July 2009
Taking Life by the Horns
by Craig Springer
Clay Bailey has a name that sounds fit for rodeo, or country and western music. You can see in your mind’s eye a man in a black Stetson, a focused mind, locked in a saddle, a gloved hand with an iron grip hanging on to a rope, hoping to outlast an angry bull only a mere eight seconds.
Bailey, 44, is a cow rider but of a different stripe. He trains and rides Texas longhorns at his home in Edgewood where he lives with son, Renn, and wife of 20-some years, Tana. He is a native of Portales, and has always been fond of cows. He’s worked around animals and agriculture most of his life.
Texas longhorn cattle are iconic. The impress of nature shaped the cows into what they are today, all on American soil. Their ancestral stock landed in the Southwest five centuries ago. Without fences, the animals roamed wild. They adapted to the harsh environs and nature selected the best to breed the new generations. The fittest lived without the aid of the stockman, for there were none. Author J. Frank Dobie in his book, The Longhorns, wrote, “Had they been registered and regulated, restrained and provided for by man, they would not have been what they were.”
And what we have today, is a hardy and intelligent animal, says Bailey. “Longhorns are strongly herd-oriented. Teaching one to ride without others around is difficult; teaching one to go by his self is the challenge.”
Bailey is close friends with the folks at Folsom Falls Ranch near the small town of Folsom, a stone’s throw from Colorado. Ranch owners Fred and Marijo Balmer own and train Texas longhorns. It was through them Bailey took an interest, nearly 20 years ago. Bailey says he’s always liked cows more than horses. He rides both but the training is much different. He says it takes three years to break a riding longhorn. “They got to have the disposition, they got to have it all—a bucking cow is not a candidate.”
Bailey and his Folsom friends show their animals in parades and other public affairs. They curry and pull carts, and carry riders. They have ridden at grand entries and the New Mexico State Fair, the mounted shooting events, Carrizozo’s Cowboy Days, and the National Western Stockman Show in Denver, Colorado. They even ride the cows through a ring of fire.
Fire is something Bailey knows about. When not training and riding longhorns, he’s a liquid propane inspector for New Mexico’s Regulation and Licensing Department, Construction Industries Division, ensuring that people and businesses using the gas, do so safely.
He might inspect pyrotechnic displays at a country music concert. He inspects LP fittings with the burgeoning movie filming industry. It’s not 9 to 5 work and he’s on the road a fair amount. Training and riding longhorns takes one away from the stress of work.
But Fred Balmer says that Bailey is the kind of guy you want doing his work for the people of New Mexico: “Clay tells you what he thinks, does what he says he’ll do; he’s an honest man.”
One can honestly say that Bailey like his cows—his longhorns.
If you know anyone who'd make a good profile for this column—including yourself—let us know at sespinoza@enchantment.coop.
Return to top