“That’s my good boy. You ready? You alright? That’s my good boy. Nice job. Good boy. You’re alright. There you go. That’s a good boy. Here we go.”
With a voice as smooth as silk, Brian Schroder lets go with a constant stream of calming chatter as he climbs a small set of steps and throws his chap-covered leg over the saddle cinched to the 1,500-pound, three-year-old longhorn steer that he’s named Mr. Piney.
The steer with 78-inch horns hardly flinches.
A few minutes later and the pair are ambling down the road to the delight of those happening to be driving by.
“He’s used to moving out,” Schroder said. “He’s not going to be a reining horse. We don’t do dressage. He just stretches out in a long walk, and there we go.”
Mr. Piney and Schroder have been turning heads all summer long on their rides down Wilcox Lane northeast of Hamilton, on the trails around the large-white “C” above Corvallis and a few stops in Hamilton.
“We’re headed to Dairy Queen soon,” Schroder said. “I’m going to ride him through the drive-through. I just want to do that. I don’t know why.”