OklahomaHorses Magazine January 2024

10 OklahomaHorses • January / February 2024 A t the tender age of three, Madison Schalla decided she wanted to be a trick rider. She was attending a rodeo in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, in which her father was competing, and she saw a trick-riding performance for the first time. It wasn’t a passing phase; when she kept asking about it, Schalla’s mother decided to put her in lessons at age eight. Schalla’s parents drove her on a 90-minute round trip each week while she learned the literal tricks of the trade from renowned trick rider Dusta Kimzey. The lessons led Schalla to become more enamored of the sport, and she attended Red Top Ranch Trick Riding School in Colorado for three consecutive years. Today, at age 20, this native of Arapaho, Oklahoma, has been working as a trick rider for 12 years, and 2024 will be her second year as a Professional Rodeo Cow- boys Association (PRCA) specialty act. Schalla’s Trick Horses Trick riding not only involves a skilled and talented rider but also an equally skilled and experienced horse that must be both athletic and unflappable. As one might imagine, training a horse to perform trick riding isn’t an easy feat, and not every horse is suitable for that type of perfor- mance. Schalla has two main horses that she uses specifically for trick riding, Trixie and Bowie. Both came from her grandfather, who had used them for elk hunting. As it so happens, elk hunting seems to build a perfect foundation for a trick horse. “You usually want your horses to be broke enough to let you hang on while running in a circle around the arena,” said Schalla. “Some horses take longer [to train] than others, but the ones I’ve gotten from my grandpa have been the easiest because they have had elk hung on them, so they know how to hold weight on their sides.” As for the time it takes to train a horse for trick riding, Schalla says it varies from horse to horse. For example, it took her about six months to train Trixie, mainly because they were both still new to trick riding. When she acquired Bowie, it took only two weeks before she felt comfortable enough to perform trick riding with him. Along with trick riding, Schalla also com- petes in barrel racing. Although she notes that barrel horses are typically a little higher strung than those needed for trick riding, she does have a barrel horse named George that she occasionally uses as a backup for trick riding. A Tricky Progression Schalla says there are foundation tricks that every trick rider must learn first; all other tricks are based on the foundation tricks. To learn new tricks, she begins by doing them on her horse at a standstill. After that, she moves to a walk, a trot, and then eventually, a lope. “I’ve had some pretty great opportunities to learn my foundation from some of the best in the business,” said Schalla. “I’ve gotten to learn from the newer generation of trick riders and also from what we call the trick-riding legends.” Two of the standard tricks that Schalla performs are the shoulder stand, basically a handstand on the horse’s shoulder, and the death drag, in which the rider hangs upside down off the side of the horse and drags both hands in the dirt. The trick that took Schalla the longest to learn is the Stroud layout, in which the Madison Schalla andTrixie show off a shoulder stand at the 2023 Hunter Salter’s Third Annual Bull Bash on Old 66 in Edgewood, NewMexico. Photo by April McDermid Photography.