WEBVTT - Ep. 410: Ty Evans - Transformative Mulemanship and Free Agency 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:08.480 Ty Evans is one of the country's top mule trainers 0:00:08.480 --> 0:00:13.280 and clinicians, and his journey with this misunderstood animal, the mule, 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:17.960 has changed his life and through working with him, he's 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:22.280 learned what true leadership is. Yeah, through training a mule. 0:00:23.040 --> 0:00:25.639 I think we're all going to learn something on this one. 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:29.680 And hey, it's twenty twenty six. I'm ready to be 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:32.800 something different, to look at life in a new way, 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:36.280 and to become the person I've always known I should be. 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:39.240 I think you're going to be surprised by this episode, 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:41.400 and I really doubt that you're going to want to 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:42.040 miss this one. 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:45.800 There's a quote he would quote it a lot, but 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:47.960 I learned later that it was a ray Hunt quote. 0:00:48.280 --> 0:00:50.360 They know if you know, and they know if you 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:53.720 don't know. That might sound like a puzzle to some 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:58.520 people listening, but what I've come to find is, say 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:04.640 the mule or the horse, they are aware of your awareness. 0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:16.440 They know what you're paying attention to more or less. 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:20.000 My name is Klay Nukem and this is the Bear 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:25.039 Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search 0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:28.759 for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:32.920 story of Americans who live their lives close to the land, 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:39.319 presented by FHF Gear, American made, purpose built hunting and 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:42.840 fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:56.440 place as we explore. On March third, twenty eleven, in Ogden, Utah, 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:59.800 twenty one year old Tie Evans entered the Weber State 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:04.520 University Rodeo and what happened would change his life. 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:09.800 Well, they used to send out stock cross about a 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:13.639 week in advance, and I remember stock dross came up. 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:17.880 I was so excited to find out what I crew. 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:21.480 So pull it up and I'm going down the list 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:25.840 trying to find my name, and atlanted on a horse 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:33.200 named Dakota Kid now Dakota Kid. This horse had busted 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:37.400 two of my friend's legs the previous fall. This horse 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:39.799 had a reputation it would jump out of the buck 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:45.280 and shoot and basically spin around and hit the post, 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:51.240 slam itself into the post behind it, which what's between 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:53.960 the post and the horse, Well, that's your leg. And 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:57.000 so two of my buddies had broken their legs in 0:02:57.000 --> 0:03:00.440 this fashion. So when I saw that horse, I was like, 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:03.880 oh man, he was just really we would say hard 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:05.840 to get out on meaning hard to get out of 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:10.120 the bucket shoot on. Because of that little month, and well, 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:12.800 being a horseman, being a trainer, I thought, well, I'm 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:15.840 going to solve this, and I came up with a plan. 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:17.880 I was going to have my buddy hold a pair 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:21.080 of shaps, you know, our leggings we wear. Pull a 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:23.920 pair of shops out over like ahead of the post 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:26.720 a couple of feet, so it kind of tricked the horse. 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:30.520 The horse would wrap around there and like it usually did, 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:33.240 but instead of slamming to the post, it would hit 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:34.560 the shaps and fade out of there. 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:40.360 Dakota Kid was a dangerous horse, and Ty was a trainer. 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:44.360 He was born in Bluffdale, Utah, into a training family. 0:03:44.840 --> 0:03:47.880 His dad trained horses and mules for a living, and 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:51.840 Ty literally started breaking and riding them for his dad 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:56.120 when he was eight years old. Lifelong exposure to a 0:03:56.240 --> 0:04:00.480 craft often delivers instinct and insight that can't be taught. 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:04.680 These people think about problems from a whole other stratosphere 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:08.560 than the casual partaker of the said craft. Ty was 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:12.040 like that with equine animals. So he made a plan. 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:16.159 Well, I thought this was a great plan. My wife 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:19.800 thought I was pretty dumb, just like don't go, don't 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:22.920 get on this horse. And I'll admit to you, I 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:25.800 had a feeling I shouldn't go, like I remember the 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:31.159 feeling don't go. And at the time, I'm a cowboy, thinking, ty, 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:35.680 you're just a sissy, like you're just scared. Go cowboy 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:38.760 up right? But inside you can't put that. Well, you 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:40.360 can talk about it, but you can't put it away 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:43.120 when you're worried. And I had that feeling don't go. 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:48.440 A powerful human exercise is to do an honest evaluation 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:53.120 of what value system drives your actions. But often we're 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:57.200 blind to the truth about ourselves, and it takes something 0:04:57.360 --> 0:05:01.599 powerful to drop the scales off our eyes. Was the 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:05.560 tough it out i'm a cowboy the right way or 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:10.080 was that actually the easy answer consistent with his cultural upbringing, 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:13.360 or should he have listened to his wife and his 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:18.880 intuition to quote from the book Evidence Based Horsemanship. For 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:22.520 someone to say I've been doing this for fifty years 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:26.440 doesn't negate the fact that someone could do something wrong 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:30.720 for fifty years end of quote. Is it possible for 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:34.120 someone to use a wrong value system, even a long 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:38.839 standing cultural bedrock value system like the cowboy way to 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:39.839 make decisions. 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:42.719 Is that possible for that to be wrong? 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:49.200 Well, what do you think I did? I went? Of course, 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:52.919 I went right, and I had this plan, like I said, 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:57.960 And I remember getting on that bucking horse, sitting down 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:02.120 the chute, get my feet in this, ups my legs 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:04.480 up under the swells of the saddle. The swells the 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:06.159 saddle on the front of the saddle, and I get 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:09.000 my legs up under the swells. I leaned back, tuck 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:12.480 my chin down to my chest, lift my bronch crane 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:15.480 that's what we hold onto. Lift up the bron crane, 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:17.960 put my free hand up and I remember that moment. 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:22.120 I don't do it. I just remember a distinct feeling, 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:25.359 don't do this. But then whatever, of course, cowboy up 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:27.000 and you're there. You're gonna nod your head. And I 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:31.159 nodded my head, and that horse belled out of that shute, 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:35.479 and just as I planned, it wrapped around those shaps perfectly. 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:39.800 I'm out of the shot. I've just accomplished the hardest 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:43.520 part of this horse's ride, getting out of the shot. 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:47.520 I'm the horse is bucking down the arena. I'm making 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:51.000 a good ride. We're going jump for jump. I'm lifting 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:55.719 on my rein, I'm I'm spurring, I'm leaning back. Everything 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:59.040 was good, and I'm thinking myself, oh jeeze, big sissy, 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:01.920 what were you so about? You got this? You got this? 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:06.840 Buzzer rings. Eight seconds is up. I've made my bronch ride. 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:11.960 I'm thinking check, I'm good to go. Picket men are 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:15.520 coming in. Picket men are rescue rangers in rodeo. They 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:18.720 come up. One comes up, fading on the left, one 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:22.040 comes up fading on the right. They're almost to me. 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:26.280 My horse slams on the brakes. The cody kids stops deadness, 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:31.280 tracks flips over backwards. I remember seeing the horse, the 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:34.160 horse's mane in my face, and I knew I had 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:37.000 been flipped over on many times, so it wasn't necessarily 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:40.280 a dramatic deal. So as a horse is coming over, 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:42.480 I'm thinking I got to jump out. I go to 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:46.440 jump out to my right, just in time to not 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:49.679 get my body smashed. But the swells of the saddle 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:53.960 came down, broke my femur in half, snapped my femer. 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:56.680 It gets up, the horse gets up, kicks me in 0:07:56.680 --> 0:08:01.280 the head, and it was it was touching. Go there 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:04.440 for a minute, I remember being in the ambulance and 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:06.160 one of the guy, one of the paramedics, saying, hey, 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:08.320 should we go code whatever? I don't know the codes. 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:12.120 I can't remember that gold code whatever meaning lights and sirens, 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:14.960 and the other paramat goes, yeah, you better. 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:20.280 Tie was bleeding out from a broken femur and had 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:23.640 a busted and banged up head from getting kicked. The 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:27.960 broke leg took him completely out of rodeo for several years, 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:33.280 crushing his dream to potentially ride professionally. But the crisis 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:37.840 catalyzed the process of evaluation in Tie, which begs the 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:41.040 question was it actually the right thing to do to 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:44.079 ride the code of kid, because it did bring him 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:46.080 to a place of honest evaluation. 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:51.520 Long story short, I was out for a while, couldn't 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:54.360 rodeo and all that down, and I couldn't ride my mules. 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:56.920 I was still writing for a living, I was riding 0:08:57.040 --> 0:08:59.760 Colts for living. I was a newly red I'd only 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:04.000 been right a couple of years, and we just bought 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:07.640 our first little house, and I remember just being sick, like, 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:12.360 you can't you can't ride, you can't work, man, what 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:13.800 are you going to do? And so I had all 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:17.840 this time on my hands, and I remember really thinking 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:21.800 about what I want to do, And that's about when 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:22.880 that documentary came out. 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:28.720 By this time, young Tie was like his father, making 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:33.360 a complete living breaking horses and mules. They were cult starters, 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:36.760 the most dangerous kind of training, breaking to ride one 0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:40.000 hundred to one hundred and twenty animals a year. And 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:42.400 I want to key in on something that could sound 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:44.160 endearing to our ear. 0:09:44.840 --> 0:09:47.280 He was doing it just like his dad. 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:52.240 But the spirit filled Judo Chop wisdom of this story 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:57.199 pivots on this idea, doing what your dad did isn't 0:09:57.240 --> 0:10:00.840 always the best way. The way your dad the decisions 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:04.240 may not be the best way. He may have been 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:11.120 doing it wrong the whole time. In January of twenty eleven, 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:14.559 a documentary called Buck came out that was about a 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:18.479 man named Buck Branneman that many called the horse whisper. 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:22.920 Buck taught what he called natural horsemanship, where you communicate 0:10:22.960 --> 0:10:28.320 with a horse through sensitivity and leadership, not punishment. This 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:32.080 is a clip from that documentary. 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:36.559 Do you see the expression on that horse? Get moves, 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:41.040 but he's crabby, flagging the tail, it's annoyed. It's like 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:44.520 asking your kid to go take the garbage out. They 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:45.480 take the garbage out. 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:46.200 If they flip me. 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:48.640 The bird on the way out of the room, it's 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:49.560 without respect. 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:53.800 And the respect isn't fear, it's acceptance. 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:58.520 Buck says, when you start handling horses, your own personal 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:01.720 issues start coming out. And I was so anxious to 0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:04.200 see the saddle on Chief i rushed him to it. 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:06.960 And now I've built I feel like I've built this 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:11.080 fear on, this insecurity in him. But see I'm an 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:16.240 insecure person. So the horses, they mirror you. They can't lie. 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:22.200 Good boy, Buck Brannman wasn't the first to do this 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:25.280 natural horsemanship. He was a pioneer in it though in 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:27.840 modern times, and he was one of the first to 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:31.920 be highly successful and gain national and even global notoriety. 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:37.120 Ray Hunt, the Durnce Brothers Pat Perelli were also forerunners 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:40.720 in this style of horse training. This method maybe took 0:11:40.760 --> 0:11:45.160 a little longer, took more patience, more precision, more attention 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:48.760 to nuanced in detail. But the real kicker was that 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:52.720 it took on a whole different kind of worldview about 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:56.480 the horse. It required a whole new kind of trainer, 0:11:56.920 --> 0:11:59.800 a new mindset, a new empathy a new kind of 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:04.200 strength that was absent in training the horse the cowboy way. 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:09.400 In this new way was producing some incredible horses. Ty 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:13.000 was deeply inspired by the documentary and had already been 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:17.360 influenced by the natural horsemanship philosophy for the last several years. 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:21.160 But what Ty realized while laying there with this broken 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:25.439 leg was that very few people were doing this with mules. 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:29.600 Would it even work for mules? The horse world had 0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:32.840 clinicians teaching people how to ride and train horses. The 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:37.199 industry was huge, but mules. Very few people were training 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:40.160 mules to the degree that they were training horses. 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:42.600 Few were making what they call. 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:47.079 Bridle mules or bridle horses, which describes a very high 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:50.600 level of training that takes many, many years and it 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:56.720 produces an animal with incredible safety, precision, control, and comfort. 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:01.480 For thousands and thousands of years, the mule was considered 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:05.080 a beast of burden, and Tie started to think about 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:08.720 mules differently, and he learned a new way to train 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:32.080 that required shuck in the past. Tie is now in 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:36.199 his mid thirties. It's been fifteen years since the rodeo wreck, 0:13:36.600 --> 0:13:41.120 and I'm riding behind him and our friend named McClain Meekham, 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:44.560 a well known man the lion hunting and mule world. 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:47.680 It's the fifth day of a mountain lion hunt. The 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:50.440 last four days we've been riding in some of the 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:57.120 roughest country in the West. So I'm in Utah right 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:03.360 now with behind Tie Evens this pretty round mule. 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:07.400 What we doing to having the best day eversday alive? 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:09.480 Little kidding? 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:19.600 All right, we just busted some brush. 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:22.200 What we're doing is following a lion. 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:27.080 So we're we're about probably two and a half miles 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:30.400 from the truck and we're we're following dogs through real 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:33.560 thick and canyon, so we're having to bust a bunch 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:35.280 of brush while we're riding. 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:37.600 Kind of treacherous. 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:41.440 You might get raked off your mule, so you. 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:43.000 Kind of got to have a lot of control. 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:46.960 This is when you need real control of your animal, 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:52.040 need to be able to steer them precisely. And that 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:57.120 is exactly what Tie Evans is good at, training them 0:14:57.160 --> 0:14:58.760 to be precise. 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:01.120 To have control with a mule. 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:04.240 This is the kind of place you want to be 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:06.720 sitting in the saddle of a good mule that you 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:10.320 have complete control over, one that trusts you so that 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:13.760 you can trust it. Places like this are why Tie 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:17.720 has dedicated his life to training mules. The backcountry is 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:21.760 a good place to die, and a trustworthy steed is invaluable. 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:25.080 You see a mule is across between a mare horse 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:29.240 and a jack donkey. Hybrid vigor creates an animal more 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:32.560 sure footed than a horse, with more stamina day in 0:15:32.560 --> 0:15:36.480 and day out. It has a longer working lifetime, and 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:40.080 mules are easier to keep healthy than a horse. But 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:44.440 mules have their drawbacks too. They're harder to find than horses. 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:47.640 They're just less of them because they're sterile. They have 0:15:47.840 --> 0:15:52.200 a very strong self protection mechanism that the world has 0:15:52.280 --> 0:15:56.600 interpreted as stubbornness for thousands of years, which can make 0:15:56.640 --> 0:16:00.160 them more challenging to train than a horse, but it 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:03.160 also can make them safer. I've heard it said that 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:05.120 you can train a horse to jump off a cliff, 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:08.960 but a mule ain't jumping off no cliff. Horses can 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:12.760 also be so compliant, which is a wonderful thing, that 0:16:13.280 --> 0:16:16.520 he'll cross a raging river that you and that horse 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:19.520 are going to drowned in. A mule ain't crossing no 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:24.200 river that he's going to die in. Horses are incredible 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:29.080 animals that are faster, quicker, and generally easier to bring 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:32.480 to a place of compliance, and are often better on 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:35.440 the ranch and in the rodeo arena, but in the 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:40.280 back country, without question, a mule is the animal that 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:43.680 I want to be on, and most people that ride 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:48.200 equines in the back country agree, And that's why I 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:55.280 love mules. So we just came up over the ridge 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:59.920 and it sounded like a freight train. The dogs had, 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:05.440 we think, jumped this line. We've been trailing for two days. 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:11.240 Pretty pretty unique thing to be following the klan and 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:18.440 tie hunting a line on meals, I wouldn't have a 0:17:18.560 --> 0:17:23.560 rare human experience, I'd say, with two guys that are 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:26.360 some of the best in the world at what they do. 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:30.800 Tay, how how far do you think we've rowed this 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:31.640 week on mules? 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:36.919 This week we've probably wrote, Well, this morning I was 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:38.840 I was at sixty eight miles, but I had to 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:42.000 trot some mules up. Yeah, so I'm a little bit more. 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:44.800 But but by the end of the day we'll be 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:47.960 over seventy miles, will be over some miles five days 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:52.399 And I was actually thinking that might be some of 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:56.720 the longest miles, non non cowboying miles I've ever done. 0:17:56.960 --> 0:17:59.399 Me and a cowboy when I'm working ranch and stuff, 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:01.800 we'll do miles like that. But it ain't miles. It 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:05.240 ain't lying miles. You know what they said, line miles 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:09.080 don't lie. So I don't know if I've ever done 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:14.919 over seventy miles riding this crazy, wicked mountain like this before. 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:16.840 In five days time. 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:22.480 I want to learn about Tai's backstory and how he 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:28.919 transformed into a completely different trainer than the generation before him. 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:32.080 Born and raised in Utah my whole life, I loved 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:34.679 you my whole life. I love Utah. It's home. I 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:38.000 love everything about Utah, over the mountains, the desert canyons, 0:18:38.840 --> 0:18:42.160 all of it. Growing up where we were a very 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:47.040 outdoors family. For sure, I'm super grateful my dad took 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:52.160 us camping and hunting and fishing and riding all the time. 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:55.240 Part of that was because it's what he did for 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:58.240 a living. He rode a lot of cults for a living, 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:03.600 so young horses, young mules primarily. He started out with horses, 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:08.800 But like any trainers trying to make a living, you know, 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:12.200 people say, hey, what about a mule, Did you take 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:18.040 a meal for training? And I remember, I still remember 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:22.520 the first meal he started working with, UH, and that 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:27.320 kind of opened the doors for him becoming the mule guy. 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:33.320 Ty's dad, Dion Evans, was and is an incredible trainer 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:36.560 and mentor for time. I want to pull back this 0:19:36.760 --> 0:19:39.800 idea of the time being pitted against his dad and 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:42.760 training methodology because he was doing something wrong. 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:45.040 People like Dion did the. 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:48.359 Best they could with what they knew, and it worked. 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:52.120 In a perfect world, a son starts from the position 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:57.120 his father stopped, building upon his father's lifetime of experience, 0:19:57.480 --> 0:19:59.879 and that is exactly what happened here with TI. 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:04.880 You know when I when I tell you I started 0:20:05.160 --> 0:20:07.719 like working for my dad when I was eight, I 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:09.600 really mean it like I was working for my dad. 0:20:09.640 --> 0:20:12.920 When I say he started us out with like these 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:18.120 little ponies. I remember one little pony named Patches. That 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:21.520 son of a gun could buck like it could buck, 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:24.440 and we'd ride it as long as we could, fall 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:28.320 off most of the time, get back on write it again, UH. 0:20:28.720 --> 0:20:31.440 And then pretty soon that turned into, like I said, 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:34.440 me working for my dad. And I don't know, maybe 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:38.040 for lack of better words, I was a crash dummy. 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:41.480 You know, he'd put us on cults for the first ride, 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:44.240 so he would handle him on the ground. He'd have 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:47.920 him by the lead rope, and he'd get a saddle 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:52.800 on him, and you know, he would do his version 0:20:52.840 --> 0:20:55.919 of what groundwork would be, which would be getting the 0:20:55.960 --> 0:21:00.720 saddle on without them trying to kill him. And and 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:03.800 then we would climb on and he would hang on 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:08.360 to him and they'd buck around or whatever. But back 0:21:08.400 --> 0:21:09.960 in those days, a lot of times it was bucking 0:21:10.000 --> 0:21:14.680 them out. And my dad worked for so many horses 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:17.720 and mules. He was he was a really good hand. 0:21:18.600 --> 0:21:23.359 And in those days you took whatever type of horse 0:21:23.480 --> 0:21:26.960 or mules that would come for work. A paycheck was 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:31.080 a paycheck, right, and he would take them on the 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:34.920 way my dad would start something back then is you 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:37.119 get in a round pin, and a lot of times 0:21:37.119 --> 0:21:40.199 people would they'd drop them off. I remember one of 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:44.480 my dreaded feelings is when somebody would back their horse 0:21:44.520 --> 0:21:47.760 trader up to the round pin, opened the gate, opened 0:21:47.800 --> 0:21:49.600 the open the back of the trailer and let that 0:21:49.640 --> 0:21:52.120 thing out, because that meant it wasn't broke to lead. 0:21:52.960 --> 0:21:58.160 That meant it was probably pretty wild probably a little 0:21:58.280 --> 0:22:01.760 what we call touchy or wash spear, a little watchy, 0:22:02.040 --> 0:22:07.080 meaning they don't probably didn't like humans much, right, And 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:10.200 that was always that would always get me riled up, like, oh, 0:22:10.240 --> 0:22:13.720 here we go again, you know. So he would do 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:16.360 some round pin work, move him around in a round pin. 0:22:16.560 --> 0:22:19.640 We use a round pin in training then and now, 0:22:19.720 --> 0:22:24.120 and it's pretty historic because there's no corners. But we'd 0:22:24.160 --> 0:22:28.359 get them and we would lunge them around in the 0:22:28.440 --> 0:22:32.000 round pin, and we would get them kind of more 0:22:32.080 --> 0:22:35.200 or less tired, and then we'd finally get him caught. 0:22:35.640 --> 0:22:37.600 A lot of times you could, you could catch them, 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:39.320 but a lot of times you had to rope them 0:22:40.119 --> 0:22:43.119 and then kind of get a saddle on it, and 0:22:43.200 --> 0:22:47.119 it might buck a saddle off, it might kick you, 0:22:48.080 --> 0:22:51.840 and it was, I guess, for lack of otherwise describing it, 0:22:51.840 --> 0:22:54.800 it was a fight a lot of times to get 0:22:54.800 --> 0:22:57.199 those suals on. I've been kicked more times trying to 0:22:57.240 --> 0:23:00.280 saddle the horse or mule than anything else back in 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:04.679 those days especially, you know. But we'd get them saddled 0:23:04.760 --> 0:23:07.320 up a lot of times, we'd you tie up, be 0:23:07.359 --> 0:23:12.760 hind legged, and that kind of restricted their movement. It didn't. 0:23:12.760 --> 0:23:14.760 It wouldn't hurt him or anything, but it would restrict 0:23:14.760 --> 0:23:17.359 their movement. They couldn't. They couldn't like run off and 0:23:17.359 --> 0:23:20.159 they and if they tried to buck it was really 0:23:20.200 --> 0:23:22.879 really mud. You'd get on them and then turn that 0:23:23.000 --> 0:23:26.399 leg loose. Then would and then I would go for 0:23:26.400 --> 0:23:29.960 a bron ride and hope I stayed on and you 0:23:30.080 --> 0:23:32.600 learn you learned to stay on like I got. I 0:23:32.600 --> 0:23:35.520 had a lot of bron crides in as a young 0:23:35.800 --> 0:23:37.960 You got a picture like a little kid doing this. 0:23:38.080 --> 0:23:41.480 I'm not a very big guy eight nine, ten, eleven, 0:23:41.560 --> 0:23:46.719 twelve year old tie you know, out there trying to 0:23:46.760 --> 0:23:52.680 stay on, and I looking back, I'm grateful for those moments. 0:23:53.280 --> 0:23:56.200 The old way, so people called the old way. It 0:23:56.240 --> 0:23:59.560 was hard, but it taught me to grid. I learned 0:23:59.600 --> 0:24:03.719 how to run. I learned how to fight for something, 0:24:04.400 --> 0:24:08.320 which in that case was my life, trying to stay 0:24:08.320 --> 0:24:12.159 on like you really hadn't learned stay on because it 0:24:12.200 --> 0:24:14.359 was easier to stay on once than to stay on 0:24:14.440 --> 0:24:16.919 five times. What I mean is it didn't matter you 0:24:17.000 --> 0:24:19.760 got bucked off or guess what you are getting back there. 0:24:20.240 --> 0:24:23.040 It's non negotiable. As long as you were physically healthy, 0:24:23.440 --> 0:24:28.320 and that is even negotiable, like what is this, Well, 0:24:28.800 --> 0:24:32.560 nothing's broken, you know, the saying nothing's broken long way 0:24:32.600 --> 0:24:34.119 from your heart. Okay, get on. 0:24:37.240 --> 0:24:41.320 It's easier to stay on once than five times. I 0:24:41.480 --> 0:24:44.520 like that TI has done a good job of describing 0:24:44.520 --> 0:24:47.679 the old way, the cowboy way of training, which is 0:24:47.760 --> 0:24:51.760 basically a tough man contest, a battle against fear. And 0:24:51.840 --> 0:24:54.800 it was the playing field of proving the cowboy way. 0:24:55.520 --> 0:25:00.280 But he would learn there was a better way. Haven't 0:25:00.280 --> 0:25:04.119 they always trained horses the cowboy way? 0:25:04.320 --> 0:25:07.880 People will ask, so is this how people have been 0:25:07.960 --> 0:25:11.439 riding and training animals for one hundreds of years? The 0:25:11.480 --> 0:25:15.399 answer is now in that answer, what I mean is 0:25:16.160 --> 0:25:19.120 I call it Industrial age horsemanship. So at the turn 0:25:19.119 --> 0:25:23.879 of the century, the industrial age, everything's faster, right, and 0:25:24.359 --> 0:25:26.240 it's kind of like what we deal with now with 0:25:26.240 --> 0:25:29.879 with our technology like a microwave, we won't think so fast. 0:25:30.800 --> 0:25:34.800 When when cultures started changing with the horsemanship, it went 0:25:34.880 --> 0:25:38.560 from taking time to do stuff well and having the 0:25:38.600 --> 0:25:41.240