Friday Friends: At Home with Lynn Anderson
CowboySpirit.TV- This week's edition of Friday Friends features an article from American Cowboy, written by Philip Armour.
Lynn Anderson, 62, lives in Taos, N.M., where she rides as much as she can when she’s not on the road performing hits like “Rose Garden.” “Horses and music have been my life,” says the Grammy-winner and Country Music and Cowgirl halls of fame nominee. Anderson just released a new CD, titled Cowgirl II.
WHAT WAS IT LIKE GROWING UP IN GRAND FORKS, N.D.?
I was very close to my paternal grandparents. They founded the saddle club in Grand Forks, and my grandmother taught me to ride bareback. She was my inspiration. “If you can ride bareback, you can ride anything,” she would say. My parents say that I could sing before I could talk and ride horseback before I could walk.
DO YOU STILL BREED HORSES?
Yes, although not as much. I’ve had 12 national champion horses and eight world champions that I’ve owned, bred, and ridden at the AQHA [American Quarter
Horse Association] Congress. I’ve competed in everything from halter and trail, to reigning and driving, but cutting is my favorite. My show horses are in Gainesville, Texas, with trainer Teddy Johnson. I go back and forth as much as I can. My stud Lark N Lena was 2009 North Texas cutting horse champion. He is by Rugged Lark, a former AQHA Horse of the Year. At the first AQHA Congress, my Lady Phase (bought
from Matlock Rose) won yearling mare— the first world-championship trophy ever presented. Breyer Horses considered Lady Phase a “perfect quarter horse” and based a plastic toy horse on her form. My horse Skipster’s Chief (by Skipster, by Hank
Weiscamp’s “Skipper W”) was the poster horse for NARHA [North American Riding for the Handicapped Association]. My work with NARHA eventually led to the founding of Nashville’s Saddle Up program 25 years ago with Tom Paul’s wife, Dixie.
WHAT IS IT ABOUT CUTTING HORSES?
Once you’ve ridden a cutting horse, you’ve ridden the Cadillac of the quarter horse industry. Once you let the horse know that’s his cow, you have to let go of the reins. That was amazing to me—that I was just a passenger on some amazing animal. I love horses. Whenever I travel abroad, I like to ride that country’s native horse, like the Fjord horse in Norway, or the Paso Fino in Peru. I also wear a cowboy hat wherever I
go. Lately, America has not been so popular internationally, but I’m always well received. Cowboys are the good guys, and no matter where I am in the world, people will approach and say “howdy.”
[Read the rest of the article at http://www.americancowboy.com/culture/home-lynn-anderson]
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