This is the chorus that often greets 11-year-old fifth grader Colton Hay when he returns home from Celina Elementary each afternoon and begins his chores.
On this day, his mom, Emily, who works the third shift at nearby Crown Equipment, had a pitchfork in hand and already was mucking one of the stalls to help him.
This can be thankless work, which prompted a question:
“Thanksgiving is coming up. What are you thankful for?”
Colton answered without hesitation: “The horses.”
Asked if there was anything else, he thought a few seconds and said “Home.”
Anything more?
As he quietly racked his brain, Emily put down her pitchfork, leaned into the silence, and waited.
“Oh yeah, my mom,” he finally said
“And my dad.”
Emily laughed: “You learn where you stand out here.”
You could have guessed Colton’s initial answer had you read the front of the green sweatshirt he wore:
“A cowboy is only half a man. The other half is his horse.”
Colton — even with his tender age and his slight 4-foot-9, 80-pound stature — is a true cowboy. And that’s not just because of that big, black cowboy hat he wore last year for his official fourth grade class picture.
The real proof came today when he loaded his two barrel racing and pole-bending horses — 14-year-old Kate and 4-year-old Viv — into a horse trailer that would be pulled by the Dodge Ram 3500 truck his mom would drive.
They would be joined by young cowgirl from Pennsylvania and her parents — and one of their horses — for a trip to Las Vegas to compete in the Mike and Sherrylynn Johnson’s Vegas Tuffest Jr. World Championship.
They planned to stop in Oklahoma tonight and Gallup, New Mexico, on Friday night before getting to Las Vegas on Saturday.
Colton’s dad Jason — who works at a local construction company and stayed behind to take care of the other four horses, a pony and the other animals — will fly out just for the competition.
Colton qualified in barrel racing and will compete aboard Kate on Dec. 5 and 7. If he finishes high enough in the prelims, he’ll compete in the finals Dec. 10.
“There are some huge prizes if you get to the hot round (finals),” Emily said. “The little girl who won last year took home something like $35,000.”
While Colton — who will also ride Viv in pole bending competition at another rodeo out there — will miss some days of school for this venture, he’s getting a valuable education from his cowboy classwork.
There’s the discipline and responsibility that comes when you must feed your horses before school every morning and then clean their stalls and exercise them after you get back home at 3:30 each afternoon.
Also, there are the lessons of kindness and respect and true friendship that keep coming with his involvement with the Special Olympians, who visit the barn every Wednesday as part of an equine therapy program.
And there are the healthy benefits that come when you’re astride your horse practicing your rodeo pursuits, even while it may perturb your dad.
“He’ll be out here riding for hours and his dad got mad at him for tearing up the yard,” Emily said, then shrugged and smiled.
“I said, ‘I’d rather have him out here tearing up the grass than being inside with his nose buried in a computer or video game all day.’
“We don’t have Xbox or PlayStation, any of that stuff. He wants a cell phone, but I won’t let him get one.
“He does have an iPad because you need to do something when you’re travelling 16 hours to a competition. I get that.”
And Colton seems to get mom and dad’s view, as well:
“I go to my buddies’ houses, and they have all the video games they want. While most of them are inside playing, I stay outside and ride dirt bikes and stuff.
“I like that. And I like my horses. That’s fun.”
All in the family
Colton’s horse sense — or sense of horses might be better — actually began when he was in the womb.
As a side pursuit, Emily used to train and race standardbreds on the county fair circuit and at harness tracks and racinos in the region. More than a decade ago, she helped launch the Ohio Ladies Pace series at county fairs. The races feature women drivers.
“I can remember driving Aloha Kelly when I was pregnant with Colton,” she said.
Jason’s dad and grandfather were involved in standardbred racing as well and he once worked at Balmoral Park in Chicago.
“When Colton was just a little baby, we’d set him in one of the feed buckets in the barn while we cleaned stalls,” Emily said.
“But there were times where he was horrible, just horrible. I can remember going to Toledo to race sometimes and he’d cry the whole time.
“My friend Randy Canary used to always go with us to the races and he’d try singing to him. It didn’t work. Nothing did. Colton would just cry and cry and cry.”
By the time he was two, Colton’s tears gave way to excitement, as he’d get taken along in drivers’ laps as they worked their horses on the racetracks.
Back then he had his own lime green and purple racing silks with embroidered horseshoes on the front and back and his name over his heart.
He was a Mini-Me version of his mom.
He often went with his mom to the races, but that all changed in 2020 when the COVID pandemic hit and tracks — after temporarily suspending operations — reopened but allowed only necessary trainers, drivers, and horses to enter the barns.
On the suggestion of one of his mom’s friends, Colton turned his attention to rodeo events, specifically pole bending and barrel racing. Riding their tubby little pony Hunter, he entered his first barrel racing competition at the Crazy Woman Ranch in Lancaster southeast of Columbus.
“He was barely big enough to see over the barrels,” Emily said.
This was all new to Hunter, as well, and he was reluctant to run and froze up.
Colton showed some aptitude at his second event — at an indoor arena in Eaton — and Viv Branstetter, a friend of Emily’s, told her about an old harness horse that would help her young son better learn and compete in his new pursuits.
“Her name is LA and she was 24 when we got her,” Emily said. “I figured she might not have much time left, so she might be the perfect horse if Colton turned out to not like doing this.”
Emily was wrong on both counts.
Her son loved it, and LA seemed to get better with age over the next couple of years. Although she’ll be 29 in January, LA still runs once in a while and wins.
“We let a little girl use her for the county fair this year and she won a bunch of awards in barrel racing, pole bending, down and backs, speed and control, all the 4H events they do,” Emily said.
Colton now rides Kate as his primary horse and the younger Viv is his secondary horse.
He’s competed in events not only across Ohio and Indiana, but also in Texas, Mississippi, Florida, Minnesota and Pennsylvania.
He has several area sponsors and that includes local VFW Post 5713 in Celina. In turn, he and his mom take some of their animals and recruit others for a petting zoo at the VFW’s annual Family Fun Day celebration.
Two years ago, Priefert, the ranch and rodeo equipment manufacturer, selected Colton to be part of its nationallyrecognized Priefert Junior Elite Team whose goal is not only aimed at highlighting young rodeo talent in the arena, but helping them with their leadership skills in everyday life.
Colton visited their farm in Mount Pleasant, Texas, and Emily said the trip included classroom time “learning how to write up sponsorships; talk to sponsors; how to dress, and etiquette.
“Every month they do conference calls and turn in papers about what they learned in terms of ethics, values, integrity, sportsmanship, leadership, all kinds of topics.”
Harness racing
Although he’s making strides in the rodeo world, Colton still has harness racing in his heart, his mom said.
“He hopes to drive in his first two races — unofficial runs with no age limits — at the Mercer and Darke County fairs this summer.
“You have to be 14 to get a license for matinees and 16 to run at the fairs, but if they don’t charge a line, anybody can do it,” Emily said. “We’d have him in a race with just a couple of other drivers we know.”
Along with his mom’s primary harness horse, Royal Delta, he’s trying to get an old horse they picked up, Real Hanover, to be a second entry in another race for him.
“(Real Hanover) came out of the Meadows in Pennsylvania and went to New Vocations, where they find horses something to do after they retire,” Emily said. “He was a $100 horse for us. They just wanted him to end up in a good home.
“He’s a good old boy — we think he’s 22 — who’s become a 4-H horse here.”
They especially plan to use him in their Special Olympics programs.
“He’ll be slow, but safe and reliable,” Emily said.
In the first year of the program, she said they mentored four Special Olympians and so did her friend, Niki Rider, who has a horse boarding facility in Celina.
Colton became especially active in the program and some of the Special Olympians bloomed beyond expectations.
“One little girl on the team wouldn’t go away from home — she was afraid to use public restrooms — so her family couldn’t go anywhere or do many things with her,” Emily said. “But she got out here and started riding horses and she wanted to help in the barn. She got more and more involved and gained confidence.
“She used to carry stuffed animals everywhere she went. Now they get here, and she drops them on the table. She doesn’t need that security device anymore.
“Her mom told me you wouldn’t believe how doors have opened up for her now.”
A couple of the other kids have similar stories, and Colton has been right there with them, helping them and encouraging them.
And that prompted one last question to Emily:
“How about you? What are you thankful for?”
With a moment’s thought, she said “Just our life in general. And doing what we’re doing. And, as far as Colton, he’s a good kid.
“I don’t know if one day he’ll go to college, but I think horses will be in his future for sure.”
Like the sweatshirt said, they’re half of the equation.
He’s the rest.
He is a cowboy.
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