Ah yes! I can answer that! The Vaqueros used to denote that a horse was very finely trained by adorning him with silver. It was a sign of a horse trained to the highest degree - e.g. that horse earned it.
That morphed into the western show world we have today, which is one of those amazing things that has always happened with showing animals over time.
Also a lot of those riders today are afraid of cattle. Afraid to ride their horse in a cattle pen. With good reason, the horse is afraid of them, too. “Cow horse” ancestors and culture not withstanding.
There are a lot of western riders who do ride cattle. But they typically are not the blingy type. With some individual exceptions, of course. 
Reading this I remembered an incident from some years ago. I had my horses ( mixed herd, older and younger horses all English bred Dressage horses) in a pasture besides a huge cow pasture.
It was cows with some bulls. Most of the time you wouldn’t even see them because they had a lot of acreage to roam around.
One night there was a huge heavy thunderstorm so I went to the pasture early to check on the horses 
. They were absolutely fine grazing and acting very normal…. but to me something looked strange…. And then I saw it. Right in the middle of the pasture surround by my horses was a huge bull… he looked very uncomfortable and hardly moved at all . So I called the farmer to remove his bull…. we believed that he got scared of the thunderstorm and jumped the fence…
The farmer had huge issues to move his bull back because he was not really handled while my horses watched the whole thing and looked very interested……
So IMO it’s not the horses which are scared of cattle……
Horse attitudes to cattle vary a lot and can be influenced by breeding, early exposure, and rider attitude. I would say all horses that grow up around cows get used to them, and most horses that have extended exposure like in neighboring fields get used to them as well. Especially if the people in their lives are relaxed about cattle.
Cow sense or being “cowy” is more of an inherent trait like herding instinct in breeds of dogs. QH and Iberians were both historically bred to work cattle, but these days there will be lines and individuals that don’t have innate cow sense.
I think a good cutter needs cow sense and athleticism. My Paint mare enjoys pushing cattle around and caught on to it quickly, but doesn’t want to work fast and agile enough to do actual team penning which is a speed sport let along cutting! But she’d be happy pushing cows on a trail as a working cowhorse. They fascinate her.
On the other hand any horse can spook when a big beef cow or deer or Unidentified Object is crashing through the bush.
I had a quarter horse growing up that was deathly afraid of cows. Admittedly, these were dairy cows, but he had zero “cow” in him and I had to get off and lead him past them because he would stand there and quake.
He was an ex HUS horse (full QH, but with a lot of TB up close) and I just don’t think that cow gene was expressed in him. Maybe beef cattle would have been better - maybe it was the spots that were getting him…I dunno….but he sure did not follow his breeding!
Afraid of cattle, or just plain not interesting in having anything to do with them? There’s a big difference there, besides cattle classes get expensive! Personally I’d rather not have anything to do with them, but I did help my friends move cattle from time to time, my old gelding who did WP and Hunter classes, and games classes, quite enjoyed it. A friend of mine even used him as a turnback horse at a cutting. My now retired mare just had no idea what to do with calves, though I did help push some when they had roping practice.
Horses can be afraid of what they aren’t familiar with. I had a grade mare when I was a teen, who could jump a 4’ oxer when it was natural rails. Point her at a jump with painted rails and she’d slam on the brakes. This was a mare that was never afraid of anything besides school buses.
A friend had an older, maybe 18, big paint gelding he had been roping in the arena with for years.
He was only an arena roper, not a cowboy or much of a rider.
He had been super busy and not ridden for a bit and asked me if I would take his old paint and ride him for a couple weeks so he was more fit to start the roping session.
Took this super gentle old paint first morning to check water, fences and cattle.
We hit first water tank in the brush before the first canyon and some of the steers started getting up as we approached and old paint lost his marbles.
Took me a bit to realize why he was so scared he was shaking, a big holstein looking steer just got up.
I could not get that horse up any closer without a fight neither one of us wanted, he was absolutely terrified of that steer. A roping horse, surely he had seen paint cattle before?
By the time friend wanted his horse back, old paint was still not sure that steer was not an impostor, a horse eating monster, kept looking for him every bunch we came to.
Friend had never noticed his quiet nice polite horse had a problem with paint cattle. 
And hunting, if you were learning forward seat.
There are cows/steers/bulls that will charge horses. They aren’t scared of the horse. You need to be very cow savvy when rounding up these cattle or you can find yourself in a dangerous position.
Especially dangerous when your dog runs thru your horse from one of those mad cows and she follows dog right underneath and gets stuck there for a bit, before chasing on, thankfully. 
Not with a stubborn huge German Warmblood… And my horses were in the majority…
I had another experience with horse cow interactions……
Many years ago, I was still a child we had a horse which had to recover from a respiratory issue.
A friend of ours told us that he would turn him out with his herd ( horses) for the summer.
But when he arrived our friend was scared that his heard might harm him. So he offered to keep him in a paddock for a couple of days until he got used to his farm. To keep him from being lonesome he put 2 cows with him in that big paddock with solid fencing. He didn’t seem bothered by them so we left. The next day our friend called and said that this didn’t work… when he checked the paddock, our horse was inside and the cows were outside … I never knew that cattle could jump that high but I guess my horse made clear that he did not like them. So we did turn him out with the herd and of course there was no problem
And just saying that horse lived up to 30… he was tough
I think I could probably ride my PRE through the bit of trail that sometimes has free range cattle on it when the cows are there and not die. She was turned out with cows at a previous yard, and she goes past fields with them without any trouble. Plus, she’s a PRE!
But my old horse (Shire-TBx) was so scared of cows. Horse would completely implode when you rode past them in a field, and there was nothing you could do but kiss your arse goodbye and hang on for dear life. I had that horse for 21 years, and while I’ve got over passing them with a fence between us, I just can’t bring myself to face sharing the space with them.
At a place where I pasture boarded we’d occasionally find the odd cow in the field. Usually around weaning time, it seemed. A few neighbors had cows. None of the horses seemed to care that a cow was now grazing with them.
My last horse (PRE) wasn’t the bravest soul, and current youngster (also PRE) is a curious type, but both didn’t/don’t care about cows. They’re generally curious about other farm animals.
I used to hack with a fellow boarder when I lived in Germany and her mare could be weird about cows. She wasn’t a fan when/if we had to pass next to a field of them.
When I was growing up in Texas, it seemed that most of the horses I was around had spent some time in their life pastured with cattle. Pastures were extremely large and it was kind of expected that they would have cattle and some horses as well. And many people turned mares and their older foals out to let the young horses grow until time to learn saddling. So, most horses didn’t give cattle a second glance.
Fast forward to recent times. There is a lovely small ranch? farm? in North Texas with a nice cross-country schooling course built on the forward part of the cow pasture. If you are going there on open schooling days, you and your horses will share space with the cows, as there is only the perimeter fence, and no fence to keep the cows off the cross-country course. The owners see no reason why that would be needed.
Cows being cows, they tend to gather near the cross-country area to stare fascinated at the horses jumping obstacles. What on earth has got in to those horses to make them gallop and jump like that?
Of course today the horses may come from anywhere. Maybe they’ve seen cows before, maybe they were unaware that there was such a thing.
The rider on the bravest horse can ride toward a group of cows and kind of shoo them back a bit. The cows do seem to get the idea that the bleacher seats are best for watching the show.
By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You may also receive promotional emails from The Chronicle of the Horse. You can opt out at any time.
For Customers
Company
Terms of Use
