I'm happy to say things have been busy. The store is thriving, my kids have been playing soccer and attending scouting meetings, and we're readying the house for winter. And, oh yeah, we've started another business! Crazy right? Not really. This has been something I've been working on for two years now and actually doing for free to help promote other associations. It's time to go big and make some money for my time and effort. What I'm talking about is CowboyMountedShooters.com. This is the end result (or should I say just the beginning?) of the High Point Quarter Horse Cowboy Mounted Shooter award I started first in my home state of New Hampshire and then took Regionally in New England. The original purpose of the program in NH was to promote Quarter Horses within the Mounted Shooting community. It worked well and I expanded the program out to include all of AQHA Region 6. The program was a success. I not only increased the awareness of the competitiveness of the Quarter Horse in the sport of Cowboy Mounted Shooting, but I also increased the membership in the local affiliates. Finally the Mounted Shooters had a reason to join their local AQHA affiliate as they needed to be a member to sign up for the program. I did get a lot of grief however. The other breeds felt left out. They also wanted to be recognized and compete within their breed division. As soon as I was able to secure the web domain cowboymountedshooters.com I knew it was time to take things further and include all breeds.
I am thrilled to announce the creation of the first Cowboy Mounted Shooting Team recognition program, Cowboy Mounted Shooters.com. I say team because all points are tallied based on a horse and rider team. We don't point just the horse or just point the rider, you are recognized as a team. Cowboy Mounted Shooting has many elements, however the most important is the relationship and communication between horse and rider. You want to shoot the course as best you can and not have to worry about your horse getting confused or not taking a cue. Navigating a course at a high speed while shooting a .45 takes skill and lots of trust between the horse and rider. There is a lot of work done one on one before competing. Imagine going through all of that training and when the winners are announced they announce your horse and leave you out! Hummm. Now I know horses can't understand "human talk", but I know many "humans" who are so proud of their horse that they want them recognized! Without your horse, your teammate, would you be as good? Some Mounted Shooters have a few different horses they compete on. They're all different teams as no two horses are the same. They all take one on one work and from that you get the end result in competition. Teams will compete against other horses within their breed or in the grade horse division on a national, regional and state level. We're starting with recognizing 7 different breeds and will add more as necessary.
So here we go! I've enlisted one of the best known names in the sport of Cowboy Mounted Shooting to help out, Frank Turben. Frank was with the Cowboy Mounted Shooting Association since it's creation and just moved on this year to start some new ventures. He will be creating our website, including registration and point tracking, through his website company frankturben.com. Working with Frank has been a joy. He is a seasoned professional and I would recommend him to anyone looking for a great website. I've also consulted with Andra Olsen from A.J. Horses and representative of Colt Firearms. Aside from being one of the top Cowboy Mounted Shooters in the country, Andra is a smart businesswoman. She has been very gracious and never hesitates to let me bounce ideas off her. With Frank, Andra, and of course, my husband Patrick, I've assembled fabulous a team to take CowboyMountedShooters.com national.
Stay tuned.......
