The Perfect Penalty

The saying is true, if you want something bad enough you’ve got to get creative and creative is the exact word I’d use for trainer Casey Crouch and his technique to train bad habits out of his clients. They call it the “Hot Quit Bottle,” and it roots back to 2015.

“It started actually right here at the futurity. We showed the colt here at the futurity and I hot quit in the first go around,” Crouch said. “It was a walking hot quit. I’ll go to my grave-I did not hot quit the cow, but they got me for it! Anyway, before it was all said and done, Joe had hot quit twice on this horse here at the futurity.”

It wasn’t until the horse was showed again in Batesville, Mississippi, that the whole bottle ordeal began.

Watch the full interview below, or continue reading …

“We get to Batesville and I have a pretty good run the first day and they have an R on one of my runs and it was for a quit and it was good,” Crouch said. “Anyway my wife got a little excited, she’s a big part of this the whole deal, so she got a little excited and we had several questionable quits and about the third day I Hott Quit won, and when I walked out of the arena I could see fire blowing out her ears I knew she was a little upset.”

“Everything settles and I go to work some horses for my amateurs and what not and everybody’s kind of laughing you know, ha ha-ing about it in the practice pen and here she comes and she walks up and everybody gets quiet,” Crouch said. “And we’re sitting there and she says, ‘if any one of you hot quit again I’m going to explode, I’m gonna have it out on you.’ So it becomes a big joke. So then we decided were going to have a hot quit bottle.”

Ever since that day the hot quit bottle is a five-dollar penalty for Crouch and his clients, however, Crouch claims that it isn’t humiliating to pay into the bottle, but actually ‘softens the blow,’ so to speak.  

“We take it very seriously but by the same token you gotta enjoy it,” Crouch said. “You gotta enjoy what you’re doing and one time in particular as the year went if somebody even questioned it they’d come out laughing digging in their pocket, ‘I’m in.’” 

Crouch’s unique way to put a quit on hot quits has touched more people than those just in his program and has made a positive impact on others.

“We were at Dripping Springs, Texas and there was a lady there and she had a pretty nice run and she hot quit, she’s not in my barn but I help her a lot and what not, anyway she hot quit a cow and had a really nice run,” Crouch said. “And this is one time that really stands out, she was very disgusted and really upset with herself and as we’re walking out of the pen I ride up beside her and I told her she owes me five bucks. And she looks at me and she’s not sure what to say at that moment and then about that time she goes to smiling and she says, ‘thank you so much,’ it just softened everything.”

When speaking with Crouch, it was early in the day that they had agreed to open, count and spend the money in the bottle, so what did they spend it on exactly?

“We haven’t decided what we’re going to do with it yet. That’ll come today sometime, but several people have put in several times, myself included,” Crouch said. “We gotta come up with what we’re doing. Maybe a big party, it might be a big one from the looks of the bottle.”