Day In, Day Out
Lifelong horseman and cattleman Chris Schoeneberg shares what he looks for in a ranch horse and why he rides a horse of a different color.
By KATRINA WATERS
He has a room filled with saddles, plaques, buckles and photographs documenting big wins, but the award that tells the real story is a saddle he won four years ago in the Greatest American Paint Horseman contest. He has just about ridden the seat out of it already. It shows just how much a saddle — and horses for that matter — get used around here.
Chris Schoeneberg, Louise, says he has ridden horses ever since he “was big enough to” and it’s something he continues to do pretty much every day, whether it is riding and training the horses he raises or working cattle.
He says although he raises horses and has about 300 head of cattle of his own, what really keeps him busy is working cattle for other ranchers in the surrounding area.
“We stay busy all year long working cattle for somebody,” Schoeneberg says. “There are people at these ranch horse competitions I go to who say, ‘What do you do, anyway?’ There are times that we’ll go 60 days without ever stopping working cows. Every day, every day, every day. They can’t believe that there is that much out there to do, that you could stay busy working cows.”
He says, just off the top of his head, he can think of 15,000 to 20,000 head of cattle he works two to three times per year. He usually has work lined up about two to three weeks in advance.
“I know there are not a whole lot of people who work that often. But, you can if you get the reputation built to where they know you know what you’re doing and you aren’t messing things up,” Schoeneberg says.
What it takes
Someone who uses horses that much undoubtedly knows what he wants in one. Schoeneberg has a clear idea of what kind of horse he wants to raise, whether it’s for his personal use or to sell.
He says he has always been partial to Paints, and has bred his own since 1985.
“If you’re going to ride one, with all the time it takes to put in on one, it might as well be something flashy for when you do go to a ranch rodeo or something like that, one that people will remember. Paints just help that a whole lot. Everybody’s got an old bay horse and he may be a really good horse but they won’t remember him like they do that Paint Horse,” he explains.
Schoeneberg says bigger is not better, as far as he is concerned.
“Anybody who uses horses as much as we use horses doesn’t really want a big horse. Any of these little horses I am riding will do anything those big horses will do. I hardly get off my horses to open gates, but still I’m getting up and down and it’s just a whole lot more hassle to get on one of those big, tall horses,” he says.
Schoeneberg says it is a misconception that you need a big horse to do a big job — heart means a lot more than size. He says the best-pulling horse he has ever seen was an 800-pounder he bought through an auction market.
“If the guy and the horse are working together and know what they are doing, you don’t need all that size,” he says.
Most big horses are not agile enough, he says — and even if they are, it’s just not worth having to jump up that extra six inches.
“We cowboys get all beat up and don’t take care of ourselves and are always sore enough as it is,” he adds.
Schoeneberg says although he likes a pretty-headed horse, he isn’t looking for that halter head. He says if you look at the horses winning cuttings and reinings, they usually don’t have that halter head either. He is more likely to pick a horse with a little longer face.
“People will say, ‘That head is a little long.’ But I say, ‘If that head is in the right spot, that’s the one I’m looking for,’” he says, matter-of-factly.
Although length of back and neck are not big priorities for him, he admits most of the horses he rides are shorter-backed, shorter-necked horses.
“I don’t necessarily like a short-necked horse, but that’s what I keep going back to — the ones that are working the best for me,” he says.
When it comes to colors and markings, he is not too picky but does have a couple of characteristics he looks for.
He tries to avoid bald face horses, due to the possibility of sunburn. He also looks for black around the eyes. He says a good tobiano Paint Horse is like a good black baldy calf.
Although it’s purely a preference, he says he is partial to a Paint with one blue eye over one with two blue eyes.
He says he likes a horse that is “calm, with a lot of action and a lot of cow.” As far as general disposition, he prefers a horse with a lower energy level — one that “will wake up when you ask him to, cut and hold a cow or do the job at hand, then go right back to sleep.”
“I’d rather have a horse to the lazier side that you had to push than one you have to hold up all day,” he says. “When you’re working all day, holding up, that gets a lot more tiring on you than pushing one.
“They say there’s a good horse in every horse. And there really is. But some of them you have to work a lot harder to get it out. Some horses are just easy-going, easy to break, easy to do everything on. There really is that type of horse. They’ll make you think you’re a horse trainer, but the whole time the horse was just a natural.”
The kind that anyone can ride
Schoeneberg says the kind of horse that makes a good ranch horse is similar to the kind of horse you want for a kid or an older person. And with his location — right on Highway 59 — he gets quite a few people looking for just that.
“Coming off that freeway, everybody pulls in and they want the same horse. They want a horse that anybody can ride. They might not ride it for two or three months and they want it to be the same horse they got off of or the same horse they bought.
“That’s the kind of horse we look for in a ranch horse, too. Even though we use them every day, you’ve got to have that horse that has the mental capacity to turn them out for six months if he’s hurt or she’s raising a colt and get it back up and it’s the same horse you got off of. That’s a real important thing, that you don’t have to ride them every day to keep them the horse you want,” he says.
Schoeneberg says he avoids cold-backed horses.
“I want to be able to jump out of the trailer and go straight to work without worrying about warming him up,” he says.
He says making a good ranch horse takes time. It’s not something you can do in three or four months; it takes a more like 18 to 24 months of all-around experience.
“It’s just using them, using them, using them,” he says. “Everything that comes up — whatever it is, they have to do it. If you need to carry a baby calf, you’ve got to carry that baby calf. It’s that common sense that they get from going every day.”
For as many horses as he has on the place (in addition to the broodmares, he keeps 15 to 20 riding horses for ranch use), Schoeneberg says comparatively he does not sell that many horses.
“I don’t sell that many because I am not a horse trader. And I dang sure am not going to lie to you about what the horse will do. When somebody comes here I catch myself telling them all the bad stuff about the horse and what it can’t do.
“I like to match the person to the horse. You’ve got to do that. Every horse I have here isn’t for every person who comes here. You’ve got to match the person to the horse and the horse to the person and it’s hard to do that and still sell a lot of horses. I don’t really set out to sell a lot of horses. Kind of like Blue Bell ice cream — I ride all I can and sell the rest.”