How an Underdog Won the Super Bowl of Horse Competitions: A Lesson on Courage, Authenticity, & Living True to Yourself

So even if you've never ridden a horse, been around a horse, consider yourself to be a horse person.

My friend, today's interview is something that is going to transform your life.

Because honestly, when you boil it down, Tick story today, what it's about, it's about really waking up to who you really and truly are, and ultimately finding the courage to step into it, even when the stakes are high.

So, my friend, I encourage you to get ready, to lean in, to get excited, because today's episode is gonna move you.

This is episode 404 of Grit Grace and Inspiration.

Me, I'm your host, Kevin Lowe.

And of course, as always, I am absolutely stoked that you are here today.

Now, as one little extra bonus in case today's episode isn't enough, well, I want you to check out the link at the top of today's show notes where you can hear this entire story shrunk down into just a song.

Yeah, a custom country song that tells the story of Tick Maynard.

It's called The Horseman's Dance and is ready for you to listen right now.

So I encourage you first listen to the interview, but then be sure to check out the song for a little extra something.

Just to be sure that you get enough of Tick Maynard in your life.

Why not have it as a song as well?

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I got Grit Grayson Inspiration on my mind.

SPEAKER_01: What is going on, and welcome back to Grit Grayson Inspiration.

I'm your host, Kevin Lowe.

Today I have the pleasure of being in the studio with none other than the infamous Mr.

Tick Vaynard.

Tick, man, what a pleasure to have you here.

Welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Kevin.

It is an honor and a privilege and a pleasure to be here uh chatting with you.

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.

Well, well, Tick, I'm excited to get to dive into your story, but you know, I always say, you know, obviously a story starts at the beginning.

And the question that I would love to start off with is what does your first memory kind of revolve around in regards to horses?

I guess I'm just kind of curious to understand where horses entered the picture for you.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a lot of uh, you know, in the horse world, there's a lot of kids that didn't grow up around horses.

And you can see that passion in kids, sometimes as young as three or four years old, where they want to have a stuffed animal horse, they want to go pet horses, they want to go on pony rides, they want to wear horse t-shirts or pony t-shirts or unicorn t-shirts.

But for a few of us, like myself and like some other people up out there, we grew up around horses.

And I don't even really remember the process of learning to ride.

It was just we always had horses in the backyard.

My parents rode, my brothers rode, all our neighbors rode.

And it was just part of sort of the lifestyle and the and the culture that we had growing up.

Maybe similar to the way that some people, you know, that it's what their family does.

Maybe they play baseball together or go to church together.

And so I was lucky enough to grow up in that environment.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: Now, whereabouts did you grow up at?

I grew up in a really unique area when it comes to horses.

Mostly horses are in quite rural settings, you know, wide open spaces.

We think of Texas or Montana or Colorado.

We don't usually think of major cities.

And I actually grew up in the city of Vancouver in Canada, and there's this very small pocket, maybe about a square mile, that is zoned in a way that owners are allowed to have horses right within the city limits of Vancouver.

And it's a very unique thing.

I've never heard of that in any other, you know, North American city that I that I've heard of.

So the lot sizes were not, you know, by a horse standard, the lot sizes were not very big.

They were sort of anywhere from one acre to to maybe three acres.

You know, according to the city standards, you know, where the lots are usually like a quarter acre, they were quite big.

But, you know, compared to a rural setting where farms and horses usually live, they were quite small.

And so a lot of our neighbors had horses, but there was a a riding club called Southlands Riding Club.

And so everybody that had horses, they joined the riding club, and we would lead our horses or ride our horses along the streets and along sort of the sidewalks, and there were ditches on either side of the street with uh little fish or minnows or or ducks or uh great blue herons and them, and we would ride along the road anywhere, depending on where you lived, anywhere from a quarter mile to the to the full length of that area, Southlands that's owned agriculturally, and we would ride over to the riding club.

You know, everybody that rode in that area, we all got to know each other, and we all kind of shared uh space and we were all members of that club.

It was a pretty unique way to grow up around horses.

SPEAKER_01: That is, that's fascinating.

Now, the riding club, what would you do at the club?

Like what was the, I guess, the point of being part of the club?

SPEAKER_00: So, first of all, for the people that don't have a uh horse background that are listening to this, Kevin, that we have to understand that in the horse world there's a lot of different disciplines.

You know, there's the English sports, the Olympic sports of dressage, show jumping, and three-day eventing.

And then you have the Western sports like reigning and cutting.

And then there's also a lot, a lot of other sort of disciplines, anything from thoroughbred racing to polo to endurance riding to mounted archery or mounted shooting to competitive trail riding to working accruitation.

I mean, there's I wouldn't be surprised if there's over a hundred different horse sports in existence.

And this riding club mainly catered to English riders, which means show jumping, dressage, and eventing.

And so there was, you know, six or seven different arenas.

There was a grass field we could ride in, there was a half mile track to ride around.

When it was raining, there was an indoor arena and also a covered arena, which essentially means it has a roof but no sides.

And um, because there wasn't a lot of space on the smaller lots where people kept their horses, we would all go over there and we'll be able to ride in these bigger arenas or go for a trotter canter around the half mile track.

SPEAKER_01: Wow.

That's very fascinating.

And I do appreciate you breaking down the different types of horse riding because yeah, I don't think any of us have quite the clue that there could be so much.

That's amazing.

Now, I guess what I'm curious about is when did this kind of hobby that you did with family turn into something more?

And it maybe even when did you realize, wait, I I want this to be part of my life?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I rode, you know, as a hobby and as part of the family lifestyle, you know, growing up all the time, you know, from my earliest memories of three or four or five years old, all the way up through high school.

And I rode through uh university as well.

I went to the University of British Columbia and I was there for five years from 2000 to 2005.

And then uh, you know, after that point, I was kind of in a bit of a holding pattern where I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.

And I could have gone back to school, which was certainly an option I was thinking about, but horses were the other thing in my life that I'd that I'd been doing, and that I saw a potential way to make a living and make a career out of it.

And where I was at, I wouldn't say I was necessarily a big fish in a small pond, but I was a fish in a small pond.

And I'd never really experienced a lot really outside of that.

You know, I'd never ridden in Europe, I'd never ridden in South America, I'd never gone to work for other professionals other than the people and my parents that were in this, in this small area.

And I made the decision that I was gonna put off school and put off a career, and I was gonna take a year or two, and I was gonna travel and work for other people around the world.

And when you do that, it's usually called a working student position, which is essentially an internship where a young person will go and trade manual labor, mucking stalls, sweeping, cleaning tack, grooming horses in exchange for riding lessons in order to improve the young person's riding.

And so I went and did that for a couple of years.

And when I went out and began that journey, my goal was to become a better rider.

And when I imagined a better rider, it was somebody that could sit more handsomely on a horse.

It was somebody that looked more elegant, it was somebody that was winning major competitions, it was somebody that, you know, had the respect of people and was maybe on a track to go to the Olympics.

And that's what I thought of as a good rider.

And about halfway through the kind of two years that I spent on the road, I got introduced by a few different people.

I got introduced to the concept of natural horsemanship, or what a lot of people call horsemanship or horse psychology.

And at that point, I started to switch gears slightly, and and it it drew that world of horsemanship and natural horsemanship really drew me in very quickly and very passionately.

And I decided I wanted to learn more about that.

And what I started to realize was that being a good horseman and being a good rider are not the same thing.

Being a good horseman is about learning how horses think, learning how horses feel, learning how horses learn and play, treating horses with respect, staying one step ahead of problems so that you're not reacting to problems, you're preventing them in the first place.

It's treating the horses as your partner rather than as your slave.

And it's about having a respect for where we're going as horse people and where we came from.

And that thought had never really entered my mind, you know, growing up.

It was all about, for me, I was like, I want to be a better rider, I want to be winning, I want to be competing.

Once I kind of dove deeper into that world, it just, you know, I started watching clinics, I started reading books, I started buying DVDs.

That I'd say that was sort of the biggest shift that I've had in my life is when I started to get interested in that part of horses.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

Do you think that you can be a good rider, or maybe better words, live up to the best expectations of being a good rider without being a good horseman?

SPEAKER_00: Yes, I think you can be a good rider without being a good horseman.

I think uh I think there's people, you know, for example, I worked for a while in Wellington, which is near West Palm Beach in in Florida in the United States.

And uh there's a lot of a lot of expensive horses and a lot of money and a a lot of a lot of affluence in that area.

And um, there'd be people that were young and you know, maybe in their early 20s or even teenagers, and they were young and they were smart and they were motivated.

They had a lot of money behind them.

And horses weren't something that was all encompassing for them the way that it was for me.

It was something that they wanted to do on weekends in between high school or on spring break from college.

And so what they would do is they would have they would buy really expensive horses.

Sometimes they could be a million dollars or more for these horses.

And the rider would show up on a private plane for the weekend, and they would show up at the barn, and the horse would already be caught, the horse would already be groomed, the horse would already be tacked up, and the rider would go over and get on a mountain block, never having to look the horse in the eye, and get on that horse and take a riding lesson from one of the best riding instructors in the world.

And they would do that, you know, every other weekend during the winter in Wellington, and they would compete in in uh higher and higher level competitions, whether it's dressage or show jumping.

And uh they would get to the point where I would call them very, very talented riders by going through this process of having great instruction and great horses.

But they never really had to learn how to catch a horse.

They never really had to learn how to start a horse, how to tame a horse.

Uh, because the horses were so well trained already, you know, they were buying horses that were already trained, they never really had to go a lot deeper into what horse psychology really means.

And I think in situations like that, I'd say there's a distinction between being a good rider and being a good horseman.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

I guess, you know, as you were talking it out, it it made sense because I was thinking of watching, say, like the Kentucky Derby.

So the rider obviously is the jockey, where the horseman would be the trainer.

Is that a fair comparison?

SPEAKER_00: That's the right idea.

I think you could have jockeys that are also I think a jockey could be a good rider and a good horseman, or the jockey could just be a good rider.

I think the two can go hand in hand.

And same thing with the trainers.

I think there's some trainers of of thoroughbreds, like like we see at the Kentucky Derby, where it purely becomes a numbers game where it's just the amount of horses they can get in and out, and they train all the horses sort of the same way.

And because they've got enough horses coming through the program and enough money, they're gonna have some success.

I would compare that to maybe um when I was at university, I ran uh track in cross country.

I was never super talented, but I enjoyed it.

And the our coach, the first couple years, he would have at the beginning of cross-country season in late August, early September, he would have about 80 athletes that he was training.

And he would train all 80 of us virtually the same way, you know, similar workouts, similar distance each week.

And by the time that track season ended at the you know, early summer, late spring, would have gone from having 80 people to maybe having eight people.

But the eight people that were left were really, really good.

You know, they'd gone through that, they've survived it, and they've gotten really talented.

And so he had some athletes that were really doing well, but he lost a lot along the way.

And compare that to other coaches that I've had that will tailor the workout for every single athlete, depending on their strengths, their weaknesses, how they're rehabilitating from an injury.

And so if you're starting with six athletes, but you can keep all six and have a moderate amount of success with them, in some ways, that takes more skill than having 80 athletes giving everybody the same workout and ending with eight that are doing better.

SPEAKER_01: Yes.

Yes, that makes total sense.

Absolutely fascinating, fascinating.

Well, I guess what I'm curious is is you've you've been traveling the world, you've been working, you you come to this realization that you you want to become a better horseman, not just a rider.

So, where does life kind of go from that point?

SPEAKER_00: So, even though I was interested in this idea of horsemanship and natural horsemanship, in that world, I was still, even though I was passionate about it, I was still very much a beginner and I was learning about it.

And so to make a living, I kind of went back to what I knew, which was which was teaching and riding jumping horses and three-day eventing horses.

Also, what happened about that time, so we're talking about uh 2010, 2011, about that time frame now.

I met Sinead, who's a three-day event rider, and she was we we started dating and eventually, we'd eventually get married.

And she's uh she's an American and she grew up in the southeastern United States and has been a three-day event rider since she was about 12 years old.

And so I made the decision to stay here in the United States with her, which from the perspective of our relationship was great, and it was also great from the perspective of learning about horsemanship, because there's a lot of really talented, both riders and horsemen in the eastern part of the United States.

And so I really started to learn more and more from these from these people, both in person, but also, you know, at that time, you know, in the in sort of 2010 to 2015, the, or maybe it was just me, I'm not sure, but the live streaming and the streaming content wasn't hugely popular yet.

And so I ended up buying a lot of DVDs because I learn well through watching stuff.

You know, I don't necessarily have to be doing it to feel like I can I can learn from it.

And so I'll, you know, I'm in my office right now and I look to the side of me, and I probably have on the shelf beside me, I probably have, you know, I didn't pay retail for all of them, but if I had paid retail, I probably have, you know, $10,000 worth of horse DVDs next to me.

And a lot of those you can get now for obviously much cheaper on like eBay and stuff like that.

But, you know, I have a huge collection of of these videos that I would watch.

And then, you know, going to sleep at night, even with my eyes closed, I would play through some of those moments, some of those scenarios of horse training, sort of in my mind's eye, with my eyes closed as I fell asleep at night and and and really uh relearning it over and over again and to the point where I got to imagine the horse could give maybe a different response, and I'd imagine how I'd respond to that and how they would respond to that.

It'd be almost like a chess game that would play out in my mind.

And through actually practicing with horses and doing that, you know, I developed more and more skill in that world.

When I started to develop my own business and stop being a working student, you know, I was dabbling in both of these worlds, the worlds of natural horsemanship and the world of competitive riding.

And I remember very clearly somebody that I really respected came to me and said, Tick, it's not going to work.

You're uh you're shooting yourself in the foot by doing this.

If you try to live in both worlds, nobody's gonna respect you and you're only gonna get partially good at both things.

They said, I really recommend you choose one path and you follow it.

And thank goodness I did not listen to that person because I think it's exactly the combination of applying the horsemanship to the competitive world and applying purpose to horsemanship that has made me into the the rider and horseman I am today.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love it.

I love it so much.

I'm curious, just based on what you were saying, when you were talking about the way in which you you love to learn through through the videos that you watch.

And then when you were talking about laying in bed at night, eyes closed, and just imagining it, putting yourself in it and and feeling the horse and putting yourself in that situation.

When you're on the horse and you're actually riding, what what is it that that you are paying attention to the most?

Is it visual?

Is it muscle memory of exactly how to do?

Are you paying attention to the reaction of the horse in that moment?

Like what is it that that you really tune into when you're in the moment on the horse doing the thing?

SPEAKER_00: That's a great question, Kevin.

I love that.

So, so first of all, I'll back up and I'll say for somebody that's new to riding, what they're usually concentrating on is simply can they stay, can they stay on the horse?

You know, can they can they can they keep their balance?

Are their eyes up?

Are their heels down?

Are they holding the reins the right way?

And they're just kind of, you know, it's a very sort of surface level of just trying to like survive that moment and and stick with the horse.

For me, I've been, you know, around and on my horses my whole life.

So the the idea of just staying on them is something that's become pretty much, except in very extreme situations, pretty much second nature for me, something that I don't have to think about.

And now, depending on the horse I'm on, I'm thinking about one of two things.

With a horse that is young, with a horse that is going through something difficult, with a horse that's emotional or nervous or anxious or tense or scared, with that kind of horse, mainly what I'm aware of is where their mind is at.

Is the horse thoughtful?

Is the horse relaxed?

Or the opposite of that is the horse tense or scared?

And the way that I can tell that is I can, you know, you can be on a horse and you can almost feel their heart rate through the saddle as it starts to rev up.

A horse will get quicker and more abrupt as they get anxious.

A horse will raise their head and tense their neck if they get anxious, a horse will stop suddenly or move quickly when they're anxious, a horse will breathe differently, often with uh more noise or whinny or call when they're anxious.

The first step with those kinds of horses is I'm really just trying to set up situations so the horse can become more relaxed and thoughtful and essentially become a good student.

You know, if you think about somebody that's learning something, that they can uh they're sitting quietly, they're paying attention, they're not constantly getting distracted with.

Their fingers or their eyes or their ears or looking away or leaving the room, but they've got sort of a calm attention as they're trying to take it in.

And that's what I want the horse to be.

I want the horse, first of all, to feel like they're relaxed and they can be a good partner and a good student.

With a horse that already has that mindset, what I would call a more mature horse or a horse I've got a better relationship with.

And that sort of being a good student is almost not totally taken for granted.

You never take it for granted and forget about that.

But for a horse where all that emotional stuff is easier for them, then I start to be very aware of the horse's movement.

Is the horse speeding up?

Is the horse slowing down?

Is the horse in a good balance?

You know, when we talk about a horse's balance, that's one of the most important concepts to be aware of when you're riding.

And it's also a very subtle one.

If you think about a person that is, imagine you're on ice in the middle of winter, maybe not in Florida, but somewhere where there's ice in the winter, and you're on the stairs and you start to feel like you're starting to lose your balance and you want to put your arms out to the side and you're nervous and you don't want to move quickly, and you're in a bad, you're, you feel like out of balance.

Horses oftentimes, because they're reacting out of fear or because they have a person on their back or something's happening unexpectedly, horses oftentimes find themselves slightly out of balance.

And the more we can help them find a good balance, the more they start to appreciate us and rely on us and listen to us.

And so one of the jobs of a more advanced rider is constantly to set up situations and to help that horse be in a good balance.

SPEAKER_01: Fascinating.

How much does the horse react based on the energy of the rider?

Because I I wonder if the rider is nervous, if they're scared, or they just have some bad juju.

I would imagine that relates to the horse.

Is that true?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the vast majority of the time that is absolutely true.

That the horse is going to pick up on a person being nervous and they're going to become more nervous.

I'd say, you know, just to throw out a number, I'd say 80% of the time that's true.

But then you also have maybe 10% on either end of that spectrum.

You have 10% of horses that are so emotionally balanced, so emotionally fit, so relaxed that even if the person is anxious, it's not going to affect the horse very much.

And then on the other end of the spectrum, you can have horses that are so distracted, maybe they're worried about a tractor pulling in, maybe they're calling to their friend in the barn, and they're so distracted that you could be nervous, but they're not even paying any attention to you.

So it doesn't matter if you get nervous because they're not paying any attention to you anyway.

SPEAKER_01: Yes, that's that's hysterical.

So before we we kind of keep moving on in the story, the the other kind of question that I would love to ask you about is is it just maybe because you grew up around horses starting as a child, does it make you where you're not scared of them?

Because I mean, for somebody who's never been around a horse in person, they are big animals.

And I think of them being almost intimidating and scared of what they are going to do.

And I've just wondered how that is for you.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.

Horses, you know, every year there's very, very talented riders, there's very, very experienced horse people that get hurt or even killed.

You know, they are horses weigh a lot, they're very quick, they're very strong, they can move almost without any warning at all.

And horses, you know, are flight animals.

Their first response to fear is usually to move quickly.

And so it's very easy to get caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The major skill to have, if you want to stay around safe around horses, is to get good at reading horses.

And what reading horses well allows you to do is to stay one step ahead of trouble.

You know, to the point now where I'm I'm practicing that skill constantly.

You know, if I see a group of horses in a field and they're trotting forward and they're trotting towards me, I'll try to predict the moment where they're gonna stop, or predict the moment where they're gonna turn their heads, or predict the moment where one horse is gonna fall in behind the other horse.

You know, every horse is unique and has its own character and personality, but also every horse is a horse.

Every horse has similar behaviors and similar motivations.

And so uh with enough practice of sort of predicting what's gonna happen next, it gets easier and easier.

Or I guess your percentage of the time that you're right goes up higher and higher.

So the more that you get to know horses in general, and the more that you get to know horses in particular, the easier it is to keep yourself in a safe situation.

You know, there's a lot of ways that I can that I now know how to, if I'm not sure how something's gonna play out, if I'm not sure what the horse is gonna do, I just stay further away from them.

You know, I don't go right up into that horse's space or have that horse come up into my space.

You know, and when I talk about space, it's almost like this bubble around me that's about three feet around me of the horse's bubble, which is five or six feet around them.

And I don't go into their space or have them come into my space until we're both relaxed and thoughtful.

You know, a lot of times people, people come to me and their complaint is that the horse doesn't respect their boundaries or respect their space.

And on the other hand, when the horse is relaxed, they they want to cuddle on their horse and kiss the horse and give the horse cookies.

And so usually what I teach them is I teach them about having three boundaries at different distances.

So the the first boundary is at about six feet away, and that's with a horse that you don't know, or a horse that's really, really emotional or really dangerous, that we don't get within six feet of each other.

My second boundary is at arm's length.

So if I were to reach out my arm fully extended with my fingers fully extended, and the horse were able to stretch out its neck and its nose, that we couldn't touch each other.

So from my body to that horse's nose is two feet, the length of my arm, more or less.

And that's for a horse that is, you know, that we know a little bit better, that's not dangerous.

That's just sort of a run-of-the-mill kind of easy boundary that I keep pretty consistent.

And the the third boundary is with a horse that can come right up in with its muzzle, with its whiskers, with its mouth, and could actually touch me on my shoulder or forearm or chest.

And for a horse to come that close to me, I want to feel like those four criteria are totally met, which means I'm relaxed and thinking about the horse, and the horse is relaxed and thinking about me.

And if any of those four things are not bet, it's like right away back out to two feet or back out to six feet away from me.

SPEAKER_01: Wow, I love it.

It's like a relationship, it's like a dance.

You show me respect, I'll show you respect.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, it's ex it's there a relationship or a dance is is actually one of the one of the best ways to think about horsemanship.

Just like in a relationship, you want a horse to want to be with you, but you don't want them to be running over top of you, and you don't want them to need to be with you.

You want them to want to be with you.

SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, yes, I love it.

Fascinating.

Kind of going back to this this timeline of events, and and I'm gonna allow you to to fill in gaps, but I know a big part of your story is is more recent in like 2023.

But before we get there, is there anything that happened in between that you feel like really led to that monumental moment in your career?

SPEAKER_00: So, what we're working towards here in this conversation, I I think, Kevin, is is Road to the Horse, which I was invited to compete at 2023.

The first time I heard about Road to the Horse was in 2012.

And I guess that was a fairly pivotal moment.

You know, it'd be for somebody that ends up being uh a chess player and it's the first time that they play chess and they're drawn in, you know.

Watching Road to the Horse in 2012 for the first time, I didn't watch it live, I watched it on DVD.

But it was a moment where I saw these guys competing, and and it's a cult starting competition, which means there's they're they're starting horses in front of a crowd.

These are completely untamed, almost wild horses that they're starting.

I watched that competition, and even though I didn't fully 100% to commit to being a cult starter, it was something that I started to follow more and more closely every year.

And it was something where I thought, hey, maybe if I get a little bit better at starting horses, if I get a little bit better at horsemanship, maybe this is something, maybe this is something I could do one day.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.

Fascinating.

Now, I know when I spoke with you before, and I would love for you to share it with me with now for the audience sake, is when we talk about cult starting, I believe is the term.

I had asked you, how does that kind of relate to, I've heard the term of like breaking a horse?

SPEAKER_00: Breaking a horse and starting a horse is uh, you know, to the everyday person, it's it's the same thing, you know, really, which is is we're taking a horse and and we're getting them used to humans and the human world and being ridden.

You know, if you want to go a little bit deeper into the world, into the word of breaking and starting, you know, breaking a little bit more implies breaking their spirit, breaking that wildness out of them.

Whereas starting, I think is a it's a smoother word, it's a it's a nicer word.

It it it speaks to me more about having a relationship and a and a partnership rather than having a slave.

And and I like the word starting.

You know, I I'm around some people that can use the word breaking, and I think they just use that word because it's the word they've used their whole life, and I don't think they mean anything bad by it.

So, you know, if I'm if I'm speaking to somebody and they say they broke their horse and I kind of know what they meant, then I'm I'm fine with that.

It's not like I'd give them a hard time about it.

And then in the competition, we talk about cult starting, and a cult is is a young male horse.

An older male horse that is fully intact is called a stallion, and an older male horse that has been gelded is called a gelding.

And then a female horse is called a mare, and a young female horse is called a filly.

When we talk about cult starting, we're really talking about starting any kind of those five kinds of horses, you know, whether it's an older horse or a younger horse or a or a mare or a gelding or a stallion, we call all those things cult starting.

And I'm not really sure why.

I guess it's just kind of maybe sounds better than saying horse starting.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.

No, I love it.

Now, with those different horses that you just listed off, does the approach change based on what category that horse falls in?

Or is it all the same?

SPEAKER_00: Really, the approach changes slightly for every single horse.

Out of the categories of older, younger, male, female, I don't think it necessarily changes significantly enough that it's kind of worth going into that.

But, you know, when we talk about training a horse, it's really every horse is unique.

And so we we develop a set of skills that we can start to apply generally to every horse, but we're really tailoring that starting experience for each horse individually.

And the better I get at it at starting and reading a horse, the more I can start to have different sort of tools in the toolbox that I can use, or I can go on that particular horse's timeline.

In a lot of ways, they're as unique as people.

You know, like if you had a group of kids and you're trying to teach them all exactly the same way, you're gonna always have some that need to go slower or some that are feeling like they could go faster.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

Yeah.

Again, I go back to that that the relationship.

Every relationship we have in our life is different.

Every person is different.

And so if we if we look at it in this regard, comparing it to that, why would why would you think it wouldn't be the you know the same as that?

That's beautiful.

We spoke about road to the horse.

Talk to me about what that is.

SPEAKER_00: It was first started in 2003 by a lady in Texas named Tootie Bland.

And the idea that she had was that in most horse disciplines, we have competitions.

We have the Grand Prix of Show jumping, the Grand Prix of Dressage, we have the World Cups and the World Cup Final for show jumping, we have the Olympics for three-day eventing.

For thoroughbred racing, you have the Kentucky Derby, you know, for endurance in the United States, you have the Tevis Cup.

You know, for all these different horse disciplines, you have uh competition and you have a way to sort of get the crowds interested and celebrate achievement and encourage people to keep striving for excellence.

And in the world of starting horses, there hasn't really been or hadn't really been much like that, much in terms of getting everybody together in one place and kind of showing off that particular skill set.

You know, starting horses was really thought of almost more as like a trade.

Like, you know, it would be rare to get a bunch of carpenters or plumbers together and say, let's have a competition and celebrate how great you are, and that it's not just a trade, but it's actually an art.

And you're, you know, you can be, you know, just like in just like being a carpenter or a plumber, you could have somebody that's a good carpenter or an average carpenter, a bad carpenter, you could have somebody that's an amazing carpenter and almost takes it to an art form.

And so it's the same with with cold starting.

So this lady, she had the idea, she said, what if we took some of the best cold starters and we gave everybody a horse and we drew a crowd in and we videoed it and we had prize money and we celebrated the trade and art of cold starting.

And since then it's grown almost every year.

And now they have it uh at l at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, Kentucky.

It's by invitation only.

So you can't just sign up and go.

They, you know, they really do their research to make sure they're inviting people that are both talented cold starters and they have the ability to work in front of a crowd, in front of an audience, and to speak about what they're doing.

And they each year it's only three or four people that are competing.

So it's not, it's not like there's a hundred people or ten people.

It's really three or four people that are in a stadium, sort of about the size of a hockey arena.

And there's, you know, eight or ten thousand people watching, you know, filling up most of the arena, and then they've got cameras that are live streaming it around the world.

Each of the three or four people gets assigned, well, you don't get assigned, you get to pick a horse.

They bring 10 horses from Texas, and they're all three-year-old gelding quarter horses.

And out of the 10, each of the four competitors gets to pick one.

So then you're paired with a horse.

And over the course of three days at Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in March each year, we start the horse.

Like everything is live, everything is in front of the crowd.

There's nothing behind the scenes.

Every single moment that the competitors are interacting with that horse is in front of a live audience.

SPEAKER_01: Wow.

Wow.

That sounds uh rather, rather stressful to be in front of a live audience with doing something like that.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

I mean, most time when people are starting horses, they're doing it at their barn or maybe with a few people watching, and they can they can go get water when they want to or break when they want to, or spend two weeks doing it if they want to, or two months or two years doing it.

There's no timeline, and they can they can switch arenas or switch spaces or have somebody else help them.

And when we talk about people getting a horse ready for a Grand Prix or the Kentucky Derby or any other kind of horse competition, all the training goes on behind the scenes, which means the horse is being trained at home in the arena or the racetrack at home, away from people, you know, watching.

Whereas this is a really unique event in that every single second that we're training those horses is in front of, you know, tens of thousands of people and five judges that are watching you every single second.

Wow.

SPEAKER_01: Wow.

Okay.

So I have more questions about it, but before we get to those questions, talk to me about you actually being invited to do this.

How did that even happen?

SPEAKER_00: So after I'd watched it in 2012 and I kind of had it on my radar and I was starting to practice a little bit more starting horses, then I made a point to kind of figure out a little bit more about the competition.

You know, who who do they invite?

What skills do they have?

You know, how could I meet some of those people?

You know, how could I make friends with some of the past competitors?

How could I get a little bit more involved in that community?

And so that's something that that I didn't drop everything and chase that, but I was just always a little bit aware, you know, as I, as I went about my schedule, you know, if there was an opportunity to say teach a clinic in Texas versus teach a clinic in uh Connecticut.

And the one in Texas was going to be near, you know, where where some of the people that organized Roads of the Horse are, is I'm gonna go to the one in Texas because maybe I'll get a chance to meet them.

So I'm kind of having on my radar from 2012 on.

And then in 2023, I went up there and I was asked not to compete, but I was asked to do a demonstration of how I work with horses.

And so I was kind of like a, you know, like an intermission type act, you know, where people are there for the main event, but I got to spend half an hour just talking to the crowd and showing a little bit what I do.

And so that was in March of 2023.

And then in June of 2023, so a few months later, the organizer of Road to the Horse called me up.

She said, Tick, are you interested in competing next year?

And I, this is something I'd thought about for years.

And I was like a little bit, a little bit caught off guard by the phone call, but also a little bit excited, and my adrenaline was going.

And I said, Yeah, I definitely want to do it.

And she said, Well, don't respond so quickly.

You know, talk to your family, talk to your wife, and think about it, and then call me back in a day or two and give me your answer.

And so I went to speak with Sinead that night, and I said, Sinead, they invited me to do this.

What do you think?

And she said, Absolutely, you should do this.

This is something that you've been wanting to do.

She said, Why wouldn't you do it?

Actually, there's I said, actually, Sinead, there's a lot of reasons why somebody would say no to this and not do it.

And so then I proceeded to kind of list all the reasons why somebody might not do it.

And I, I mean, there was like a lot of a lot of reasons, you know.

First of all, there's you're doing something that is really difficult on a timeline in front of a crowd.

So there's a lot of opportunity to sort of embarrass yourself or to have something taken out of context that gets put on social media.

There's also, you know, in the horse world, there's also the ethical questions of should starting horses even be a competition?

Should starting horses even be on a timeline?

I mean, you go far enough down that road, and there's people that are like, should we even be riding horses or keeping horses as pets?

Like, what are the ethical ramifications of that?

And there's and there's people that are ready to jump on you no matter what you do.

And so there's those questions.

And then in terms of starting horses themselves, you know, there's certain parts of it that I was really worried about.

I was worried about what if I can't even catch this horse?

I was worried about, am I gonna even be able to get a saddle on this horse?

I was worried about what about the first ride?

What if I get bucked off?

Uh, what if I get hurt?

You know, every year somewhere, somebody's starting a horse and they get seriously injured.

And then there's also the question of by the time I get to the third day of this, am I gonna have a horse that still feels like a willing partner, or are they gonna start to feel uh like shit, they're shut down and overfaced?

On top of that, there were a couple people in my life that I really respected and admired, my dad actually being one of them, that when I asked them if I thought I should do it, they said no.

They said, you know, they said they thought it was a can be a little tough on the horses and then it was gonna be a little overfacing for me.

You know, there were other things I could do.

So I explained all that to Sinead, and uh we talked about it.

And basically, we made the decision together that it was something that, despite all these fears and all these nerves I had about it, it was gonna be something that I was gonna choose to do anyway.

And that I wasn't gonna let fear stand in the way of stopping me from something that I not only thought I could do, but that I thought I could do my way, not anybody else's way, but I thought I could do it the way that I wanted to do it.

And that it was something that if I didn't do it, I would look back, you know, 10 or 20 years from now and that I would regret saying no to it.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.

Wow.

You know, the the the way in my my head I'm I'm comparing this is is yeah, is is you have a football player, a guy who's good, but all of a sudden gets a call, like, hey, you have the opportunity to play quarterback in the Super Bowl.

You know, and and all I can think is is, you know, of course it's been a dream for that football player to play in the Super Bowl.

And yet, what if it doesn't go good?

What if I screw up?

Here I am on the the center stage, all of a sudden I'm being a hand in my dream.

But is it is it worth it?

All those fears and and worries in the what if scenarios I think a lot of times rob people of ever actually fulfilling a dream.

So I I guess wanna say applause to you for the fact of going ahead and giving it a shot.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

Thank you very much.

It was not a it was not an easy decision.

And I think you're absolutely right in that the the fear of of what's going to happen, or even the people that are closest to us that love us, that want to protect us from being hurt, you know, those things can stop us from achieving the things we really want to do, you know, our dreams.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So at this point, we're basically looking at roughly almost a year until you would be competing.

Is that right?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

So I got the invitation, I think, June, and then the competition was going to be in March of the next year.

So I had about nine months in which to get ready.

SPEAKER_01: Okay.

Amazing.

Now, before we actually fast forward all that time and we get to the competition, obviously I'm assuming training like crazy, doing whatever, which I want you to explain.

But I believe at this point is also when you have the idea to turn this into a book, correct?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.

So right from that first invitation to compete, I wrote a book that was published in 2018 about sort of getting started in the horse world.

And so for the last seven years from uh, you know, 2018 until now, or I guess until 2023, I'd been wanting to write another book.

And I wasn't quite sure, you know, what I was going to write about or when that opportunity was going to come along.

And then I got this invitation to do Road to the Horse.

And I just thought this is it.

This is the thing that if I take notes on my preparation and take notes throughout the competition, I can turn this experience into a book and I can share with people what I went through as I prepared for it.

And um, I pitched that idea to, again, to my wife and also to the publishers, to Fulger Square Books, and they were all on board with it.

So I started taking notes immediately.

You know, it's I'm not the kind of person that journals every day or anything like that.

But when I've got a project that's important to me, I'll take notes on that particular thing or that that time in my life.

And so for the next nine months, I took notes almost every day on what I was doing to get ready.

SPEAKER_01: Wow.

What I think is so cool about this is because so many times people write the book after the thing has already happened.

They they go back and they tell the story, yet you literally got to have this brilliant insight that this needed to be told in a book, and you got to basically start writing it as you were living it out, which I think is just fascinating.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I I totally agree.

I think it was kind of really fortunate in how it worked out.

And I, you know, as a reader, I read a lot and I like books that give sort of an immediacy or or a or kind of a presence to the reader.

You know, they they feel like they're brought in right into that moment and almost living it with the author.

And I think it's a little harder to do that when you're looking back at something that happened and you and you didn't have detailed notes about it.

You know, you forget exactly how the conversation with somebody went, or you forget, you know, the place that you traveled, or you forget what your office looked like, or you forget how your horse acted that day.

But when you're taking notes on it, you know, every day and throughout the day, you can really sort of place the reader right in that moment.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

I love it.

Now, one thing that I want to ask you about before we actually get to the competition is the mindset that you went into for preparing and going into this competition.

Because I am gonna think in my head that you're probably going up against what I think of just like cowboys, like guys out there.

Like, I mean, and and you don't strike me as quite the cowboy spitting tobacco, like you know, doing all the stuff.

And I know that like you you decide at some point to do this your way.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Kevin, you're you're that's hilarious that you said that.

That's that's uh that's so true.

You know, it since this competition began in in 2003, I'm only the second non-sort of Western rider or non-cowboy to do this.

You know, they're you know, if you think about if you think about three or four people every year, and I'm only the second person to do it, you know, you're absolutely the vast majority of people are are sort of wearing wranglers, cowboy boots, cowboy hat.

Maybe they have like a knife and a sheath on their belt.

Uh they got like deerskin gloves, they got the chaps with the fringe, they got a cowboy saddle.

Yeah, maybe they got chewing tobacco, I don't know.

But uh, you know, there's there's some some version of that.

Whereas the kind of riding that I've done my whole life is not quite so like cool or masculine.

You know, I grew up and I still ride with the tall black boots, the tight pants, the helmet.

We're perched a little bit more atop our high horse, so to speak.

And uh it's got a very different vibe to it than the quarter horses in Texas with the cowboys.

So yeah, though that was the first kind of obstacle that I had to think about in terms of my preparation is am I gonna try to start this horse as a cowboy?

Meaning, am I gonna wear jeans and cowboy boots and a cowboy hat and use a Western saddle and kind of throw out everything I've done and learn a whole new way of doing it?

Or am I gonna do it in an English saddle and tight pants?

Or am I gonna try to find some way to be in the middle between those two worlds?

So that was the first kind of question that I had.

SPEAKER_01: And and for you, what finally led you to the answer?

SPEAKER_00: So what I decided to do, you know, what inspired me to do this is a book I read called Work Hard Be Nice, or maybe it's work hard, be kind.

And it's about these elementary school teachers that start their own charter school program called KIP, KIPP.

And it's it's short, KIP is short for Knowledge, the Knowledge is Power Program.

And they developed a very unique way of teaching kids, these two teachers that started the KIP program.

And when it started to expand beyond these two teachers, and they started to have multiple schools and other instructors, and then dozens and then hundreds of other instructors, what they did initially is these two teachers that started the program, they were really successful.

And all these kids that they were helping, a lot of them came from sort of troubled backgrounds or less affluent areas, and they were helping these kids achieve amazing successes and go on to graduate from high school and go to college and stuff like that.

So they what they what they started to do is they started to teach other people how to teach their way.

And what they realized fairly quickly within a couple of years is that it wasn't working.

And the reason it wasn't working is that every teacher actually has their own superpower for teaching kids.

Some teachers are will sing stuff, some teachers will make up poems, some teachers like telling stories, some teachers relate to the kids through drama or art.

Some teachers are more physical and they're all about the high fives or the hugs.

Some teachers are quiet and just have a presence that the kids want to watch.

Some teachers are about sports and they, you know, are outside playing with the kids at recess.

And what they found was that they couldn't just teach all teachers to be the same and sort of follow the exact same way of teaching, but they had to allow teachers to bring out their own kind of unique special way of teaching.

And I think it's the same thing in the horse world.

And so that was my plan in my preparation, is that I was gonna spend eight months learning from as many talented animal trainers and horse trainers.

You know, I even did, I even did a chicken training camp where I learned how to train chickens as part of my preparation.

But I was gonna, I was gonna, I can tell you more about, I can tell you more about that.

Okay.

I can tell you more about that after.

But basically, my plan was I was gonna spend eight months learning as much as I can from other people.

And then in the last month, I was gonna go back to incorporating the things that I wanted, letting go of the things that I didn't want, and trying to go back and spend the last month going back to being as authentic as I could and the very best version of myself that I could be.

And so I wasn't feel like I was trying to imitate somebody or or force a way of being, but I could start that horse in the way that felt the most smooth and comfortable to me.

SPEAKER_01: Wow.

I love that.

And and so when the competition came, you showed up as your true authentic self.

SPEAKER_00: I showed up a little bit in the middle.

You know, I used, I used a Western saddle.

I ended up wearing jeans and cowboy boots, but I wore, I didn't wear a bell buckle.

I wore a normal belt.

I wore a helmet.

I had my sleeves a little bit partially rolled up.

And I used slightly different tools on the ground than some of the other guys.

And I was kind of, you know, I definitely stood out just by having the helmet, for example, but also by, you know, a lot of times I'm not used to wearing cowboy boots.

So a lot of times in between, I would trade and I'd put on my Hoka running shoes or something like that.

And so I definitely, I definitely stood out as being somebody that was a little bit the underdog and a little bit different than the other competitors that first year.

You know, it's something that I just I was prepared for and it didn't bother me.

I think if I hadn't had the mindset right from the beginning of how I was going to do that, I think I would have tried to force it a little bit and tried to look a little bit more like everybody else and maybe wear a cowboy hat.

But I was like, I'm just gonna be me and I'm gonna try to be the best version of myself.

SPEAKER_01: You know, isn't it funny?

It doesn't matter who we are, how old we are, there is still that internal battle like we were in middle school of fitting in with the crowd or being who we want to be.

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00: You know, it never leaves.

No, exactly.

You're exactly right.

You're exactly right.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

So talk to me about the actual competition.

As far as how did it go in general, and then was it as hard as you thought?

Was it easier than you imagined?

I'm I'm curious to know how it went.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, in some ways it was more difficult, and in some ways it was easier.

You know, the tension was very high for me throughout the whole, you know, I got there a day earlier, so I essentially had, you know, almost two days earlier.

Actually, so I essentially had four or five days at the Kentucky Horse Park where I was always a little bit on edge, you know, the way the way that you might be if you're about to sort of take a big test or propose to somebody or something like that.

I was just always on edge.

I could never really settle.

I didn't sleep very well, I didn't eat very well.

There's a constantly uh things like judges' meetings, meeting the press, meeting the crowds of people.

You know, I had a lot of family and friends that flew in, so I tried to put in a little time with them.

Meanwhile, I also am there with my wife and our two little kids.

So I've got, you know, a two-year-old and a five-year-old that um, you know, I'm spending the evenings and mornings with.

And it was just like from that perspective, it was really, really, really challenging.

One of the guys that I talked to before I competed, a guy that had competed the year before, his name is Mike Major, and he actually had won the year before.

So in 2023, he had won.

I sort of got caught in an aisle with him the day before it began.

And he looked at me and he could probably see that I was a little stressed.

And he said, you know, Tick, this is all the hard part.

You know, the interviews, the crowds, the judges' meetings, making time for family friends, this is the whole, all the hard part.

Once you actually get into the round pen with the horse, it gets easier.

And he goes, in fact, you don't even need to think.

All you have to do is just do what the horse tells you to do.

And from that perspective, he was absolutely right.

The easiest time was almost in the round pen when I was with the horse.

I was so prepared and I was so focused that I really can honestly say that the four hours over three days, you know, an hour and a half Friday, an hour and a half Saturday, and an hour Sunday, those four hours, I've never had four other hours in my entire life, at least in that short amount of time, where I was so present.

I mean, maybe not since I was a kid.

Like little kids are present, you know.

But as adults, we tend to often think into the past or into the future, or we're checking our phone, or we get distracted.

But those four hours, I was so in the moment with that horse in the round pen.

It just flowed.

You know, it's like when we talk about an athlete getting into the zone or the flow state or the place where time slows down.

That's what it was like for me.

And so from that perspective, it was easier than I thought it was going to be.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love it.

Wow, that's so basically powerful.

Now, from the judge's perspective, what did you do differently or better than the other competitors to have you ultimately win?

SPEAKER_00: Because we were all competing at the same time.

On Friday and Saturday, there's four round pens set up.

So there's an hour and a half each day, and all four of us are training the horses at the same time.

So the judges, there's five judges, and they're standing sort of in the middle of this square of round pens.

And so they they look at one for a few minutes and then the other, and there's five judges, and so they're all walking around or observing what the four athletes and four horses are doing.

And then on the Sunday, we go in reverse order of go, which means if you're in first place, you go last, and if you're in last place, you go first, and you're not allowed to watch the other competitors that go before you.

So on Sunday, I was sitting in first place and I was last to go.

So I couldn't watch the other three people, and I went out there and I competed on Sunday without having seen them.

So, you know, it's hard for me to really compare myself to them.

I will say that one of the things I think I did very well is I became very aware in my preparation of tiny improvements, of looking to improve stuff 1% at a time, and then leave that skill or leave that area of the round pen or leave that obstacle and go and do something else, and then make it 1% better, and then go and do something else and make it 1% better, and then go and do something else and make it 1% better.

So I'm always have three or four things that I'm alternating between, and I'm trying to never get into a fight with my horse.

I'm trying to never push something so far that he gets stressed out.

And I'm just trying to constantly like nonstop every 30 seconds, make a little improvement and then leave it.

And, you know, hopefully that's what the judges saw.

And I guess they I guess they liked it because you know that uh I I've now done it twice, you know, 20, 24, and 2025.

And I've I've won it both years.

So that technique has been paying off for me and uh hopefully paying off for the horses.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

That that's so fascinating.

The fact that you you even got to be invited to this competition, you win it, you come back, you win it again.

I mean, that that is just absolutely remarkable.

What I guess I would love to know is uh when you're in this competition, you only have three days with this horse.

Is there a point when you're working with the horse that you feel like I'm gonna succeed?

Like me and this horse have made some type of connection, or could that even happen in such a short amount of time?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely.

With every horse, it happens at a different time.

And with me with that horse, that first year, it happened about maybe 12 or 13 minutes in on the first day.

SPEAKER_01: Say what?

Really?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.

You know, I at the the first 10 minutes I couldn't catch the horse, and the horse was at the edge of the round pen and its head was high, and it was calling to the other horses.

And um, I was trying to, I was just trying to get close to it where I could touch it, or I could catch it, or he would get interested in me or curious about me.

And I was I was a little worried, uh, you know, I was a lot worried.

I was like, am I gonna have to rope this horse, like swing a lariat over its head?

Am I gonna be able to touch it?

Am I gonna, or am I gonna spend the next hour and a half here just like not being able to catch it?

Like, what's gonna happen?

And somewhere, you know, in there, maybe, maybe 12 or 13 minutes in, the horse started to look at me and then he started to take a step towards me.

And then he started to put his nose towards my hand with some curiosity.

And once I had that, even though it was just a little bit in terms of this, the how much you have to accomplish in three days, once I had that, I just knew as long as I didn't mess it up, like it was gonna happen.

I didn't know the timeline it was gonna happen on.

I didn't know if I was gonna win or not.

I didn't, you know, those things are out of my control.

But as soon as I kind of had that thoughtfulness and that curiosity, and I felt like the horse, you know, a lot of horses, even horses that have been around people a long time, a lot of them will look, they'll be around people and they'll look past the person or they'll look through the person or they'll be distracted.

But once I kind of had that that happen, I just had like sort of this this special kind of feeling go through me, you know, where you almost kind of like get goosebumps and you're just like, this is gonna happen.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: Wow.

Wow, wow, wow.

So you you win the you win it.

You're you succeed at it.

What makes you come back to do it again the next year?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so you know, the first year when I was in invited, you know, it was a much bigger conversation, like I said, with with my wife and with my with my dad and with some of the people close to me.

And I will say that my dad, who had initially said no, he came and he watched and he ended up being my big possibly my biggest supporter.

So that was amazing to see.

You know, David O'Connor, a mentor of mine that initially thought maybe I shouldn't do it, he uh he actually was, you know, he's an Olympic gold medalist in three-day eventing, and they actually invited him to come be a judge.

And so he actually went and judged it one year as well.

So some of these people sort of came around and ended up being very supportive in the end.

But the the biggest thing that people said to me as I was getting ready for that first year was things like, don't worry if you don't do win, just do right by the horse, or don't worry if you can't even catch your horse, just take it slow, or if you've got to just retire after two days and you don't want to do the third day, that's fine.

Or just these sort of things like, no matter what happens, it'll be fine, and you can always quit early and don't worry about the results.

You know, those were all the comments the first year.

And the second year, all the comments I got were are you gonna defend your title?

Are you gonna win again?

SPEAKER_01: That's funny.

SPEAKER_00: And so it's two very different kinds of pressure.

You know, one is the pressure that the underdog faces that is, you know, he's a little overfaced and he's going in for a big challenge.

And the second kind of pressure is the pressure of the returning winner.

Both those pressures kind of come with their own unique challenges.

You know, I definitely was aware of that.

And I thought, you know, going back a second year would be a challenge in itself.

You know, I still wanted to share with the people watching my way of doing things.

And at that point that I got invited, I made the goal that I was going to get the book finished, edited, and printed and shipped so that we could release it exactly one year later at Road to the Horse 2025.

And so for that whole year after 2024, that whole year of getting ready for the second time, I was both preparing for the competition as well as actually taking all my notes from the book and writing it into the book, which people can now buy today.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

Wow, that is absolutely that's just incredible, man.

That is absolutely incredible.

How has life for you personally, professionally, how has it changed since achieving this longtime goal of even being invited to compete, much less winning it two years in a row?

What has that done for life?

SPEAKER_00: On the level of how does it affect my everyday life, just like what I do or my job, it really hasn't affected it that much.

You know, I haven't had a bunch of new sponsors come in, you know, to sponsor myself or or the business that I run with my wife, Sinead, or or anything like that.

I'd say the biggest way it's changed me is that it was something that was so difficult and I faced so much pressure and adversity going through.

And then I came out of it, not only did I come out of it alive on the other side, but I came out of it having learnt a lot, having made new friends, having won.

And I came out of it on the other side of it sort of successfully.

And it it really changed kind of my my confidence level and in my my feeling okay being who I am and being my authentic self.

And I thought, you know, I to do this, I don't have to be a cowboy.

I don't have to change who I am.

I can be exactly who I am.

I can write the way that I want to write, I can start a horse the way that I want to start a horse, and I don't have to change that for anybody.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

Yeah.

I love it.

Absolutely love it.

Now, now the book that you've published, who do you hope reads the book?

Three million people.

Yes.

I love that answer.

SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, in the when you sell books, it's uh it's an interesting thing.

Not not everybody is a reader, you know, and some people obviously don't have the The patience to read, or some people don't read it all.

Some people prefer audiobooks, some people prefer, you know, reading the hard copy of the book or whatever.

When you look at book sales, there's a big difference between a book that can sell 2,000 copies versus 20,000 copies versus 200,000 copies versus 2 million copies.

You know, and all those jumps are pretty difficult leaps to make.

And my main goal in writing the book is not about who's gonna read it, other than I hope my family and one day my kids will read it.

You know, I this book I almost kind of wrote to remember this part of my life.

And and I I, you know, at the beginning, I even I think I even say in the in the beginning, like in the acknowledgments or something like that, I said, not many kids get to go back and read on a on a level like this what their what their mother or what their father did and thought and felt when they were younger.

You know, like we often know our parents the way that they are now, and to really get into your parents' mind when they were in their 20s or 30s or 40s, I think is a pretty unique thing.

So I when I wrote this, I really kind of, I guess had my kids who are, they don't know how to read yet, but I really kind of had them in mind as sort of an audience that I was writing to.

But aside from that, I mean, the the two main goals I had when I was writing it for myself were number one is I want to improve my writing.

So I studied a lot about writing, you know, reading books on how to write, working closely with an editor who would offer me advice on how to bring out the storyline or the plot or bring out characters or or make chapters more interesting.

And then also the other thing that was really helpful is by taking all my notes and making it into a book in that year that I was getting ready to compete a second time, it really clarified a lot of the thoughts that I had in getting ready for it the first time.

So it's really like I almost lived that twice.

Because once I lived it in person and I lived it a second time as I took the notes and made it into a book.

And so uh it really helped me kind of improve my cult starting for the second year just in writing the book.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.

I mean, that makes that makes sense.

You know what I can't help but think is for any of us who we have a goal, we have a dream.

Sometimes we want to know how other people did it.

Like you documented the whole thing in this book.

And I can't help but think what a source of inspiration.

No matter whether you're somebody interested in horses, or it's a kid dreaming of of playing in the Super Bowl, or if it's any type of big dream or goal you have, it's always really cool sometimes to see how others did it.

And so what I think of this book is it's kind of a roadmap to how you made this dream come true.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.

It's exactly what it is.

It's a roadmap.

And I think by studying other people's roadmaps, I don't think we have to follow them exactly or imitate them, but I think it can inspire us and give us ideas for our own personal roadmap.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, I agree.

Well, well, Tick, man, I have enjoyed getting to talk with you today.

I've enjoyed getting to hear your your personal story, this professional journey.

For somebody who wants to pick up this book for themselves, where is the best place for us to send them?

And I'll be sure that links are in the show notes for easy access.

SPEAKER_00: So in the United States, the best place is from Trafalgar Square Books.

In the UK, it's from Quiller Books.

Of course, if you have a local tax shop or a local bookstore, then I definitely would encourage you to support your, you know, that sort of brick and mortar store and the person that's running that local bookstore.

And of course, last of all, for those of you that are not feeling motivated enough to do any of those things, just go to Amazon.

unknown: Okay.

SPEAKER_01: When in doubt, when in doubt, just go to Amazon.

I love it.

That's right.

I love it.

Well, I will be sure that links are in the show notes, as I said, for all of the options to make it very easy for the person who wants to take our conversation to the next level and dive into your book.

Tick, once again, man, it's been an absolute pleasure.

And I thank you in the most sincere way possible for being here.

SPEAKER_00: Well, Kevin, it's truly been an honor.

And, you know, this show has been a lot about me and what I've done.

And if anybody's listening to this podcast for the first time, you know, I would really encourage you to go and uh listen to a little bit of Kevin's story because I was lucky enough to hear some of that from him when we spoke on the phone the other day.

And it's uh truly an inspiring, remarkable story, Kevin, that you have.

And I really appreciate you having me on your show.

So thank you.

SPEAKER_01: Oh, man.

Well, well, I appreciate that so much.

That that means a lot to me.

And I uh I thank you so much for saying it.

For you listening today, my hope as always is that something said today can maybe be that little bit of spark of inspiration, of motivation for you to maybe dust off that dream that you've been thinking about.

Maybe there's a goal that others have told you it's too big.

It's not for you.

But there's a part of you that knows that you're made for it, you're meant for it.

So, my friend, get out there and chase it.

It's all about chasing after the goal, embarking on this journey of life, because at the end of the day, all we're gonna have are the regrets, the things that we didn't do.

Just go out there and start living life to the best of your ability.

My name is Kevin Lowe, and this, of course, was another episode of Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

SPEAKER_03: I've got grit, grace, and inspiration on my mind.

Observe the North American Dad.

50s.

Great polo collection.

He enters his vehicle information on Carvana, an offer appears in minutes.

Remarkable.

He squints, reads it again, smiles, and says, Dang, that's a good offer.

The highest form of approval.

No haggling, no hassle.

No one called him bossed.

He's still on the couch.

Astonishing.

Sell your car today on Carvana.com.

Pickup Fees May Apply.