Why do they do it?

Last week we shared a post by one of our Redmond associates, Josh Wasden. This week we are happy to share a post from another Redmond team member, Brandon Foote. We love our team!

Horses are bigger, faster and stronger than their human comrades.  We compete with them, relax with them and work them into a sweat.  They can unload us at any moment of their choosing.  With that in mind, why do they so often do the great and frequently, very difficult things we ask of them?  Why do they do it?

I remember riding Mayfield, our high spirited Bay in the Utah Mountains gathering cattle in the fall of the year.  The terrain was rough, steep, and rocky and at 9000 feet, the oxygen thin.  The cobweb of aspen deadfalls made any opportunity for direct, leisurely travel impossible.  Mayfield was working hard to get us not only uphill, but over the deadfalls we couldn’t get around.  The ambitious cattle always found their way into these areas – especially in the fall when the easy picking grass had been mostly taken, but grows abundantly under the cover of the deadfalls.  It was our job to go there and bring these cattle home.

Mayfield was the high strung type who never ran out of energy and again had worked himself into a lather.  While pausing on our ascent to let him catch his wind, I couldn’t help wonder to myself:  “Why does a horse let me work him like this? Why doesn’t he throw me off or lay down in rebellion?  What motivates him to continue on at my nudging? ”

I can’t help believe that they do it for the Love of it.  Am I imagining things?

Brandon Foote