{"id":110864,"date":"2015-07-23T06:10:19","date_gmt":"2015-07-23T12:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fair-will-feature-colt-challenge-contest\/"},"modified":"2015-07-23T06:10:19","modified_gmt":"2015-07-23T12:10:19","slug":"fair-will-feature-colt-challenge-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fair-will-feature-colt-challenge-contest\/","title":{"rendered":"Fair will feature Colt Challenge contest"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A
A rider successfully controls a previously unbroken horse during a Colt Starting Challenge event.<\/span>Courtesy photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

For centuries, training horses has been a major part of ranch work worldwide.<\/p>\n

The key, horsemen say, comes in the early stages of a colt\u2019s development.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe funnest time of training horses is the first few days,\u201d said Victor Sundquist, a trainer from Olathe, Colo.<\/p>\n

Such is the foundation for Colt Starting Challenge USA, an association of two-day competitions that feature trainers utilizing Natural Horsemanship methods with young horses.<\/p>\n

The next event is scheduled for Thursday, July 30, from noon to 3 p.m., and Friday, July 31, from 8 a.m. to noon at the Montezuma County Fairgrounds Arena in Cortez. Tickets are $5 for adults and $2 for children ages 7 to 12. Kids 6 and under are free.<\/p>\n

Sundquist is a four-time champion who has excelled at numerous challenges, most recently at the Rocky Mountain Horse Expo event in Denver, where he walked away with the Winning Champion Trainer Buckle.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the first two days, the colt is able to learn new things really fast,\u201d said Sundquist, 20, now in his sixth year of training professionally. \u201cIt\u2019s amazing what you can do in the first hour. I\u2019ve actually been able to stand up on a horse in the first couple of hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

That quick timeline becomes quite evident during the Colt Starting Challenge. Each trainer is matched with a horse via random draw; the colts have not been started and have never been saddled nor bridled. The trainers will work with the animals over the course of two two-hour sessions set up over two days, and judges will determine which of the trainers wins.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will have two hours of work the first day with a half-hour break in between,\u201d said Russell Beatty, who founded the Colt Starting Challenge USA. \u201cThis is all done with an audience, and each contestant has a microphone so that when it\u2019s their time to talk, they can say what they\u2019re doing and why they\u2019re doing it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe second day has two 45-minute sessions with a break in between. After the second session, we tear down the round pens, set up our obstacle course and the contestants ride their horse through the obstacle course. The winner gets a buckle.\u201d<\/p>\n

The contestants love the idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cI honestly see this as a great idea with a great future, which is why I\u2019m doing it,\u201d said Bob Mundy of Norco, California, who has competed in seven events in the last year, which includes four victories. \u201cI really like the whole philosophy behind it. This gives the smaller guy, the guy that has no name, the opportunity to go out and show his skills and promote himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cI also think it educates people, because you will have four guys who do things similarly but they do them differently.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Montezuma County event takes place at fairgrounds July 30, 31<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":110865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6363],"tags":[188,13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-110864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ds-news","tag-dolores-star","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110864"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=110864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}