Coming over from the hunter/jumper road, I’ve been looking at trainers as some of you guys know for cutters or reiners. In my search, I have come across jobs for “experienced lopers”. What is a loper? Are they like the “working student” of the western world? What do they do? Do they just lope horses?
Sorry if these are dumb questions, but I was just wondering what they do! I see them mostly for cutting barns.
I have no idea. I’ve never heard of that. Maybe that’s someone who exercises their horses?
[QUOTE=Renae;6876059]
http://www.quarterhorsenews.com/index.php/cutting/cutting-outside-the-pen/9615-loping-whats-the-big-deal.html[/QUOTE]
"College degrees are not rare. Social or anti-social. Grew up hard, ran away and joined the circus. Grew up easy in luxury but has this cutting disease. Fair amount are Aussies but nothing strange about that in cutting. I have never seen one that did not clean up good!
Some show when they can. Some have their own horse and some catch ride. A few will become trainers. Some have married trainers and promptly tried to kill ‘em. Several have married trainers and together they dream of making it in this business. Plenty have, it is a common bond with complimenting talents. Lopers are organized and trainers are, uh … well that’s a different column. Lopers are the keepers of secrets, repositories of true knowledge and have hangover cures.
Lopers are responsible for the care, conditioning and feeding of the horses. Your horses. The job description is endless, so are the hours. A Loper will be the first in the barn, which can mean 3 a.m. Many times to feed, therapy, give meds, groom, saddle, turn back, unsaddle, wash and iron ‘em , clean stalls, load trailers, change oil, order feed, stack hay, wash splint boots and leg wraps, doctor cattle, receive cattle, ship cattle, take horses to vet, drive the truck and trailer to shows (often a big truck hauling eight,10 or even 12 head), mind reader, interpreter, receiver of blame, and public relations expert. Before lunch, sometimes before breakfast."
Hahahaha. SIGN ME UP. I fit the job criteria! That was an awesome article. Thank you!
Short answer is, they’re the folks who lope cutting horses for however long to get them ready for cutting. An assembly line process, the trainer/competitor hands the reins of the horse that just finished to the one that just loped and is going in to cut cows. Can go on all day.
It sounds worse than a WS or assistant trainer. The article suggests that lopers also do the job a groom would do in H/J world.
That sounds like a long, hard day.
my boyfriend occasionally takes on this job (for cutting horse trainers) he goes and stays with them for the week, wakes up about 4AM to feed horses, then they are warmed up and loped- where they get the term loper. sometimes if he’s lucky he gets to take a nap in the afternoon but they usually have enough clients showing where he rides until 9 at night.
[QUOTE=Beverley;6876177]
Short answer is, they’re the folks who lope cutting horses for however long to get them ready for cutting. An assembly line process, the trainer/competitor hands the reins of the horse that just finished to the one that just loped and is going in to cut cows. Can go on all day.[/QUOTE]
This. I lope for a good friend of mine when she needs an extra hand and literally all I do is tack horses up, usually all at once, get on, lope around for about a half hour (depending what each horse needs), get off, untack real quick, get on the next horse…
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