Pneu-Dart Women in Ranching

Shali and Phy Lord’s Fifth Generation Colorado Cattle Ranch

By Allie Bohus

Two-time Wrangler NFR barrel racing qualifier Shali Lord and husband Phy run a commercial Red Angus Cattle operation in the southeastern corner of Colorado. Ranching is a family affair where the Lords and their two children, son Slade (12) and daughter Stealy (7), are fifth generation cattle ranchers.

“They help quite a bit. Slade loves to do all things ranching. He loves to brand; he helps a lot roping and dragging [calves] and he loves to do it,” Shali Lord said fondly of her son.

            Lord herself grew up around ranches in Oklahoma and Colorado Springs. Her father, Jim Nichols, worked for the PRCA as Director of Rodeo Administration. Her mother, Lesli Nichols, previously worked for the National Little Britches Rodeo Association.

In her youth, Lord competed through the ranks of junior and Little Britches rodeos. She attended college at West Texas A&M University in Canyon, Texas, where she received a bachelor’s degree in education. She college rodeoed all 4 years and then began going to WPRA circuit rodeos in the Mountain States.

            After she and her husband married, she moved to his mother’s family ranch (Hoffman Ranch) in Lamar, Colorado, and she has been there for over 20 years. Being on the ranch has afforded her barrel horses with an exceptional learning opportunity to be outside the arena and get to work cattle in a variety of different environments. Whether they are in the branding pen in mid-April vaccinating and branding spring calves, trailing yearlings to different pastures, or sorting cow/calf pairs, the Lord family does it all horseback.

            “We do a lot of outside riding in the summer… it seems to always help and be good for [the barrel horses]… it gets their mind off running barrels and gives them a job and something to do,” she said.

            The proof is in the pudding for her former great horse SX Docs Slider, “Slider” a bay gelding who Molly Powell borrowed for the 2004 Wrangler NFR and won the NFR Average. The next year, Slider helped Lord qualify for her first Wrangler NFR.

            “When I bought Slider, I didn’t have big intentions to make the NFR. I was just looking for a nice horse. He was a good ranch horse that you could head, heel and run barrels on. He was a lot more than we all expected. He lived with us for the rest of his life. We did a lot on the ranch with him. We didn’t rope on him a whole lot (nobody wanted to rope on him in fear of hurting him). He was pretty cool,” she said.

            Slider was a great example of all-around horsepower used on their ranch. Not all horses can be used outside the arena as proficiently. The Lord family’s horse breeding program utilizes recipient (‘recip’) mares on the ranch as broodmares. They do an embryo-transfer on the (synchronized) recip mares to introduce selected genes for future foals and allow the mares to continue to be used as a performance horse without having to be impregnated.

            After the babies hit the ground, they are ridden as colts and worked with. Depending on what they are, some are kept, and others are sold. If the Lords are especially busy, they may send colts to the Lamar Community College’s Horse Training & Management Program, or occasionally they will have interns come out to their ranch and help getting halters on the babies and do basic groundwork.

            Despite the busyness of ranching, shuttling kids to school (they are about 20 miles out of town) or activities, and her own professional rodeo schedule Lord makes it look seamless. It is evident her horses are important to her and work on the ranch has proven to be so beneficial for even top horses. It really takes a special horse to rope an uncooperative bull or move cattle in challenging weather conditions, as life on the ranch can be quite unpredictable. Lord proves that she is a tough competitor in and outside the arena.  

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