If you are visiting the Colorado Cattle Company, one of the many great ranch vacations you can take, during a regular week, not one of the special dream weeks, you may find yourself on a cattle drive. We went on one with a pretty large group led by Penny and her husband Mats today. The ranch has about 800 cows and covers over 7000 acres, so there is a lot of land to explore.
It’s flat plains in this part of Northern Colorado. We rode up to one point where you could see for miles. It was mostly grassland, with a few canyons scattered about. I was riding a Quarter Horse named Pokey, a horse that I didn’t have to worry about running off with me.
When we reached the peak, we all knew that we wanted to venture back here again tomorrow to film the show’s open. The Colorado episode is all Western riding at ranches and with an outfitter. The terrain here looks so different than it did in Wyoming. It is vast and what many Europeans think of as typically American.
Our group circled the cows who were staked out near the water tanks. It would be hard to move them from the water. I was told not to look at any of the cows until we were ready to move them. It’s an amazing thing about these cows. They are totally calm. You can ride right by them, but the moment that you and your horse look them in the eye, they start to move away.
We had a border collie with us to help us out as our group began the push up the hill and over the peak to move the group. The border collie was fantastic at getting the cows to move on. I kept picking out specific cows and giving them the evil eye. It felt good that with just one look I could get them to move.
Some of the cattle were feistier than others. One large brown cow briefly charged towards the border collie at one point, rattling me for a second. Pokey seemed undaunted, as we continued the push.
We had a sizeable group to move our herd, which made it easier. We didn’t have any crazy rogue cattle try too hard to break free from the group. We did hear a lot of moos of protest though. I guess those cattle don’t want to move from their grass and water. I probably wouldn’t want to either. Well, maybe if I had 7000 acres, I would want a new view once in a while.
Learn more about Equitrekking on PBS and the Colorado episode and learn about exceptional equestrian vacations, including ranch vacations, at EquitrekkingTravel.com.
