Wild horses

RONAN — Working through drenching rain and hail, three Ronan men truly tamed the wild in front of a crowd on Friday and Saturday.

Closed in a round pen with an untrained, unbroken 2-year-old colt, Levi Guenzler, Josh Senecal and Levi Walchuk got just three hours—two on Friday evening and one on Saturday—to train the horses before riding them through an obstacle course.

This was the Round Pen Shoot-Out, a horse-training event sponsored by the Rocky Mountain Breeders Association. The association held a similar expo in Great Falls in May. It was the second such event in as many years in Ronan. Prior to 2012, they had taken a hiatus.

“A couple of people in Ronan wanted to get them started up again, so we formed a committee and got it done,” Ashley Schweigert, the committee’s co-chair said. She added that co-chair Mike Lyons had taken the initiative on it.

“It wasn’t my idea…but once they asked me to do it I was on board,” said Schweigert, who breeds and trains horses herself.

All three men, being experienced horse trainers, were able to break their horses and complete the obstacle course. They were judged from start to finish by a committee, and places were announced following the course ride.

Guenzler took home first place, which included a $1,300 cash prize and freebies from the event’s sponsors. The $600 second prize went to Senecal, and Walchuk received $400 for third. None of the trainers had participated in a round pen shoot-out before.

What intrigued the crowd was the trainers’ ability to impart knowledge in such little time.

“This is probably put on a little faster than they would at home,” Schweigert said.

Guenzler said the answer was both yes and no.

“I try to be on a horse within about two hours,” the 24-year-old champion said. He added that other facets of the training wouldn’t have happened for about a week.

“When I start a horse at home, I like to take them at their pace and progress them along and do what they’re capable of at the time,” Guenzler said. “…I could tell with my horse that she didn’t want to go at that pace.”

All three trainers used different tactics to train the horses. Walchuk used a whip to get the horse accustomed to startling noises. Guenzler opted to use a flag for the same purpose. Senecal rattled the fences around the pen.

“I just tried getting her feet moving,” Guenzler said. “She wanted to be real heavy footed. I used that flag as my coaxer if she needed some incentive to get moving. It kind of desensitizes them at the same time.”

Part of each rider’s demonstration included showing how the horses had been trained with and without the rider.

Terry Pitts, who breeds horses on his farm in Dixon, provided the colts. To even the playing field, the trainers were allowed to pick from four of Pitts’ horses.