WORLAND, Wyo. (AP) - You’ve seen it many times in the Hollywood westerns, the cowboy hero going after the evil cattle baron and many a shooting takes place while the cowboys are riding their steeds.
Now circa the 21st century and you have the mounted shooting competition, the Northern Wyoming Daily News reported (https://bit.ly/1UGSHvl).
Wyoming Desperados
The Wyoming Desperados is a mounted shooting club in the northern part of the Big Horn Basin. There were 35 paid members in 2015 for the Wyoming Desperados Mounted Shooting Club, with members coming from Kaycee, Gillette, Sheridan, as well as the northern Big Horn Basin and Montana.
Club vice president Nicole “Shooter” Singbeil said the Wyoming Desperados was formed four years ago.
The group is hoping to expand into the southern part of the Basin. They are taking a step in that direction with a beginner orientation clinic in Thermopolis at the Hot Springs County Fairgrounds April 9-10.
Wyoming has one other club in Douglas.
What is mounted shooting?
One of the area’s top shooters, Singbeil said some people compare mounted shooting to barrel racing - barrel racing with a gun. There are several differences, however. She said while barrel racing uses the same pattern in each race, mounted shooters have 50 to 60 patterns available. At each competition, the patterns are drawn at random so the shooters don’t know until the day of the event what pattern they will be competing with.
“There’s no way we can practice a pattern (before a competition),” Singbeil said.
The competition at each shoot involves mounted shooters riding through the pattern shooting balloons tied to posts. The competition is a timed event with timing penalties for misses.
In each pattern there are 10 targets. The first five are set in a random pattern, with the second five in a straight row to the finish line.
While the revolvers each hold six shots, only five are loaded so the shooter starts with an empty cylinder for safety.
Ear and eye protection are worn by the shooters.
Singbeil said the competition involves marksmanship and horsemanship. She said most horses take to the competition fairly easily, if they are introduced to it properly.
Lyle Spence, a Worland resident, said he started with a cap gun to get his horse used to the noise and then he worked up to the actual .45 caliber used in competition.
Each shooter must use a single-action .45-caliber revolver. There are no projectiles in the ammunition, which is loaded with black powder. Singbeil said, “It’s just a spread of burning embers.”
She said the ammunition is certified for a maximum of 20 feet and “that’s what makes it safe for spectators.”
Spence said you need to position your horse 10 to 15 feet away from the target, a balloon.
There is a level for everyone, Singbeil said, including children 10 and under using cap guns, while the youngest competitors just point at the balloons as they are led around the pattern by an adult.
Adults start at the novice level and move up based on number of competitions and number of wins.
Singbeil said, “It’s the fastest growing equine sport in the country.”
She added, “It’s a family sport. That’s what I love about it.”
Local shooter Lyle Spence
Spence said, “I am pretty much a novice at this (having started two years ago), in the Senior Division, level 1. My own approach to mounted shooting has not been toward being highly competitive, and my horses and I don’t win a lot of prizes. We are participants, and view every event as a training exposure.”
He added, “My wife and I have been breeding and raising our own horses using birth imprinting, and training them to ride, pack and drive in harness. We value a well-rounded horse that will accept about anything you ask them to do. If you develop them to willingly neck rein through a random course they have never seen before, while you fire revolvers from their back, you have a horse that will do just about anything for you.”
Spence said he enjoys the camaraderie with the members of the Wyoming Desperados. “In competition, when I finish a run in 45 seconds that they just ran in 17, they are all at the gate cheering and encouraging. They are a great bunch of people, and you will benefit from being around some really tremendous horsemen and horsewomen.
“For me personally, a big payoff from this mounted shooting exposure comes when I can go elk hunting with my friends, and ride into some elk. My buddies can dismount, walk a few yards ahead of the horses and shoot an elk, and my horses don’t even flinch.”
Singbeil high-point champion
Singbeil, the 2015 Wyoming high-point champion in the Cowboy Mounted Shooting Association, started with mounted shooting in 2002 in Idaho. She said the sport started in Arizona in the mid-1990s and has grown nationally.
Singbeil said there are hundreds of clubs all over the United States and other countries. There are more than 5,000 members in the U.S.
She said she was attracted to both the horsemanship and marksmanship of the sport. “These horses have to be very well broke, really one-handed because you have a gun in your other hand. You can’t reach down and make a correction.”
Singbeil said she had hunted grouse from her horse in the past. And, she said she began carrying a pistol when riding because “some strange things had happened in our part of the woods, so my girlfriends and I started carrying guns when we were trail riding and then we just started having fun.”
She said she had already shot off of her horse when she heard about mounted shooting. “I bet I didn’t watch more than 20 seconds when I said ’this is it.’ I gave up all my other hobbies. I’m a junkie, I’m addicted to it.”
Thermopolis clinic
The clinic in Thermopolis, Singbeil said, is for anyone who is new to the sport or wants to try it out for the first time. All they need to bring is their horse, she said.
Spence said he has found the Wyoming Desperados Mounted Shooting Club’s clinics, practices and events to be something that really broadens his horses’ exposure, and makes them better at everything else they do. “I have taken a young horse to such a beginner’s clinic each of the last two years. In each case the clinic has successfully introduced every participating horse and rider to the mounted shooting experience,” he said.
He added, “The Wyoming Desperados have been very welcoming to people like me who are not super-competitive, but just want to experience it and train on their horses. At the first clinic I attended, I was amazed to see the club had a table laid out with thousands of dollars’ worth of guns and holsters, and invited anyone to borrow whatever equipment they wanted to try.”
At the Thermopolis clinic, Singbeil said, they will go over gun safety, competition rules, clothing requirements. They will have single-action revolvers available, along with the specialty holsters used by mounted shooters.
“There’s no experience necessary for this clinic. Just bring your horse,” she said.
After completing the Thermopolis clinic, competitors as well as other shooters, can participate in the advanced clinic with Tammy Billingsley at the McFadden Arena just outside of Greybull May 14-15.
The Wyoming Desperadoes will then be competing in four events during the summer: June 4-5, the fourth annual Shoshone River Shootout at the Boot and Bottle Arena in Cody; Aug. 12-14 at the Diamond P. Ranch in West Yellowstone, Montana; Aug. 20-22 at the Star Valley Shootout in Afton; and Aug. 26-28 at the Battle in the Basin in Powell.
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Information from: Northern Wyoming Daily News, https://www.wyodaily.com
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