Cowboy is a patient teacher of horses and teens

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

	V.W.H. Campbell Jr., Post-Gazette   Bob Sagely heads out for a late afternoon ride aboard PB, his trusty Appaloosa.

Blairsville isn't exactly tumbleweed and cattle-drive country, but it's home to at least one honest-to-Pete cowboy.

Bob Sagely's his name. Daytimes you'll find him at Blairsville High School, showing kids the finer points of frog innards. He's a biology teacher.

But after the bell rings and the buses roll off into the sunset, Sagely saddles up PB, his trusty Appaloosa, and rides out across Westmoreland and Indiana counties, teaching horsemen and cowpokes the gentle arts of the California vaquero.

	V.W.H. Campbell Jr., Post-Gazette Sagely warms up for roping.

He's from California, see, where the Mexican cowboy influence is still strong.

Among stints as a surfer dude, college student and a vending-machine filler, he hung around Rancho Mission Viejo with fellows named Arturo, Oso, Juan and Yoyo.

"They were the real deal," Sagely says, "real old sixth-generation California cowboys, true horsemen. They didn't hardly use squeeze chutes. They didn't drag the calves by the neck and choke them. They worked together, could throw a rope from yards away, neck and ankles, and just stretch that calf onto the ground without traumatizing it."

Sagely calls that "ranch roping."

He spent plenty more years as a ranch hand on spreads in Arizona, Oregon and Wyoming, seeing the rough and tumble of standard "bronco-busting" and "cow-punching" and comparing it to the gentler, slower Mexican methods. The old way works best, he decided, with fewer injuries to cattle, horse and cowboy alike. He'll demonstrate it April 23 and 24 at Westmoreland Fair Grounds, at the Horseman's Extravaganza, a new event sponsored by the Pennsylvania Natural Horsemanship Association.

Other speakers on the program include a homeopathic veterinarian; several "colt-starters" and "foundation trainers" who gently start young horses in the basics of walk, trot and lope; an Andalusian stallion that does circus tricks; and dozens of sales reps touting gentle, natural and organic ways to curb, keep and cure all kinds of creatures.

	V.W.H. Campbell Jr., Post-Gazette Bob Sagely prepares to lasso a running horse.

It's all a full circle to Sagely. The gentle, patient horse-training techniques the vaqueros taught are back in fashion now, under the name of "natural horsemanship."

"This will be the biggest group I've ever taught. Our programs are all filling up and we're having to rent more space," he said.

Horse owners with "problem mounts" will bring their challenges to the fairground, and the trainers will do their magic before the eyes of the crowd.

"People want desperately to get their horse to do what they want. The horse's training and background don't always match up to the owner's expectation. So the owner gets frustrated. He's in a hurry. He has all this time and money invested in this horse, and he thinks it's the horse that's got to be 'fixed.' "

The animal is tied tight to a post, stung with a riding crop or strapped into painful apparatus that force him into the desired stance, stride or behavior. He cooperates out of fear.

V.W.H. Campbell Jr., Post-Gazette Sagely gently guides a horse with his lariat.   Horseman's lingo   Horses came to the United States with the Spanish conquistadors and missionaries and only later spread across the continent. That's why much of the original language used by American horsemen comes from Spanish or Mexican Indian words. "Buckaroo" is a cowboy corruption of the Spanish "Vaquero" or "cowboy." "Hackamore," the bit-free braided bosal, headstall, fiador and mecate, comes from "jaquima." The "fiador," a throat-skimming part of a jaquima rig, morphed into a "theodore." A "mecate" rein, a 24-foot length of twisted horsehair rope, making a closed rein and lead combination, is called a "McCarty" out west.

"It's sort of the nasty little secret of the horse world," Sagely says. "It's easier and more economical to hurt your horse or dominate him. But there are other, nicer ways. You build a relationship not on force and fear, but on enjoyment and understanding. It takes longer this way, but I never have to wonder if I'm hurting or abusing my horse. He trusts me. He likes being in my company. I walk into his pasture, and my horse walks up to meet me."

Sagely met his wife, Pam, a New Bethlehem native, at a dude ranch in Wyoming. Their 22-year marriage brought them back to Indiana County eight years ago, where much of Pam's family still resides.

There's not so much call for calf-ropers in Western Pennsylvania, so Sagely reached back to his college days, pulled out his biology teaching certificate and landed a job at Blairsville High.

And on the side, he put his decades of horse-shoeing experience to work, specializing in hard-to-handle horses. Locals watched him work, and wondered at the painstaking technique that soothed and calmed their "unmanageable" animals straight through the shoeing operation.

"They thought I was from Mars," he says. "But I get that less and less these days. Natural horsemanship is growing and gaining in popularity. They're seeing it really works. That a horse understands when you know -- and he knows when you don't know, too."

Sagely sees parallels between horse training and teaching teens. "You have to make it hard for them to do the wrong thing and make it easy for them to do the right thing. And you have to make it obvious. But they have to be the ones to choose."

Long winters on Chestnut Ridge mean lots of indoor time; Sagely uses that these days to build custom saddles, bridles and ropes.

"These [saddles] are made for people who spend 15 hours a day in them. They won't wreck a horse's back, and you'll feel good when you get down off it. It's solid and well built, and it will last so long your grandkids will use it, too. It's got my name on it. And that means something."

	V.W.H. Campbell Jr., Post-Gazette   Sagely and PB the Appaloosa rest after an afternoon workout.

To learn more about the Horsemen's Extravaganza, see the PNHA Web site at www.pnhaonline.com.
Sage Horsemanship, Sage Saddlery and Sage Horse Shoeing can all be reached at (724) 459-3873.

(Rebekah Scott can be reached at rscott@post-gazette.com or 724-836-2655.)