Mark Anderson came to Texas in the mid nineties and started cutting horses. He thought one of the colts would make a better cow horse so it became a journey of trial and error with the horse. He entered a cow horse show and remembers watching what everyone else was doing through the gate, with the intention of mimicking the other competitors. He realized he needed more help and he began to work with other trainers and hosted top clinicians at his ranch.
Anderson has been involved in cow horses for 25 years and has since found his niche working with non-pros. Anderson’s most meaningful memory was when his daughter’s horse had been injured and he loaned her his paint stallion to show. He had trained the stud which, at that point, had been an underdog at shows. The duo won the class, marking a 76 down the fence. Anderson enjoys riding underdogs like the paint stallion.
He went out for a beer with Carol Rose and one of her favorite horses happened to be one that Anderson trained for a short time. He said that was a great confidence boost. The horse had been labeled as counterfeit by a previous trainer, but after Anderson had him, Carol said he was one of the most honest horses she ever rode.
Anderson looks forward to hitting the show pen on an exciting Derby horse he has for the 2022 show year.
Why Mark Uses RCHTO:
“Number one, sometimes even if I know what they are doing I’ll hear something differently or another trick. If I know I have a customer coming I’ll watch a video on something I know they have a problem with. Your tool box can never be too full. If we run through four or five different ways to fix a lead change, I’ll watch Dale Hendricks and think about who that will work for. It helps me because the more different ways you know how to do something, every horse is different [something will work]. I enjoy it. It keeps me in the loop.”