With cutting horse competition competitors left without a place to perform due to this year's COVID-19 outbreak, many trainers and their clients are looking for ways to have fun with their horses.
Equi-Stat Elite $1 million horseman Casey Crouch, his wife Chelsa and some friends recently came up with a great way to have fun and keep their horses in shape while entertaining thousands of cutting enthusiasts.
The end result was a gem, a homemade glowstick cutting video that took several hours to create and was filmed on May 2 at the indoor arena of friends and neighbors Joe and Stacy Robinson.
Glow Stick Cutting, in low, involves a horse, rider and cutting flag all equipped with glow sticks, cutting in a pitch-black arena. The cast also included an audience of dancers lined up with glow sticks.
The development of this original gem – possibly the best 2 minutes and 10 seconds of lockdown – began with the great quarantine of 2020.
Chelsa Crouch said she and Casey were traveling to horse shows when many of the events were canceled or postponed. They returned home and self-quarantined at their Corsicana facility.
As it turns out, some of Crouch's clients – James and Heather Todd of Murray, Kentucky – asked if they could park their horse trailer and stay at the Crouchs' home during the shutdown. Friends, clients and fellow Corsicana residents Ken and Kim Bernhagen, as well as their son Aden – who won the 2019 NCHA $2,000 Limit Rider World Championship – and daughter Sophie often joined the two families for dinner.
At one of the dinners, Heather Todd showed Chelsa, whose Equi-Stat The record is approaching $100,000, a video of some kids dancing with glow sticks. That led to a brainstorming session of “what ifs” that then actually turned into plans.
“Let’s try it on a horse.”
“Let’s try cutting.”
“Hey, let’s lithe Casey on fire!”
Of course, decisions had to be made: Where would it be dim enough for the glow sticks to be clearly evident? Which horse would be tranquil and composed enough to stay focused while cutting a flag in a completely dim arena? How would they attach the glow sticks so they wouldn't come out of place?
“It was quite an adventure,” said Crouch. “We decided to hold the cutting in Joe and Stacey Robinson's indoor arena. We thought we could [the building] dim enough for the video.”
Casey chose Willie, a horse owned by clients James and Angie Hall, as he is pretty “bombproof.”
“James said, 'Oh, so now Willie is a renowned cutting horse and no one will even see what he looks like?'” Chelsa said. “We all had a laugh.”
The next day, the Crouches and Todds went to a local Walmart to purchase about 100 glow stick necklaces and bracelets and lots of Gorilla Tape.
If you're going to have fun with glow sticks and a cutting horse, you might as well include dancers who can really let loose.
“We had a whole [shopping] “We built a float with glow sticks,” Chelsa said. “Casey kept looking at Heather and me and asking, 'How are we going to do this?' And we were like, 'We're going to figure it out!'
“I think the guys thought, 'This is impossible. [glow sticks] “If we stay with our horse, it can’t possibly work.”
But it happened, and it happened very well.
“We worked on lighting the horse’s skeleton, legs and torso so you can see the horse moving and working,” Chelsa explained.
The project really came about through trial and error, Chelsa said. They used Gorilla Tape to attach glow sticks to the flag, saddle and Casey's hat – and then braided the glow sticks into the horse's mane and tail.
Several people filmed the action from different angles.
“After we attached the glow sticks to the flag, we slowly began to turn off the lithe so that the horse [his eyes] to the pitch-black arena. Then everyone got into position with their cell phones before we turned off the alley lights. Casey [and the horse] were positioned near the flag before we turned off the last lithe and it went completely dim.”
The horse didn't seem to mind the darkness at all, Chelsa said, although he admittedly got a little annoyed when he kept getting hit by the insects attracted to the glow sticks' lights.
“Casey said the horse did really well [in the dark]but it felt very weird editing in the dim. If a glowstick broke or fell off the horse, Casey would yell, “Hey, a glowstick came loose,” and we'd get our flashlights out to fix the glowstick lithe and then start the video again.”
Chelsa estimated that the video project took about four hours to complete.
“The dance at the end of the video came at the last minute,” she explained. “She [dancers] were supposed to be our 'crowd' or 'cheerleaders', but in the end they all danced and cheered and had a lot of fun.”
As it turned out, Crouch said, everyone had a lot of fun working on the video and it turned out better than they imagined.
“It was a great Saturday night with our quarantine crew,” said Chelsa.
The video was a clear hit, garnering dozens of shares and thousands of comments across the country and even from as far away as Germany, Italy, Australia and Recent Zealand.
Great job Casey Crouch Cutting Horses and team.
