Wrangling Wild Horses in the Mountains of Montana | Short Film Showcase

[Music] Growing up, I was definitely the most interested in the ranch lifestyle. [Music] From a young age, I just really enjoyed riding horses and being outdoors. Making lots of money isn't my priority; I would rather live in a beautiful place and do the things that I love. My name is Cameron Kelsey, third generation dude rancher. I was born and raised here on the Nine Quarter Circle Ranch outside of Bozeman, Montana.

We raised our horses in the Clone World style of horsemanship. The horses spend year-round outside in the elements, fending for themselves and grazing off the land. It's pretty damn tough for a horse out there in these elements, so we move them down to lower elevations in the wintertime, and they spend the winter months down there grazing on the range. In the springtime, we gather them up to let them back up to the ranch.

There's an energy in the air that morning when you open the gate. Mostly, the horses know it's time to go to the summer pasture. We're just ready and charging. I spent a long winter, and nobody's ridden, and the horses haven't been conditioned. It's like sitting down most of the layer and then opening the gates and running a marathon. [Music] It's tough to kick split out everybody. You could easily throw all those horses on a truck and trailer and not ever have to be on a horse at all.

We do the roundup because it's a tradition. It's more about the camaraderie than it is about the practicality of it. When you got a herd of a hundred and twenty horses that you've raised and bred, you can kind of see the little cliques that they get into. Each horse has its own personality; some are better at wrangling, some are better at leading a trail ride. They know me from a stranger; they're a very smart animal.

I prefer to be up here, and being a solitary man, I guess I don't like to depend on other people to do things. So if I need food, I go hunting; if I need, you know, a bed, I build it. I'm not really a cowboy; I have more of a horseman. The way I would phrase it, you got there right across the country, you had nobody to bug you; it's just you and the horse and the herd in front of you. Not many people get to do that sort of thing.

It's always a little unsettling, yeah. Six or eight wranglers that have never been on your horses, we don't know how they ride. A lot of responsibility picking off horses that they're riding and which putting them on. So that's what makes me more nervous—it's making sure that they're safe and we're still getting the job done.

I remember one morning I'm riding a colt, one time really young horse, had only been ridden four or five times prior. We were going up the trail, and there was a log that had a fork in it. He just happened to step in the wrong spot and ended up just breaking his leg. I was still on his back; he's just laying there all tangled up in this log. I happened to have a gun at the time. [Music]

Three minutes ago, I was riding this horse, and now he's dead. It hit me pretty hard; it was kind of like, wow, what happened there? [Music] Yeah, it was hard to deal with. It was, you know, it was actually a horse that I had, like, two or three days before that kind of talked to my dad about keeping him as my own horse. And then I said, you know, everything comes and goes. [Music]

I love this lifestyle, and I wouldn't say it makes me more of a man. It does; it depends on your definition of what being a man is. Mother Nature doesn't really care if you're Cameron Kelsey or the president; it's still going to do whatever it's gonna do. People get really big egos; I mean, you're nothing. You're just another man doing what every other man before you has done. No, no, my dad. I mean, I know where I'm at in my place and what I do. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] You, you. [Music]