My barrel horse, Twist, was not acting right. So much so, that it got to the point that it was actually extremely dangerous. People were even offering us money not to bring her to run!
I had lost a lot of confidence in her, and I was just about to get a young horse to start instead. There was a friend of ours that had sent a horse to Ray and said, ‘you should just give him a shot.’
So we went down to Ray’s farm. Ray said that he would contact us after he got on her, and then he’d want to work with me.
My parents said just do it; just try something because it’s the last straw. So I went down there and worked with Ray and worked with Twist, and I loved it. It was great. He taught me so much about life. There were days he made me cry, and that I hated him, but it made me a better person in general. I understand horses better now.
Over the course of year, I went to Ray’s farm about two or three times a week. During that time, I went to Arkansas for a first barrel run.
All these people there were saying things like ‘I can’t believe you brought her back. We do not want this horse here.’
A guy offered my dad another $200 just to not bring her. My dad said, ‘I don’t want your money. Back off.’Twist and I went in there, and we beat everybody by about two seconds and set an arena record in just a halter and lead rope. I was on the horse that everybody hated and that everybody said was going to cause somebody to get hurt. And we probably would have if it hadn’t been for Ray! It was wild!
People realized that we had both grown up and changed. It’s unbelievable the change in Twist and the change in me. Ray changed my whole perspective of riding and both my horse and I are both happy. Now I want other riders and their horses to be happy too.
I had parents start to contact me about riding lessons. I didn’t really want to give lessons because I’m a chemical engineering major so I have always been really busy with school and everything, but I finally decided I would. My Twist taught every single one of them to ride!
I have a 13-year-old girl, Taylor, leasing Twist and running her right now. She’s run in Texas, Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi. Taylor said that Twist is really minding her and acting like a sweetheart. Back home, I have little five year olds crying because Twist is leased out and won’t be back in my barn for a year!
I owe everything to Ray! It’s amazing how different Twist is and how different of a rider I am because of him. When people are like I don’t know what to do, I immediately say send them to Ray. It’s worth any money, and it’s worth any time. You’ll come out a different person.