SLIM CHANCE: Slim Shady wins BHSS Ranch Rodeo Top Horse
2 top horse ranch rodeo
Slim Shady, owned by Travis Krein and ridden by Riley Curuchet, won the 2023 honors as the best equine at the ranch rodeo.
When Curuchet got to Rapid City for the stock show, he wasn’t on a ranch rodeo team. But the night before the competition, he got a phone call from college friends Miles Kenzy and Bodie Mattson, asking him to fill in a spot for someone who couldn’t make it.
So Curuchet competed, the Kenzy Ranch team won fourth place, and Slim Shady got his share of the spotlight.
2-top-horse-ranch-rodeo
Curuchet has been riding the black white-striped face horse since November for Krein. A ranch horse, Krein purchased Slim Shady several years ago. He was started by Tommy Burnett in Vernon, Texas, and used by Burnett as a pickup horse at PRCA rodeos and to ranch on wheat pasture cattle.
When Krein saw the horse two years ago, he knew he wanted him.
“I happened to be (in Vernon) and Tommy had this horse, and I liked him, and asked, ‘what would it take to get him bought?’” Burnett priced him, and Krein told him he’d think it over.
Krein kept thinking about the horse’s unique look and mind, and bought the horse a few years ago.
He took Slim Shady to his ranches, the Broken Arrow Livestock locations in Van Tassel and Lusk, Wyo., and Harrison, Neb., and ranched on him. He also rode him at ranch rodeos.
This past November, Krein sent the horse with Curuchet to Arizona, where Curuchet has been team roping on him.
Curuchet headed to the Black Hills Stock Show with Slim Shady and a couple other horses in the trailer, with the intent of riding the horse in the team roping. But he ended up on a different horse. His girlfriend Brooke Howell rode Slim instead.
Curuchet used Slim in the ranch rodeo for the trailer loading and steer roping.
“He’s so easy,” Curuchet said. “He has no cares in the world. He’s just easy and does whatever you ask of him.”
He’s kind and gentle as well. “You can walk up to him and catch him in the pasture,” he said.
Krein’s five daughters, ages ten to nineteen, have ridden the horse around the ranch.
“My kids have ridden him, and he’s gentle, gentle, gentle,” Krein said. “That horse has never had a hump in his back his entire life.”
Not only did Slim Shady win Top Horse honors, but he was Curuchet’s mount in the Team Tying during the Broncs for Breakfast event on Feb. 1.
Curuchet and roper Ora Taton combined to win two rounds and the average.
The ten-year-old gelding “is gorgeous,” Curuchet said. The horse is by a son of Peptoboonsmal. Curuchet is appreciative of the chance to ride the horse, and Krein said Curuchet has done a great job with him.
Slim Shady will be for sale at the Full House Horse Sale in Newcastle, Wyo., in June, Krein said.
He’s an all-around horse, he said.
“He was a great horse for Tommy, and he’s been good for us. He’s been a fun one.”
1-top-horse-ranch-rodeo-bhssIMG_8261
