Yeah, he did!
Today we gathered up a lot of brush and debris around the ranch
and it's time to burn it.
When you live in the country, this is how you dispose of wood.
We don't have a bulk pick-up day.
Donnie, just pick that one up and put it in there.
Gotta break it up.
- Leroy, you're doing good. - You are too. Keep standing there.
Why don't we wrap up the break and you guys help me burn a brush pile.
Oh, look at you. You been working out?
That's real funny, huh?
Look out, Donnie. You missed the pile.
How'd you miss the pile? That's terrible.
What do you think so far of, uh, Jorden?
I like Jorden's work ethic.
- Yeah. - She works good.
Feel like Jorden can take something away from this?
I think anybody can if they're willing to learn.
Honestly. It just takes being coachable and wanting to.
I can tell Jorden's heart is in this.
She's been working hard
and she really wants to learn how to ranch.
Ranching's not the most glamorous job out there,
so it's exciting when a young person wants to learn how to do it.
Let's get some gas.
Oh!
If can we get Jorden trained up enough,
maybe she can help us move those cows around.
Yeah, hope so.
This time of year is important for us.
We're gonna gather up all the cows and we're gonna sort the calves.
It's what you may have heard referred to as a cattle drive.
This is a perfect opportunity for me to teach her.
Careful with that. You're gonna get it on you.
Donnie! What the hot ham sandwich!
- I haven't got... - It's all over my back and my shoes!
It is not.
Dale. Do something with your child.
He's gonna light me on fire.
- Donnie! Give me this damn thing. - Stop!
Stop throwing gas on everybody, Donnie.
You splashed me.
Once we light this thing, ain't gonna be no stopping it.
That's usually how fire works.
Oh yeah.
One, two, three!
Whoa!
Yeah, he did!
Was not expecting that.
Whoa!
I told y'all. Yeah, he did.
I think we overdid it.
Yeah, this is a little bit aggressive.
♪ Whoa ♪
Try to keep your wrists straight when you're riding one.
I'm Donnie Daytona. I'm from the great state of Missouri.
Been a big fan of Western movies growing up.
I just... I don't know,
I always had a kind of a draw to bronc riders
and how they live their life, and it seemed pretty romantic to me.
You don't have to be, like, as fast
and as powerful every single time.
- You can work on, like, being perfect. - Mm-hmm.
I thought me riding broncs professionally was a pipe dream.
But now, I've been training for my first rodeo. It feels good.
You wanna be absolutely perfect.
It's not practice makes perfect.
- It's perfect practice makes perfect. - Right.
Which brings us to today's lesson, cowboys are always prepared.
So far, Donnie's been on a few of our easier broncs.
And he wants to go to his first rodeo, but he's got a little bit of work to do.
Once you get this perfected,
that's why I say it's 90% mental and the rest is in your head.
- When it clicks, it's gonna click. - Yeah.
I got on my first bucking horse in February.
So, about six months, I guess, I've been getting on horses a lot.
It's been a learning experience.
Gotta be patient, take your time, do it the right way.
That looks better. Does it feel better?
I mean, it's harder for sure, but like...
Right.
Donnie's been riding broncs for a while.
Now that he's wanting to go to his first rodeo,
I've set up a ladder system for him to climb before he gets there.
Bottom rung, I'm gonna have him start on the spur board.
It's kind of like a punching bag. It's where you hone your fundamentals.
Engage your core just a little bit.
Next rung up is one of my practice horses, Brisket.
I like it.
Yeah, feels a lot better.
If he can cover Brisket, Donnie can pick any one
of my harder horses that he wants.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
If Donnie can stay on one of my harder horses
and ride him for eight seconds,
there's no question that he's ready for a rodeo.
- One more time. Five, bam. That's perfect. - Gosh dang.
It's a short ladder, but Donnie's not a tall person.
We'll just be real quiet right here 'cause we don't wanna spook him.
If we were gathering the big pasture, we'd probably have two more people.
Right.
This week, it's time to wean our calves off the cows,
so we need to gather everything up.
Out here in West Texas, you need about 25 acres of grass per cow.
That's a lot of country to cover.
So, this is kind of the pinnacle of the experience, I guess, for you.
We have a few days before this cattle drive.
So, today we're gonna teach Jorden how to gather cows.
Very important to be in the right spot at the right time
and there's rules to the game. We gotta teach her.
Have you gathered cows before?
We've messed around, like, pushing some bucking bulls around,
but never like these kind of cows.
- In a big pasture? - Right.
When things go wrong with cows, sometimes it'll escalate.
Like, you can teach 'em bad habits
and they'll get more wild the next time you try to gather 'em.
When you're moving cows, you wanna be slow and smooth.
Because if they get stressed out and they start running around,
they're gonna run over the top of you, run through a fence.
Things go wrong.
When we gather these cows, we wanna sweep this little pasture
like a spoke on a wagon wheel.
So, you need to stay between Leroy and I.
Good to know.
I've been really excited to learn all the stuff.
This is what I came here to learn.
I came here to learn how to ranch, and I'm excited
that Dale and Leroy are taking the time to teach me how to gather cows.
All right, I'm gonna sneak in here.
You just stay on his butt.
Now let's just push them down that road.
- Come on, ladies. - Yah, yah!
Come on, ladies.
Whenever we're driving these cows like that,
you stay in line with me and Leroy, and you're doing good right now.
But what you don't wanna do is be back 10, 15 yards
and create this... this gap.
- Yeah. - 'Cause it's kind of like a chain.
In that scenario, you'd be a weak link...
Right.
...where the chain would break.
Right here, he's gonna push gentle.
You get to pushing on those calves too hard,
they're gonna try to dart through the fence.
Here's a pretty handy loop you can throw.
- All right. - Yeah, go ahead.
Yeah, he did! Yeah, he did!
That was from the three-point line!
So, when Dale ropes that calf, somebody has to get the rope off.
Push that cow away and I'll help you.
Dale can't get off his horse. He has to make sure that the line stays tight.
So, you know, Dale just gets to sit up there and have the good times
while I, uh, actually have to do the work.
Don't you get me.
Dale's like a little kid.
He just goes in a room, makes a mess, and I gotta come up and clean it all up.
Golly.
Sorry, Leroy, I couldn't help myself.
I know you can't.
Did y'all see how far I threw that dang loop?
I'll be 80 years old, sitting on the porch,
farting dust and he is still gonna talk about that loop he threw on that calf.
- Did you see it, Jorden? - I saw it.
- Thank you, Leroy. - You bet.
Do you feel like we could gather the big pen
and you know what to do?
- Yeah, I think so. - I think you're ready.
We're gonna have Cheech work with you a bit more on roping, just in case.
Right.
- I'mma turn away like this and go behind. - There you go.
You do the same thing. Perfect.
Trying to teach you how to be a cowboy.
Cowgirl.
I mean, like, did you see it, like, leave my hand?
- I saw it. I also got it off the calf. - That's right. You were there.
- It's time for DB to get on one, ain't it? - Ain't it.
Why are you talking about yourself in the fourth person?
Donnie's trying to learn to ride broncs. Sometimes, you learn by seeing it done.
That's what I want.
I wanna show him the proper techniques of a good bronc rider.
The sport of bronc riding started back in the late 1800s
when cowboys from neighboring ranches would get together
to test their skills riding wild horses.
This evolved into the formal competition known as rodeo.
Today, bronc riding is pretty much the same as it was back then.
Rider's gotta stay on for eight seconds
and you can't touch the horse with your free hand.
If they do right eight seconds, a judge scores the ride
based on how hard the horse bucks and how well the cowboy rides.
Scores consists of 50 possible points for the horse
and 50 possible points for the rider.
Basically, nobody scores 100 unless you're Dale Brisby,
even though nobody saw it that one time.
If you score 80 or above though, you're doing great.
It's been a minute since I've seen Dale get on a bronc.
But it never disappoints.
Every time he gets on, something... something exciting happens.
- Yeah, he did. Yeah, he did. - Yeah!
Let me get that rein one more time.
Ooh, baby.
Go to him. Keep breathing.
Lift and stay back. Fight.
Fight this sucker. Fight him.
Keep breathing. Have fun.
Oh, he's ready now.
- Spur! Spur! - There you go!
Spur! Spur!
There you go! Keep with it!
Keep with it! There you go!
There you go.
- Yeah, he did! Whoo! - Yeah!
It's pretty rad. Pretty gnarly.
- Gnarly. - Yeah.
Watching guys like Dale ride, it helps a lot
when you're trying to learn how to ride bucking horses.
You learn a lot by watching what they're doing with their feet, their upper body,
and just how to handle yourself and react.
Every little bit of seeing it done correctly
makes it that much more educational.
Just when he makes that first move and you know it's coming,
- just reach up high and grab it. - Yeah.
Like your intuition is... is that
"I'm just gonna kind of sit up and wait and see what happens."
But everything about this sport is counterintuitive.
Breathe. Keep breathing.
This is... I mean, this is exactly what it's gonna be like.
Donnie's ridden bucking horses before, but never at a rodeo
in a pressure situation
where you gotta be ready to turn it on at a moment's notice.
If he's gonna compete at a rodeo,
then he needs to know how to ride under pressure.
- Stay back. - All I need's a big nod, Donnie.
Yes, sir.
Okay.
Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!
Fight! Lift! Lift!
You got it! You got it!
Double barrel.
Attaboy, Donnie.
Kick over. Boy, Donnie! Yeah!
- I needed that this time. - Way to go, Dance!
When Donnie came here, he was a bartender from Missouri.
Now he's getting on broncs in Texas.
It takes a lot to overcome the fear and emotion
that Donnie has to get where he's at now.
Fight! Fight! Fight!
- That's a big rear out. - I needed that.
- Feel good? - Yes.
- Yeah. - Yes.
When you get a victory like that, it just... you just build off of that.
- Is it confidence? - Oh yeah, confidence is key for sure.
You gotta... You gotta believe in yourself.
If you don't believe in yourself, no one else will.
- That was a win. - Hell yeah.
- That was a W. - Yeah.
So we'll take it.
Donnie did a great job on Brisket, running for eight seconds,
and it's time for him to work his way up the ladder.
He's gonna get on one of my harder bucking horses. He gets to choose.
And I'd like to see him ride that horse for eight seconds
before he goes to the rodeo.
Neither Donnie nor I got muddy.
Yet.
Who better to get muddy than Cheecho Nation himself?
Yah!
No!
Dale loves to mud wrestle.
Don't get my hair muddy.
I'm not gonna get your hair muddy.
I think sometime he may have mud wrestled to pay his rent.
Ow! Ahh!
Let's go check out your roping ability.
First off, I can really see that you have handled a rope a little bit.
A little bit.
With an intern, I wanna make sure that whoever I'm packing with in the pasture
is gonna be able to help me capture something.
- If we need to. - Yeah.
Dale asked Cheech to teach me how to rope, which is really difficult.
Odds are I'm not going to be roping anything on this cattle drive.
But it just mentally prepares me for when I go out there.
And I don't wanna be that weak link when we're gathering those cows.
In the morning, typically, when I wake up,
I try to rope the dummy at least ten times before I leave the house.
I'll feed my rope, I'll keep enough between my hands
and then I'll rope it the way it needs to be roped.
Now, keep your left hand down and swing your rope. You don't have to swing fast.
When you deliver that rope, throw like you're gonna point at it
at the base of his right horn. Cover that right horn, left horn.
- You got close. - I did get close.
You did good.
Watch my hands 'cause I'm gonna do everything really slow and break it down.
I'm the best roper here at Radiator Ranch.
It took a lot of time, a lot of practice to get to where I'm at today.
I've competed just all along the board
of the Western industry with a rope in my hand.
So a rope is basically an extension of myself.
Like Spider-Man, my rope is my web.
- Both of my hands go forward. - Forward.
My delivery is right here.
Flatten out your elbow a little bit.
More wrist. Go like this. Bring your elbow down to a 90.
There you go. And deliver.
Open up.
- Very close. That's good. - Kinda went over the top of it.
- Now, this time, you're gonna catch it. - Yeah.
- That was bad. I got this. - It's okay. You got this?
- Let me try one more time. - All right.
That was just bad. That was just bad.
Yup.
I'm excited for Jorden to come with us and gather cows.
I think she's been working really, really hard and she deserves it.
Maybe rope that thing one more time and we'll... we'll get out of this thing.
Boom. We're... That's it.
Good job. Heck of a day.
I wanna be an all-around hand. I want to get there.
Yeah, well, you're on your way.
You don't know how long it takes you to put chaps on
until there's people watching you.
No kidding. Then they say something and then you can't find a hole.
- Want me to help? - No, get out of here.
- I want you to stop talking to me. - Here, let me help you.
- Get out of here. - Okay.
Donnie's reached the top rung of the ladder and he's gotta step it up.
And he's going with Burrito.
He's gonna be a lot faster and stronger than just a normal rodeo horse.
It's kind of like you've been on JV, and it's your first varsity game.
He's definitely going to have to bring his A game.
Lift, Donnie!
You got to go to a place in that bucking chute
where your own mother doesn't recognize you.
Donnie's got the fire.
And... And that's the thing.
If you can turn it on here like he can, then you're suited for a rodeo.
- Breathe this time. Lift and breathe. - Yeah.
- You got it. - Okay.
I chose Burrito just because, like, he's gonna be young and fast and snappy,
and it's gonna be a test.
If I can ride Burrito, I'm one step closer to going to that rodeo.
- Lift! Lift! Lift! - Spur! Spur! Lift!
You good? Get up.
Gosh. Mother.
Yah! Yah! Yah! Yah!
- You okay? - Yeah.
I'm good. I'm good. Just give me a second.
- You gotta stop saying the F word. - I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. But that hurt, man.
And then I landed on my shoulder.
- You were trying though. - I know.
You tried the whole time. You didn't stop trying.
If there's ever a time that I get nervous with students,
him flying through the air there was one of them.
He floated up on the back of that horse and then that horse kicked
and he's flying through the air upside down.
And you're helpless.
What do you feel like happened?
- Like, what bucked you off? - I don't know. I got ran out the back.
You gotta lift and stay back. It's one of those two things.
Man, I'm trying. I really am. I don't want you to think I'm not trying.
- I don't think that. - No. We know you are.
- That sucker fired. - Dang.
I landed right on my shoulder. Good thing it's my off shoulder.
He has all the right traits and all the right stuff.
He just needs to get on more horses.
And to go out and be successful,
you've gotta fail thousands of times.
It's all good. That's the way the cards fall sometimes.
Don't get down on yourself.
You want to be able to ski double black diamonds
and you feel like you're falling down on bunny slopes.
It doesn't feel good, you know?
You nodded your head. Keep nodding your head.
It's gonna get better every time.
This didn't go the way that Donnie and I had hoped.
He'll get another shot soon.
You'll get him next time, Donnie.
What you got to say, fearless leader?
Most ranches gather cows a couple times a year,
and on a massive ranch, could take up to 15, 16 cowboys all day.
On my humble ranch, it takes us about six or seven cowboys
and takes us ten hours.
With a six-hour lunch.
Jorden, the most important thing today is number one,
don't lose your hat.
- All right. - Number two, don't get lost.
Number three, is make sure you get the cows gathered.
All right.
At this point, I don't wanna be that weak link.
I've got to remember to stay in formation when we're gathering those cows.
If you do get lost, be sure you come back with something.
Like a deer antler...
Protein bucket.
- A rattlesnake you killed with your teeth. - Yes, bingo.
Today's the big day.
So I brought in the big guns for the big day,
my sister, Dancey.
My name is Dancey. I am Dale and Leroy's older, wiser, beautiful, brilliant sister.
Taught 'em everything they know.
Jorden, repeat after me.
- I'm amazing. - I'm amazing.
- I am powerful. - I am powerful.
These work for my kids. It'll be good.
All right, guys, enough chit-chat. Let's move these cows.
When it's time to work cattle at Radiator Ranch,
I expect a phone call.
Try and keep up, Cheech.
She's actually more cowboy and tougher than all of us.
Come on, ladies.
- Hey, hey, hey! - Hey, girls.
He likes the ladies.
Cows, by definition, are female. The males are called bulls.
So, when we're rounding up cows, it's because we've got them out there
to make babies.
- Hey, hey. Whoa them up there, Jorden. - Round that bush.
- Jorden. - Jorden, go whoa 'em up.
Cows are herd animals, they follow each other.
When you have one or two that go the direction you don't want,
you have to cut around them, cut them off, push them back to be with the rest
or else they're all gonna follow and get away.
Scoot over, Jorden.
- Right there. - I'm going.
See if you can't push them back in here just a smidge.
I'm coming.
Yeah, she did.
Really good job, Jorden.
Yah!
Step up.
It's hot today, and when these cows get hot,
sometimes you wanna go a bit slower and it's gonna take a bit longer.
All right, Jorden, you can sneak down here on my side.
Just let them sit right here for a second.
- Am I good right here? - Yes, ma'am.
Is this what you're wanting to learn?
Yes, this is... this is exactly what I wanted to learn.
This is the kind of hands-on experience that I wanted to get.
- This is the best part, gathering cows. - Yeah.
Well, you've been doing a really good job.
This is what ranching is all about.
Being able to do this firsthand is something that I could do 50 more times
and still learn something new.
We'll go down to the pens, Cheecho.
Get down. Get to sorting.
Just let the cows in.
Just the fat mamas.
Once we get to the pens, we're gonna wean these calves,
which means we're gonna separate the calves off the mamas
and you'll do various things to them.
Vaccinate them, check everything over.
Push 'em in just like that. Now, Donnie, you go and you'll turn to the right.
Sneak in there and grab you some.
Yeah, girl. Yeah, girl.
All right, Dance, cows only.
Here we go. Now we're sorting.
Good cut, Dance.
There you go. That's fine. That's a win.
There you go, Dance.
Really push on, Dance. Don't let 'em run over you.
Dance is doing all the good!
Great job, Dance. Really good job.
Good job, Dancey.
Sorting is similar to a dance in that there is rhythm to it.
It's tough, but Dancey can do it. Like, she wants to be the best.
I had a feeling she was gonna do a good job.
Too bad you're self-employed. I'd hire you.
You can't afford me.
Good job, Jorden.
Jorden did great today.
She kept her spot in line, she didn't get lost or lose her hat.
Got all the cows in the pen. It was a great day.
Cheech, on the other hand...
- Cheech, you did good yourself. - Thank you, sir.
Leroy, great job. Donnie.
Shucks.
The cattle drive today was a success,
mostly because we were ready for it and I'm a really good leader.
That was pretty smooth.
And I don't wanna take all the credit, but just, like, most of it.
Jorden's been working real hard on her ranching
and she did a great job keeping the cows in line.
Donnie's been putting in the practice to get to the rodeo.
And I know he's not gonna be satisfied until he gets there.
They say success is what happens when hard work meets preparation,
and that's why cowboys are always prepared.
Guys, let's go.
Ain't no feeling like cow mobiling.
Don't try to race me.
That was from the three-point line!