APHA

Team Penning

Cowboy Zamboni

The Cowgirl Museum

There’s a great “antique mall” on the south-western edge of Fort Worth. The quickest way to get there is on Interstate 30. As you drive along I30, you come around a slight curve to see downtown Fort Worth in the distance. Most downtown areas have a distinct skyline; Fort Worth, unfortunately, does not – one of the few advantages that Dallas has over Fort Worth.

I spent a couple of hours in the antique mall, and decided to come back to the hotel a different way. Only a few blocks down Montgomery Street I saw the Will Rogers Equestrian Center on the right, surrounded by trucks, campers and horse trailers, so I pulled in to investigate. The first thing I found was a flea market in one of the barns. The heat was stifling, and the antiquated fans merely moved steamy hot air from the adjoining stables into the market, but it was a very interesting flea market nevertheless.

When I came out, I saw the 2005 APHA World Show opposite. It was free, so I went in, and soon discovered that APHA is the American Paint Horse Association. At this point, probably the same question pops into your mind as popped into mine, so I asked the cowgirl behind the Information Desk. It seems that a Paint Horse has to be registered, and the offspring of registered Paint Horses, or perhaps a Paint Horse and a Quarter Horse, or, more rarely two Quarter Horses … yes, I stopped her and asked that question too. She laughed (in a nice way) and explained that Quarter Horses are pedigree North American working horses, and that they have very strict specifications on the coloring of the horse: some white on the nose or around the hooves is permissible, but those with large blotches can’t be registered as Quarter Horses. Fed up with this, owners of Paints, sometimes called Pintos (although Pintos don’t have to be registered), formed their own association. The various colorings have names like Palomino, Sorrel, Buckskin and Blue Roan. It was a trade show as well as a competition, and the place was full of working cowboys in cowboy hats, jeans, and well-worn boots with spurs attached.


Today was the last day of the show, and they were finishing up at 6pm with the final competitions. I went back to the hotel, and returned at 6pm to a packed arena. The first competition was “team penning”: 30 young steers are grouped at one end of the arena, and each has a number from 0 to 9 on its back; a team of three riders enter the arena, and are given a number as they approach the herd – their job is to break out the three steers with that number on their back, and pen them in the shortest possible time.

You may have been to an ice hockey game, or watched ice skating, at some time – if so, you’ll have seen the Zamboni going round at half time, smoothing the ice. The cowboy equivalent of this is a machine that sprays some sort of disinfectant on the sand and cattle poop before blending it together to that delightful consistency and aroma that gives the typical arena its distinctive smell.

The next competition was “bridleless western pleasure” – sounds interesting, but is really quite similar to watching paint dry. Cowboys (and cowgirls) take their mounts through a series of manoevres without the use of a bridle. I think “unbridled western pleasure” may have been worth the wait, but this wasn’t.

Heading back to the hotel at 8:30, it was still hot. I passed Hurricane Harbor (water park) and Six Flags over Texas (theme park), both still in full swing.

Driving along, it occurred to me that, although I’ve been trying to resist mentioning it, cowgirls are cute. I think it’s something about the hats, the highly embroidered tops, leather chaps, and coloured boots with spurs.

They really are magnificent.