Western Shooting Horse

An Equine Renaissance Man

Dan Byrd is one of the highest profile shooters in the game. He is recognized not only for his outstanding performance in the arena, but also for his stellar success stories outside. Byrd is one of the game’s prolific trainers of both horses and riders and is known for sharing advice with any shooter who asks during competition and after the arena is closed. Dan Byrd is an equine Renaissance man.

Dan Byrd stands at the gate of the arena at the Desert Classic at Globe, Arizona. He is flanked by students, and he watches every run.

A Senior Ladies 3 competitor rides in, and he turns with a smile and says, “This is gonna be a smokin’ run!” The rider has wintered at Byrd’s place and anyone who has watched her shoot before can see the improvement. Yes, she misses a balloon, but her 16-second ride and the increased confidence in what she and her horse can do follow her throughout the competition.

Later, when one of the Wrangler Junior riders enters the arena, Byrd slips away. His student leans over and says, “He always does that.”

“Does what?” I ask, looking around. Byrd has stationed himself in the gap where horses come out at the end of the run. It stays open, and can pose a hazard to an unwary or less experienced rider.

“He always stands in that opening when the Juniors ride,” she says.

An Equine Renaissance Man
Dan Byrd seems to be a fixture at the gate of most matches throughout the West, and he is counted on by students and friends alike for advice about the course. But Byrd is a relative newcomer to the sport, having only become really serious about mounted shooting in the past five years.

He started out in other competitive fields that range from reining to western pleasure to hunter/jumper and more. A native New Mexican, Byrd started riding his first pony when he was five. He broke and sold his first finished horse at the age of twelve. During his teenage years he tried everything, including roping. Then at age 18, he discovered polocrosse.

Much like its European relative, American polo is a fun, competitive game. The Australian game of polocrosse, on the other hand, can be “a very aggressive sport,” according to Byrd. As an international competitor and coach of the American team, Byrd traveled extensively with his polocrosse team.

“It’s called the ‘king of the one-horse sports’ because you’re only allowed one horse for the whole weekend,” he says. The horse-and-rider teams play two games a day, seven minutes on and seven minutes off. “Those horses have to be double fit. When someone asks me if it’s OK to run six stages a day, I think ‘Your horse has worked a minute. Yeah, it’s OK.’”

At one time, Byrd was the highest rated polocrosse player in the US.

“So that puts you in the position to become the clinician, the trainer,” he says. As coach of the US team, he was sent to Australia for a time, and even played in New Zealand.

Byrd returned to New Mexico in the ‘90s, where he lived on a ranch for a time, then moved to Santa Fe where he served as the polo manager and oversaw the facilities and events at the Santa Fe Horse Park. The owner of the park, Charlie Kokesh, encouraged him to try mounted shooting.  

A New Challenge
In his first year, Byrd qualified for Worlds in just a couple of matches, won the Men’s Level 1, and was the first Level 1 shooter in the Top 10.

“When I first started, I made a couple really nice horses,” he says. He qualified for Worlds again the next year. This time, he ended up seventh overall. Unfortunately, life intervened and Byrd spent about three years away from the sport. He left the Horse Park and planned to move to Texas to ride polo horses.
But Dan Byrd couldn’t get away from the mounted shooters.

“The phone started ringing and somehow I ended up in Arizona,” he says. He started working a number of horses for people in the sport. As he built his business with shooters, he found that his vast background in other equine sports helped him quickly become one of the most sought-after trainers.

Byrd’s Arizona location has helped, as many shooters from colder climates move there to shoot through the winter months. It’s his thriving training program that keeps him standing at the gates, he says.

“I’ve been lucky enough to ride a good majority of the horses that are out there. You can’t give somebody advice if you don’t know what’s underneath them.”
Mounted shooting has been good to Dan Byrd. His business continues to grow even in spite of the recent economic downturn.

“With the economy the way it is, more people have been coming to the workshops, which is two days of intense riding,” he says. “What’s rewarding about that is that they can take that and go to their clubs, and then start instructing their people. The sport can evolve because more folks can learn the proper techniques.”

The Horseman at Work
Byrd’s own run often seems to be an afterthought, but it is always as smooth as silk. I notice something as Byrd completes his rundown in Stage 3 of the Desert Classic—his cadence in the rundown resembles a jumper’s stride—-and I ask him about it.

“Jumping probably taught me more about shooting than anything because you are always picking your line and where you have to be next,” he says.
Byrd brings the different elements of his horse knowledge from all the sports he has participated in to bear on this one. His easy successes are proof that this rider is a true horseman. According to Dan, those successes are “all a blur.”

When he returned to the sport in 2005-06, he quickly moved up to Mens 4. In 2006, he was 3rd Overall at Worlds. He also trained that year’s Reserve Women’s Champion horse, Slapshot. In 2007, several of the horses he trained won the Worlds and the new SIP Futurity.

Byrd himself was moving up in the sport, achieving M6 quickly. By 2008, he was ranked #1 CMSA Cowboy based on his wins at the Big 4 events. In 2009, he was unable to make it to the Easterns at Murfreesboro, TN, and he slipped to #8 in the rankings.

This year has started well. Byrd has already won the Southwest Regionals, and was the Champion Cowboy at the Desert Classic. He was Reserve Overall Champion, beaten only by his student Natalie Johnson.

The horse he rides today, Hossley, originally belonged to Jim Rodgers. Byrd took the horse to work on him, and decided he wasn’t a good match
for Rodgers.

“He can be brilliant or he can be bad. He has his buckskin moments,” Byrd says. “You have to kind of pick his moods and figure out what his flight plan is afterwards.” In those moments of inspiration, though, Hossley is one of the best mounted shooting horses out there: “When he’s flawless, he’s flawless.”

Byrd is straightforward about his successes, but also a bit uncomfortable talking about them. At the end of the day, his students are his number one priority.
“At my clinics, we always talk about setting your goals,” he says. “I think that my goal is to help people succeed. I like to make the impossible possible.”

So ride in to that arena with confidence. Ride hard, and shoot fast, and come out knowing you will hear an encouraging word. Dan Byrd will be standing at the gate.