Western Shooting Horse

Meet The New World Champ

Matt Sronce is a cowboy.  Not in the traditional, Old West kind of way — even Matt says that high technology has forever changed things.  He spends as much time in a truck or on a tractor as he does on the back of a horse.

But he’s lived on Texas ranches almost all of his life.  He’s built solid, slightly bow-legged, and wears his Western garb like it was made just for him.  There’s more than a little “aw, shucks” in his demeanor. He handles a horse like nobody’s business, and he’s a fine shooter.  Okay, he lacks the real Texas drawl—but that makes it easier for us Easterners to understand him.
Matt Sronce is the 2007 CMSA Overall World Champion.

Now we could write up some long story on Matt, his background, his success in mounted shooting, etc., etc.  But Mr. Sronce tells things better than we ever could.  So let’s let Matt speak.

How He Got Into Mounted Shooting
I saw something on one of those television shooting shows and thought that might be something I’d be interested in doing.  So I checked around and found that they did one shoot a year in Texas.  And I went to it [this was in 1999].

When I first went there, they didn’t want to let me enter it. They said, “Oh, we’ve got a TV crew filming here.  Since you haven’t done this before, since you haven’t shot off of your horse in competition, we don’t really want you to do it.”  They thought I was going to be an embarrassment.  I assured them that whatever they thought was going to happen wasn’t going to happen.  The horse I used, I’d competed and won top points in our Texas State Riding Association and had been pretty competitive in reining.  So they asked me to do a demo—which I was kinda embarrassed about—to show ‘em I could ride.  I loped about two circles, and they said, “Keep going.”  I did it.  They thought that was sufficient.  And about five stages later I’d won the match.  So it was a good start, anyway.  And I was hooked.

His Riding and Shooting History
I guess I was riding before I could walk.  I know that I had my first crash before I could talk—we had a horse that fell with me and dad on it.  So I pretty much grew up on the back of a horse.  My grandfather slipped me into a 4-H deal and had me competing before I was old enough to compete.

I hunted, too.  We used to pack up into the mountains in Colorado and hunt.  We hunted here in Texas quite a bit.  I used to enjoy waterfowl hunting, skeet and trap shooting, that sort of thing. We hunted a bunch off of horseback.  I had a .22 loaded with rat shot that I used.  You’d shoot snakes off your horse with rat shot.

We’re around guns and it’s kind of a necessity to know how to shoot.  We’ve got a lot of predators that we try to keep under control.  So guns is something I’ve been around ever since I could be around ‘em, I guess.  Or as soon as my mom would let me be around them.

Competition as a Teenager
I actually did extremely well in archery.  And I really got into archery hunting and competed for a lot of years.  I got really good at it and probably could have made something out of that—but I really got burned out on it.  It just got really boring.  I just continued with the horses.  But shooting sports with firearms? I never really competed in it.  Where we were at, nobody really did that.  Had it been more available, I might have done that.

His Horse Clementine
She’s a red dun mare.  She’s 11 years old.  She’s born and bred here on the ranch.  I’ve had her since she was a baby.  I think there’s been only four people on her back.  We started her as a two year old.  She was really a great ranch horse—we used her solely on the ranch.  When I went off to college, my dad started riding her.  That’s when he claimed her as his.  He still thinks she is his horse.  He rode her and competed for a couple of years and actually started shooting on her.  And he laid the foundation of her in shooting.  He won like men’s 2 at Nationals one year on her—she was a three or four year old at that time.  My other horse started getting a bad back, so I began riding her again—and I took her back.  Or as my dad says, “stole.”  She has won me so much money, so many titles…and she’s in her prime.  I actually have her brother that I started this year.  Second match we went to I won overall on him.  And he’s a four year old; you might see him this next year.  I’ve got another horse as well that’s doing really well that I’m going to try to keep going.

Why He Seems to be So Laid Back
When we were growing up, my dad had a job where we had registered cattle and showed cattle and literally made million dollar deals.  And it was extremely stressful.  And I grew up with him most of the time on the phone, in the office.  He worked practically 24 hours a day, it seemed like.  And I said, “I’m not going to do that.  I’m not going to be stressed out and let that consume me.”  I try not to worry about things.  Your yesterdays are gone and can’t predict tomorrow.  All we’ve got is today.  And that’s kinda how I look at it.

Competitive Sports (Other Than Mounted Shooting)
I went to a very small school.  We had 10 people in our class.  So you could say I graduated in the top 10.  We didn’t have a football team.  Some years we had a baseball team.  But I just wasn’t into those things.  I showed horses every weekend.  And I hunted every weekend that I wasn’t showing horses.  I don’t watch sports on TV.  I could care less.

Matt is World Champion in Both Pistol and Rifle Mounted Shooting—Which Does He Prefer?
I shoot a rifle way better than I shoot a pistol.  You give me a pistol and I’ll hit the broadside of a barn, but don’t ask me to hit the same spot twice.  But a rifle, a shotgun, I can hold my own with both of those.  The rifle is so much more fun for me.  I’ll shoot a rifle any day of the week over a pistol.  If you told me you’re only allowed to shoot one of these two events, I’ll shoot the rifle every time. I think winning the world title in rifle meant probably as much as the other to me.  When I went in Saturday night, I could care less how I did in the pro.  I didn’t care if I came in fifth.  But by gosh I wanted to win in the rifle.  It’s the only thing that makes me feel I’ve really accomplished something. I guess it’s the challenge of not knowing if the rifle is going to work.  It’s got so many variables.  You’re running a rundown with no reins.  And I think my horse actually runs better without the reins.  I don’t know.  It’s just a heckuva lot more thrill for me than the pistol portion of it.

Practice Makes Perfect?
I don’t practice hardly at all.  Maybe 10 times a year I might go out in the arena and practice.  I’d probably be a lot better if I would practice more.  But time in the saddle is still time in the saddle.  If I’m working cattle or gathering cattle eight hours a day, that’s probably more than someone in another state that has another job.

His Wife Tammy is Former World Champion on the Women’s Side
We do get a little competitive, but it’s all in fun.  If Tammy has a stage she beats me on, she’s really happy. We do try to critique each other—and keep it somewhat civil.  But without her, I probably wouldn’t have won the Worlds this year.  I wasn’t riding my mare enough, and I was riding my younger horses at work.  And I’d worry about getting Clementine hurt.  And Tammy took her with her when she made her last run for points.  She went out and tuned her up and called me on the phone, and she said, “Boy, she is a pig.  She’s gotten pretty laid back and isn’t really listening to me.”  So Tammy got her back to where she was before she got lazy.

Summarizing His Win at Worlds
It was a good week.