Carrey marking his first 70! Photo by: Performance Horse Photography Carrey Gunderman grew up in Wyoming and had a family friend who was a horse trainer. Gunderman thought reining was the coolest sport until that friend told him he had to check out reined cow horses. Gunderman did and he loved what
Kelly Woodworth was working for a ranch when he spied the NRCHA magazine they received. After seeing the pictures, it ignited his imagination. He saved his money and took a trip to California to take a job working for a cow horse trainer. The first trainer said he didn’t ride well enough. As he
Todd Crawford, NRCHA Hall of Fame member and $2.7 million earner. It may seem counter intuitive, but top trainer Todd Crawford teaches his horses to stop by teaching them how to run. “I believe the stop is all about how well you can run. If you don’t run well your chances of stopping certainly
Total Earnings: $1,420,979 Chris Dawson began his journey in the Appaloosa industry and discovered cow horses at Appaloosa shows. He started seeing the Snaffle Bit Futurity in magazines and learned about the NRCHA. “It’s the only thing I’ve had a natural knack for,” Dawson said of his affinity with cow horses. He attended his first
RCHTO Trainer Todd Bergen Never afraid of a challenge, Todd Bergen used to show in the open classes at 15 years old to gain more experience and to raise his game. At the time, he wasn’t sure why his father entered him in the open but looking back, he said it taught him to
Total Earnings: $1,790,881 Zane Davis placed third at the 2022 World’s Greatest Horseman riding Rubys Radar. He didn’t actually start training cow horses until he was 32. Most of his background had been at the racetrack and in the rodeo world. After starting hundreds of colts, he ended up watching a cow horse competition and
Total Earnings: $838,739 Luke Jones grew up on a cattle ranch Allerton, Iowa. He competed in high school rodeo including cutting and he trained his own rope horses. He won numerous championships in calf and team roping and attended Missouri Valley College on a rodeo scholarship where he earned a Business Management degree. A
At seven years old, Whitney Campbell got interested in horses. After saving up her money all summer, she bought her own Quarter Horse. She worked for horsemanship trainer Ken McNabb and gained cattle experience. She realized the ranching and cattle side of horses was the right fit for her. After getting married in 2008
RCHTO Trainer Cayley Wilson Your heart is thumping so loudly, your chest is about to burst, you're barely breathing and you have a white-knuckled grip on the reins as you enter the herd…. Sound familiar? Nerves can get the best of us, even the pros on occasion. But the difference between the
Mark and Wimps Smart King 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
Total Earnings: $1,819,116 Justin Wright recently claimed the crown jewel of the cow horse world: the 2021 NRCHA Snaffle Bit Futurity championship aboard Zak 34. Cow horses have been a family business for Wright. His dad, Walter Wright, had shown horses and his brother, Greg Wright, won the Snaffle Bit then moved onto cutting. After
Total Earnings: $503,955 Randy Paul rode cow horses when he was eight years old. His dad, Jim Paul Sr., was a horse trainer so when Paul got home from school he went out to ride horses and do chores. For a time through high school, Paul rode bucking bulls. He found his way back
