1. The cowboys must be a somewhat fearless individual, a bronc rider, roper, and thrill seeking. The old cowboys were many times reckless and devil may care types, who loved horses and were hired by ranchers to drive and care for their cattle.
2. Wild range horses, most often not broke, small tough and well built.
3. When the cowboy started in the morning, he would rope and saddle up one of the horses in the morning and it would usually buck when he got on. Then he took this horse out and did his daily work.
4. The horses they rode were wild and they only rode them after the horse had reached the age of 5 so they could ride them hard all day long. When a horse gets that old, basically running wild, hey are not easy to train and often were broncs for their whole lives.
5. Often the cowboy needed to be a good hand with a rope as well as a bronc rider so they could keep the cattle safe, roping, branding, as well as being a pretty good vet when cattle needed medical attention. Watching for caving while keeping predators away.
6. A cowboy would have to be someone who enjoyed a good adrenaline rush to be sitting on a horse that had just been broken the day before (ridden once) and try to chase down and rope a cow that was as wild as an elk and had horns that could spread up to nine feet, tip to tip!
7. A cowboy typically had a string of horses that were his to ride, usually issued to him by the ranch he was working for, which consisted of working or moving cattle, roping, doctoring, and branding calves and much more. He did his job all day on a horse that may have only been ridden once before that.
8. These unbroke mounts would buck, jump and twist before the cowboy and horse went out to do a day’s work.
9. The very occupation that these old-time cowboys chose was fraught with danger and adventure. The cattle were also very dangerous in those days. Long-horn cattle were very wild and cranky animals that had horns on their heads to back up their dispositions.
10. This taking their life in their hands appealed to a small number of men who could not get enough and remained true cowboys all of their lives. Life in the west would not be the same without these brave, thrill seeking men. The cowboy and his horse became symbols of freedom, hard working brave and honest souls of the west!
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