Ty Cole got his start riding range colts in Montana. After attending a cutting, Ty’s fascination with horsemanship was sparked. Ten years later, he specializes in yearlings, trains them for a year or two and then sells them mostly to cutting and cow horse competitors.
To learn his craft, he spent 6 months riding with Zane Davis. He said everything changed for him when he worked for Tom Campbell, based in Texas. Tom had a good string of horses and soon Tom said, “Alright, you’re up.” Ty got on his A string horses for the next few days. He said that helped him develop feel and how to cow up a horse. He said he felt those horses think independently about the cow.
Ty said a lot of people have helped him along the way from Tom Dvorak to Chris Dawson. Ty lives 5 hours away from anything in Idaho, so the chance to spend some winters in Texas near these talented horsemen was invaluable.
Ty said his favorite thing about the sport is the horses. “It’s all about the horses. We couldn’t do anything without the horses.”
Ty doesn’t get to show a lot, but his best memory is being second at the Utah Derby on a horse he still owns. Now, his kids get to ride it.
Another highlight was when he trained and sold a mare named Wanna Duel right before the Futurity. Chubby Turner ended up winning the Augusta Futurity on the horse the following January.
“When you ride a good one, they make you.”
Ty remembers a concept that really clicked for him when he was watching Grant Setnicka’s CHTO video. The video just helped him think about the horse’s position on the cow. Getting that different perspective changed a lot for Ty. In 3 days, he started being more aware of his position on a cow.
Why do you use CHTO? “…I live 5 hours from going to ride with anybody, and the knowledge is just… You have all the top professionals that are giving out information that I wouldn’t have available to me without going to ride with them.”
How do you use/apply CHTO? “How I apply it is [based on] who I like to watch in the practice pen at Fort Worth… I love watching Lloyd, I sit and watch Austin Shepard like a hawk. Adan Banuelos, Kathy Daughn. The reason CHTO has been so valuable is…[the trainers] make cow horses. They go, they stop with a cow, they leave with a cow. They read a cow all the way through that turn. The nice part about it is, you don’t see Austin Shepherd wrestling with them…He’s just an artist.”