I now know everything I need to know about cutting horses.

Click the pics, before you get cut out of the herd.

Sunrise this morning.

 I spent some time watching the cutting competition over at the main horse arena this morning, and as usual, I'm having trouble taking an interesting picture.

I can tell that this whole cutting horse thing is very popular, and it seems to be most popular with older, more financially well-off folks. Just looking at the contestants, it's easy to see that it appeals to older people, and seeing what a good cutting horse costs, and looking at the large, high-quality horse trailers these horses arrive in, it's apparent these are not your average cowboys.

Since most horse and rodeo type sports require a lot of athleticism and no small amount of danger, I would postulate that cutting horse competitions appeal mostly to the older crowd, and I would equate cutting horses competitions to something like golf, both of which are sports that can be participated in by folks of just about any age. There are some young contestants here, but not very many, and they seem to be relatives of the older folks.

So trying to watch a cutting horse competition if you're not a fan of the sport is, to say the very least, boring and offers very little of anything interesting to take a picture of.

And to make it worse for taking pictures, it's indoors and not very well lit. But at least nothing is moving very fast, so I don't need a fast shutter speed, but not only is the competition slow, there's just not much happening, or going to happen... Ever.

Watching fishing shows on television is pretty boring, but they might catch a fish at least every once in a while. But with cutting horse competitions, there's never anything going on. There's no chance of anything going on, at least in terms of taking an interesting snapshot, so no matter how long I stand there and watch, with my camera at the ready, I know it's not going to get any more interesting than when I first walked in the door.

Theboondork

   

So, how old are they? Old enough to need a step-stool to get on their horse.

Yep, this is what they do. The cowboy sits motionless in the saddle while the horse keeps a steer from rejoining the herd. This is the exciting part of the competition.

Same as above.

The only spectators, other than me, are family members, and even they don't stick around very long.

A cutting horse doing what a cutting horse does.

The best thing at the cutting horse competition, was this tiny furry little dog. When I first walked by I thought it was a Hamster on a string. I looked it up on the Internet and I think it's a long-haired Chihuahua. The critter was about the size of my shoe, and if it wasn't for the dog I could've left my camera at home.