could handle a runaway horse all by myself ( famous last words).

I got my rope and began to prepare a loop to catch the buckskin. After all, I had roped a quick moving 50 gallon drum the other day in practice, this time it's real. I had been told by another cowboy to keep my leather gloves tucked n my back pocket, sticking out visibly (sort of like John Wayne used to), looked good, felt right, real cowboy. Anyway, I let out a loop, launched it over my head and what happened was just downright magical. You could almost hear heavenly music as the loop opened up into a perfect oval, soaring gently through the air, just floating like a cloud. A perfect hoolihan, the cowboy's dream. The hoolihan floated down gently over the buckskin's head and then everything "went south" (actually east, because that's where the horse headed). The buckskin decided that he really wasn't in the mood to get roped, and really liked running around like an idiot. So he took off. Happily, my leather gloves stayed in my back pocket where they wouldn't get dirty, torn or used. I still have the scars from the rope burn that I got when I grabbed the rope attached to the trotting horse. Since the driver who had kindly offered to help was still there, watching and wondering what this "cowboy impersonator"

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