McKenzie Mullins Has Cow

How does a thirteen-year-old read the minds of ornery steers, maneuver a thousand-pound steed, and become horse cutting's youngest phenom ever?

by Katy Vine

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Riding her horse Fancy, McKenzie entered the herd, and the cows responded by trotting into the middle of the ring. A couple seconds later, she selected a black cow and cut it off. The cow's big ears flopped and its eyes widened as it realized it was alone, and it began to sprint back and forth. For thirty seconds, McKenzie, eyes half-closed, countered every juke the cow threw at her while folks in the bleachers cheered, "Here, cow!" and "Haw!" Finally, having displayed her control, McKenzie released cow number one with 1:23 left on the clock. Her dispatched opponent, looking baffled and pitiful, trotted back to the group.

At the 53-second mark, McKenzie made a deep cut, selecting a cow from the middle of the herd; this strategy scores more points from the judges because it is more difficult. The cow she'd chosen was feistier, and it headed directly at her and Fancy. But McKenzie just toyed with it, tapping Fancy with her boots, prompting him to plunge deeply into the soft dirt as he dodged left, then right. McKenzie kept a perfectly balletic posture, eyeing the dazed bovine with her hat tilted down.

"Haw!" came from the bleachers. "Here, cow!" With about half a minute left, she let the second cow go and then spent her last ten seconds toying with a brown-and-white cow. When the buzzer rang, she patted her horse and pushed her hat down on her head. The judge announced her score—76, four points from perfect and enough to secure McKenzie first place in the day's event.

Debbie Patterson, a three-time world champ in the non-pro circuit told me later, "The thing about McKenzie is she works harder at this than just about anybody, all year round. That's what it takes. That little girl eats, sleeps, and breathes cutting."

ANYONE WHO SPENDS TIME WITH MCKENZIE will quickly understand just how focused she is. One afternoon, she gave me a tour of her family's house, in Gordon, about seventy miles southwest of Fort Worth. It's a three-bedroom, two-bath manufactured home facing the family's huge new cutting arena and surrounded by 480 acres. Along the way, McKenzie stopped to point out the wall of photographs showing her and Robert in various cutting competitions, the saddle she won in the 2002 World Finals, and the glass-top table displaying about sixty belt-buckle awards. In her bedroom, which was striped with light green and purple paint, was a suitable menagerie of plastic ponies. McKenzie went into her closet and showed me one of her twenty Wrangler shirts and the Wrangler jeans she was going to wear the next day. Then she dragged a book off her shelf called FunFax Horse and Pony and began reading.

 

"'Surprising fact: A horse's brain weighs approximately 650 grams.'" She stuck her lip out and nodded, impressed. "'Heaviest: In 1938, in Iowa, Brooklyn Supreme, a Belgian Brabant, weighed 1.44 tons.' Wo-o-w. 'Longest mane: American horse Maude's mane grew to 5.5 meters, or 18 feet. Smallest: Little Pumpkin, an American Falabella stallion, stood 35.5 centimeters, or 14 inches.'" She placed her hand a foot from the floor, her brown eyes wide. "Hey, that's really short!"

It's no wonder McKenzie has such a singular focus. On a typical day at home, she wakes up at seven-thirty and does schoolwork with her mom. Just before noon she walks over to the family's 120- by 200-foot arena. There, where a radio tuned to old country plays 24 hours a day, she'll hook the young horses up to a guided walking circle that squeaks as it goes around. After that she might spend half an hour galloping through the 355-acre woods to check on the new colts, and on her way back, she'll take twenty minutes to coax a few skittish cows or buffalo into the arena for horse training. For the remainder of the afternoon and evening she helps Robert teach the young or inexperienced cutting horses, reading cows till the sun goes down. Then she gets to eat, watch a little TV, and finally, sleep.

But that's just when she's home. The family's hauling schedule shows that three or four days out of each week, from December to the following November, they're traveling to compete in places like Virginia, Mississippi, Oklahoma—anywhere there is a cutting event. They drive all day to get to a place, often arriving late at night, and then lead about ten horses out of their hauling trailer, set them up in stalls, and feed them each a bucket of alfalfa hay. Sometimes McKenzie will go to bed around two o'clock in the morning at a nearby motel, then wake up at five, feed the horses by six, and start warming up by seven or eight. Most nights the cuttings finish between eight and eleven o'clock, though if McKenzie's events end early, her folks usually let her visit with any young kids who are hanging around. On the ride home, she curls up in a bunk bed installed in the truck.

It's a schedule that means McKenzie's contact with the world outside cutting horses is often limited to the little television in the truck's cab. She watches, amazed by some of the things she sees, like tattoos, men with long hair, or people who surgically split their tongues in half like a lizard's. She tries to stay tuned in through her old friends from school. She sends them text messages and sleeps over at girls' houses whenever she can, dissecting the various dating strategies of those who have more day-to-day socialization. "My friends and I decided that all of us have to approve if we want to date somebody," she says. "We have to tell each other who he is, and we can't leave each other out." And McKenzie is no slouch when it comes to giving advice. Her friend Elizabeth, age fifteen, says, "McKenzie helps me with my boy problems; I help her with hers." But even cutting-horse friends like Elizabeth inhabit a different terrain: Elizabeth attends a private high school in Fort Worth and is a cheerleader. For her, cutting is still a weekend pursuit, not a career.

Once in a while, McKenzie sits in the arena and imagines her future. Years from now she believes she will go to college and become a veterinarian. Until then, she'll be far from desks and teachers and young peers, learning about life while riding back and forth and back and forth in a red Freightliner truck and on the saddle of a horse. But her focus has given her the ability to magnify her world's elements, and she's old enough now that she sees her life sharply, at least in the way it contrasts with the lives of some of her peers. "To me, the country kids learn how to work earlier than city kids. One of my friends who's nine woke up at six this morning to clean stalls," she said. And what someone else might consider a tough lifestyle McKenzie sees as slow-paced, one that allows her the long hours to spend time with her family. "Everybody in the city is in a rush," she said. "They don't see their fathers. When the dad gets home, he's irritated and wants to go to bed."

ON MY LAST VISIT WITH MCKENZIE, I went with the family to the Silverado Arena, in the town of Weatherford, one of the cutting community's favorite venues. A structure about half as big as a Home Depot, the place has the feel of a country club. Wood benches surround the ring, large ceiling fans keep the air from getting stale, the pen has a fresh coat of kelly-green paint, and a glass-enclosed restaurant with a view of the action sits on the second floor. McKenzie and her parents like the Silverado because it's only an hour from home but also because, compared with some of the dilapidated outdoor arenas they visit during the season, the place is a palace.

 

Which is somewhat surprising. You can't find many sports with wealthier contestants than cutting. Nationally, more than nine thousand NCHA members compete in cuttings throughout the season, making $1,000 to $30,000 per weekend. So far this season Robert has made more than $1 million. Much of that income, however, goes back into the horses, which can cost up to $1 million to purchase and $800 a month to care for. (Last season, the only thing McKenzie bought with her winnings—which totaled $17,400—was a $72 salmon-colored shirt decorated with small flowers. The rest went back into the horses.)

Inside the Silverado, the family began pointing out some of their moneyed competitors: Lonnie Allsup, of Allsup convenience stores, was there, as was Jerry Durant, of Durant Chevrolet, and one couple who controls three million acres of timberland in Canada. In the stands, I met Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton, one of the richest women in the world. She knew all about McKenzie. She pointed at the arena with a long brown cigarette and explained, "This is a mind game. McKenzie is good at it. Lots of kids are good at it. But you've seen what she can do. She has cow."

When it was McKenzie's turn to compete, she rode confidently into the arena atop Fancy and tucked her loose hair behind her ears. Fancy walked steadily as McKenzie picked a cow out of the wall of rears and prodded it into the center of the arena. Then the jumping dance began. She finished with a score of 72.

It was Friday night, and with the competition so close to home, Robert, Connie, and McKenzie had the luxury of driving back to Gordon (population: 451) in search of dinner. On the way, the sappy Lonestar country song "My Front Porch Looking In" played on the radio.

"Oh, I like this one. Turn it up," McKenzie said.

Instead, Robert, who was driving, turned the radio off.

McKenzie punched him in the arm and pleaded with her mom, "Make him turn it on!"

Connie smirked, raised an eyebrow, and continued to look ahead.

McKenzie proceeded to punch Robert in the arm repeatedly until he threw his head back and laughed a high-pitched "Hee, hee!" and said, "Aw, McKenzie, this old country boy is so sad I think I'm going to have to pull over onto the side of the road an' cry."

McKenzie quit slugging him, and she sat back in her seat and folded her arms, trying to contain an amused smile.

Rounding the corner into town, the family passed the high school McKenzie would be attending if she spent less time on the road. The school itself was difficult to identify among all the manufactured buildings.

"Where is it?" Robert asked.

When McKenzie pointed it out, Robert slowed the truck down and the three of them looked at the school in silence, as if they were observing an exotic species in too small a cage. Then Robert picked up speed and headed back down the road.

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