Features

Into The Sport

 

2008 CMSA World Champion Charlie Little dances to the beat of a different drum, in the arena and out.

 

A movie critic once said that Clint Eastwood’s Spaghetti Westerns followed a pattern—long sections of somewhat nervous calm suddenly interrupted by blasts of action.

 

2008 CMSA World Champion Charlie Little follows that same pattern.

 

The defending Cowboy Mounted Shooting Association (CMSA) World Champion is usually pretty placid. But every once in awhile, he’ll break out in seat-of-the-pants action. That usually happens in the arena, although it occasionally occurs when Charlie is asked about a topic that pushes his buttons (trust me on this; I’ve seen it happen…not that I’m going to quote him).

 

And like The Man With No Name, Charlie Little is a one-of-a-kind character—certainly in the world of mounted shooting.

 

The Man from Minnesota

When Charlie captured the Worlds in 2008, he had every reason to look back and see what brought him to that point.

 

But that’s not Charlie. So we’ll do it for him.

 

Charlie Little is a Minnesotan, born and bred, the second of three sons of Pat and Debbie Little. Horses were always around, so all the boys learned to ride early on.  And because Charlie was home-schooled, he had the opportunity to get an education on equines: “When everybody else was going to school, I was going to a horse sale,” observing not just the animals but also the folks who bought and sold them.

 

By the age of eight, he was selling ponies himself (“I always did good with selling the ponies”). When he hit fifth and sixth grades, Charlie gave up other outside pursuits (baseball, football, wrestling) to focus entirely on horses. By the time he was 14, he was a horse trainer (and competing in mounted shooting).

 

His laser focus resulted in an outstanding trait—he could ride just about anything and do it well. “It doesn’t matter what you put him on, a good horse or an old plug—he’ll probably go out and beat you,” says big brother (and M6) Chad. “He’ll do it on your own horse if you give him the chance.”

 

In fact, Charlie had competed on his gray mare Cracker just a few times before they won Worlds. And because of an injury, he didn’t ride her for about three months prior to that shoot.

 

The Brothers Little

Face it—you get two siblings who are pretty close in age (Chad is two years older than Charlie), and you’re bound to have some conflicts. “There was competition in everything we did,” says Charlie. “It didn’t matter if we were on a trail ride. We’d race to see who was first to get to the trailer.”

 

In many ways, each followed his own muse. Charlie focused entirely on horses.  Chad was in other sports, even winning a state wrestling championship (and youngest brother Shaun is following that same path).

 

Chad had more success earlier at mounted shooting. Charlie says that didn’t put any pressure on him to do well in the sport—but he also admits that he compared his times to those of his brother (Chad, on the other hand, says he never really tried to beat his brother).

 

But Charlie also faced a singular challenge. At age 15, he was diagnosed with stage four Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a devastating form of cancer. It was discovered late, which meant that the teen faced a brutal regimen of six months of chemotherapy followed by three months of radiation. It’s something that Charlie doesn’t talk about today. He didn’t talk about it back then, either. Mom Debbie says, “He’d come up to us and say, ‘How are you guys doing?’ And we figured, if he’s okay then we should be okay, right? Never anything about himself.”

 

Charlie is cancer-free today.

 

One can only assume that going through such a difficulty had an impact on him. It must have made him tougher, right? But who knows for sure?

 

World Champion

The World Championship was the culmination of a journey for Charlie. He was always fast—maybe a little too fast for his own good. His girlfriend Shanda Masterson (L5) remembers, “Everybody used to say, ‘There goes Charlie the crazy rider, hanging halfway off his horse.’”

 

Actually, they still say that. For the most part.

 

But something happened, according to his mom Debbie (herself a Ladies 2). “The turning point came at Nationals a couple of years ago. That’s when he realized that this was something he could really do and something he could win.” Charlie won the Reserve Championship at that 2007 shoot.  Then he suffered a setback—at that year’s Worlds, he missed a balloon and ended up 18th overall (and fifth in his class). He didn’t show it, but he wasn’t pleased. Charlie was determined to be the best.

 

Now if you ask him what he changed to reach that goal, you’re guaranteed one answer: “I think I ride just the same as I rode seven years ago.” But ask some of his competitors and they’ll tell you different.  “He’s starting to mature a bit. He’s starting to realize that fast ain’t always the best,” says Mens 6 rider Rock Clark. “He’s looking at his stages a bit better; he’s evaluating them.”

 

And that’s certainly what happened when he won Worlds last year. Just check it out.

 

Charlie rode clean throughout the competition—including in the Wrangler Pro and the Colt Eliminator. It was a new consistency for him. That doesn’t mean he rode slow. Charlie trailed M6 Matt Sronce by more than 2/10 of a second going into stage six. At the end of the run, he took the championship by about 3/10 of a second—a huge move of more than a half second.
At 19, Charlie Little was the youngest man to win the CMSA Worlds.

 

And when he won…Charlie showed no emotion, no real excitement about reaching the top of the sport (“I’ve watched him go out and win roping or bareback or something, and he comes off the same way as if he’d gotten thrown off,” says his mom). If you press him, he’ll admit that he was pleased by the accomplishment. But his voice sure doesn’t show it.

So…Who is Charlie?

 

He’s different things to different folks.  He’s quiet, except around friends and others he trusts (or when one of those hot-button issues comes up). He doesn’t like publicity—he’s uncomfortable doing interviews, and a camera makes him head the other way (it took his mom a year to corner him to get his graduation picture taken).

 

He gives everything he’s got when something interests him. When it doesn’t…well, he won’t do it.

 

He knows and loves horses. He’s branching out, learning more about cutting and reining—he’s won in Superhorse competitions. When he enters the arena, he’s dead serious about beating everybody else. And when he’s done, just like a gunfighter in the Westerns, there’s no brag or show of excitement. Just holster the gun and ride away quietly.

 

That’s Charlie Little.

 

Sorta Eastwood-esque.

 

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