From leading trail rides in Arizona to packing in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and Montana, Alison McGrady has spent plenty of time in the saddle. Yet, this 38-year-old horsewoman appreciates every day she can ride and work with horses.
From a young age, McGrady knew horses were her future. After meeting her husband, Tim, when he moved to Arizona to start horses, McGrady followed him back to his home in Livingston, Montana. Today, she trains her own bridle horses and a variety of clients’ horses daily, works cattle, and assists Tim packing into Yellowstone when necessary. This all-around hand found what she was looking for, both personally and in her horsemanship.
Little girls and horses are an affliction, my dad used to say. Well, it is something I never got over.
I grew up working for a dude outfit between Apache Junction and Florence Junction [Arizona]. The folks that ran the outfit took me under their wing. I was helping lead trail rides when I was 14, and I was lucky to be exposed to some really good hands down there. That is where I got the horse bug.
I first rode colts with Dwayne and Dee Matson. They had a horse act and wintered in Arizona. The very first horse I ever broke was Mr. Ed, a Shetland pony! Dwayne taught me so much, more than I realized until I was older. He kept me out of trouble.
When I began to start colts on my own, I realized I didn’t understand as much as I thought. It’s only been the last few years that I’ve got a system and I know when a horse is ready to get on.
Tim came to work on the same outfit I did in Dewey, Arizona, in 2006. They had more colts than I could start, and he had more colts than I could start, and he had come down from [Yellowstone] looking for winter work. The next April, he went back north. By August, I loaded up and went on up to meet him.
He was dead honest with me from the start. Tim said he couldn’t promise anything but a life of poverty, but that we’d be happy. He’s been dead-on. We are doing a little better than the poverty part, though. Tim is a gift.
“Preparing a horse for someone else to enjoy is the coolest thing.”
In the late ’90s, I came to Montana on vacation. I saw this place and thought, “Lord, drop me here!” Then, finding the love of my life and moving here, I thought, “How lucky can one girl get?”
I packed for five years with Tim in the park. But what I really enjoy is riding horses and seeing what I can get from each one. So, I decided to hang my shingle out [and train] again since I wasn’t getting any younger.
All the little bits and pieces of Ray Hunt’s style of horsemanship I’d seen in Arizona came together when I met Tim. Tim had ridden with Buck Brannaman and was around guys like Bryan Neubert when he buckarooed in Nevada. He exposed me to that way of handling horses, and it really clicked.
The horses I’ve ridden while working for horse breakers really prepared me for the horses I’ve trained. I bought this roan as a coming 4-year-old, and my progress with him is slow. When I first got him, he was so cinchy that even when you put the saddle on he would lights-out blow up. But, I took him to a branding this spring and he did okay. If I hadn’t had tough horses before, I don’t know if I could have got through it. In the last year, though, he’s had such a change.
It’s real rewarding for me to see someone take a horse home after I’ve worked on it. Just to see them get on the same page is huge!
This style of horsemanship appeals to me because, opposed to what I grew up with, here you take the time. My goal is to make a bridle horse from step one. When the horse is ready, that is when you move on. I’m not looking at a date on the calendar to see when I need the horses ready; instead, I wait on them.
Branding is a big deal for us, and we go all over the place. For us, that is playtime, and that is where all the hard work on our horses pays off.
The long-term goal is to have a cow-calf herd of our own, and we want to raise a few horses. But, for us to get in the cow business right now would be hard. So, we are working for other people like everybody else is doing right now.
I’ve helped Tim calve cows and scrape frozen calves off the Montana ground at 1 in the morning. A couple weeks later, you can look out the window and see that little booger running around with his tail up and know he is alive because you helped him.
There are rewards in this life that can’t be bought, you can’t write a check for them. Just being outside all day is its own reward — except maybe in the winter.
This article was originally published in the December 2012 issue of Western Horseman.
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