- Personally, I have no idea how many horses
I've ridden in my life
or worked with in some capacity.
As far as starting out,
I hear tell that my riding days began first trimester.
(horse hooves pattering)
My mom rode while she was pregnant
with me and my two sisters.
- They grew up on horses.
They all love them.
At a young age, when you do that,
you just have a innate feeling
of what the horse is gonna do and how to ride,
and it just comes with a territory if you grow up doing it.
- [Narrator] Clint Surplus's is life work
has changed a lot of horses.
In the process,
horses have changed him.
- I started my first colt
when I was, I wanna say, about 11,
then I rode my first colt for hire,
must've been when I was 12 or 13.
But until you've ridden a horse
that has a more sophisticated training level,
you don't know what that feels like.
(horse hooves pattering)
- [Narrator] When Clint was a young man
he worked for a large ranch in Southeast Oregon.
(cow moos)
There he discovered horses trained to a high degree
for the roping and riding of ranch work.
Known as bridle horses,
trained in the vaquero tradition.
(mellow instrumental music)
Vaqueros were expert riders
from the era of the Spanish haciendas.
Their name came from the word vaca,
Spanish for cow.
(mellow instrumental music continues)
They were the original cowboys of the West.
- The traditions go back centuries,
and yet the tools have not been improved upon.
- [Narrator] The ornate spade bit
is the symbol of the bridle horse.
This is what the horses are ultimately being trained to use.
The large flat part of the bit
is shaped like a shovel or a spade.
In the wrong hands,
it can apply harsh pressure to the horse's mouth,
but the vaquero tradition is not about using force
on a horse's mouth to make it move,
rather to form a connection with the horse's mind.
This subtle melding of minds
involves no bit at all,
and begins in the round pen.
(horse hooves pattering)
- The round pen helps you to connect with the horse's mind.
We're not forcing the horse to stop
or turn or go fast.
We're communicating in a very subtle
and nearly imperceptible way to the horse.
Being a prey animal and a herd animal
gives them a very complex set of instincts,
and we have to learn how to work with them
within their instincts.
(hand scratching)
(hand patting)
I want to build the kind of bond
between me and my horse
where my horse doesn't want to leave me.
Drawing the horse in
and letting them be with us and be comfortable
develops trust from the horse.
(gate creaks) (cattle moo)
Ride right in tight behind me.
- [Narrator] The vaquero skills came from cattle work.
Clint's daughter, Sadie,
and son, Kasen, help move cattle to new pasture.
- Sadie, you stop about right there at that dry spot.
Kasen, you start riding along the fence there,
trying to peel 'em off the fence.
When I was about to become a father,
I was confident that my experience with horses
was going to help me better raise my kids.
Watch that one in the back, Sadie.
But what I didn't anticipate
was that being a father helped me become a better horseman.
(cattle mooing)
I softened.
And just let 'em file through.
And that softness goes farther with a horse than harshness.
(Clint's lips squeak)
When you're riding a horse
that you're just really in sync with, it's harmony.
And that's the essence of a vaquero-style bridle horse.
My horses don't have the sting they once had.
They don't have the snappiness
that they once had,
but they have a calmness
and a confidence that they didn't once have.
(horse hooves clopping)
And there's a beauty in that.
(horse hooves clopping)
(no audio)
- Great people just doing their thing
in their own Northwesty way.
We love bringing you stories like this.
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(upbeat music)