Ep. 68 - Reined Cow Horses & the Cattle Industry with COWGIRL Magazine's 30 Under 30 Recipient Kim Rounds

Kim Rounds knows hard work, in fact, there’s many times in life that she’s been knocked down and challenged to quit - but that’s something she hasn’t done! A former show jumper, Kim was hooked on the world of reined cow horse when she watched them film parts of Down the Fence at the Reno Snaffle Bit Futurity. Strategically leveraging hard work and learning fundamentals, she’s found herself with the perfect horse, Stevie, and this dynamic duo has placed TOP 5 in the NRCHA world for two years running. A cattle industry professional by trade with 5 Rivers Cattle Feeding, LLC, Kim is knowledgable and well spoken about all aspects of the cattle and equestrian worlds.

Growing Up

Raised in northern California, she grew up with a beach girl mom who surfed every day and a city boy dad who always wanted to be a cowboy after his great uncle. Getting into cattle from the ground up, he initially had a few heifers and then got to a full-fledged cattle operation, focused mainly on stockers today. As a second-generation cattle rancher, Kim was always involved with the cattle operation but was a diehard horse girl.

“I cantered around the playground - probably one of the main reasons I’m not in contact with anyone from middle or high school,” says Kim who adds, “but I ended up making a career out of it so I guess it doesn't matter!”

Kim didn’t start in western riding though, she did meter 20 circuit A show jumpers and worked for her trainer growing up braiding hair and rolling polos. This allowed her to travel all around North America for a great experience and solidified that she’d always have horses.

Into high school, Kim’s interest in cattle sparked with local show steers at their Nevada County fair where she showed off-the-ranch steers. Then her desire grew to be more competitive and purchased her first heifer that is still on her family ranch to this day, where she will be until she dies!

Uniquely enough, though, Kim’s county fair was a no-fit fair which meant that no adhesives could be used. This was huge when she hit the show circuit because she knew nothing about fitting show animals. Referencing the county she currently lives in in Colorado, many of the animals are former National Western Stock Show competitors and are kept in coolers and pampered year around.

“Looking back at how I grew up, I think it was more fun because it leveled the playing field because no one was flying in a fitter from somewhere else,” says Kim. “A lot of my friends at Colorado State University made fun of me because … I didn’t know it was weird!”

“There are a lot of kids that came out of our county fair… that can make a bunch of money by traveling and fitting at the junior shows so they need to find other juniors to come fit,” says Kim. With a covered arena at their home, Kim’s parents always rent it out to local 4-H and FFA teams to come out and learn.

Family Ranch Horses

Kim’s start to the western riding world were some “very functional ranch horses.” Looking back, she has to laugh at the many shenanigans that they let her partake in as a child. It wasn’t until late in high school or early college that she learned what reined cow horse was which was when she went to the Snaffle Bit Futurity in Reno, Nevada - just 100 miles from her home. This was the year that they were filming Down the Fence for Netflix, and it correlated, much more than you’d think, to the adrenaline and speed of showjumping.

“I just needed the training and the tools to get there,” says Kim.

Reined Cow Horse

For those of you who don’t know, Kim placed 3rd in the world at the 2020 National Reined Cow Horse Association (NRCHA) Celebration of Champions and there is definitely a story of learning from being a show jumper, seeing reined cow horse at the Snaffle Bit Futurity and winning 3rd in the world.

After a tour of Colorado State University her sophomore year of high school, Kim knew that was the place she would go and, right off the bat, she joined the ranch riding team. As an active non-competing member her first year, she got a filly from an auction and began learning everything she could.

Then she got involved in the Legends of Ranching training program where consigners bring in young horses where the students would spend all year training the horses and then would sell at a sale. Kim sold her first horse and bought a filly a peer had trained at the auction. Learned more about being in the bridle and sold her. Using these saved funds she purchased her current mare, Steve, who was bred by CalPoly Quarter Horse enterprises.

“I have only had my NRCHA card for three years,” says Kim. “I started entering Stevie in the boxing classes, which is kind of the entry level of rein work … and then you call for a cow and you just box them on the short end.”

The NRCHA is set up really well for people to enter without putting their life on the line, something that Kim is appreciative of for the NRCHA. She had entered Stevie here and there, got a few checks, and then she started coming untrained as a result of a fried brain, potentially as a result of being a three year old futurity horse.

Kim tried to give Stevie a year off before showing her again but hate her. In fact, she had given her to a friend in Oklahoma to be a barrel horse. She hated everything about her. But the trailer ride to Oklahoma fell through so she realized she would have to sell her locally as a cow horse. Reaching out to the instructor of her colt starting course, she asked them to get her gone - “I didn’t even care if they had to pay someone to take her.”

After a week of riding her, they called and said - “We need to talk. This mare is kind of cool.”

Admittingly she had some un-training that needed to be done but they thought she’d be great so, out of spite, Kim signed up. John, a super sweet, gentle showman, showed Stevie in a class a day before Kim’s class and she was awful. Flipping leads seven times without being asked meant a terrible score.

“I tried to tell you,” told Kim. But then Stevie proved her wrong, winning two checks the next day with Kim. They took Stevie outside, let her be a horse, and roped cows with her. She won a check at every show since that time and then won 3rd in the biggest class at the NRCHA Legends of Champions finals in Fort Worth, Texas.

Building Blocks of Horses

Each year the goal is to level up and this year, it was the same and that was to start going down the fence. Once you go down the fence in the NRCHA, you can’t take it back and so you have to keep going. After some success showing locally, Kim hauled to the Snaffle Bit to show there and, after a great run, she came out lame. Stevie had separated her suspensory tendon off the back of her cannon bone and taken a bone chip with it.

Devastated and wanting to throw up, Kim just wanted to pack up and go home.

“I wrote off her entire 2021 show season before she had even seen the vet,” says Kim. But, thankfully, great vets on her team, gave her 30 days stall rest, 30 days on the AquaTrend, and she was going. A practice show in January at the Black Hills Stock Show. John’s wife, Kennedy, talked her into stating that she had sent her entries in and that they both compete well in Fort Worth.

“You’re never going to regret it, it’s a fun show,” said Kennedy.

Again, Stevie squeaked her in the last spot in the final for the Novice non-pro bridle horse and they won the 4th place title.

“Now we are at the point is ‘what’s next?’ A young unlimited horse, take Stevie up levels, Futurity horse?” While success has helped make this story, Kim says that it hasn’t been all sunshine and roses. There have been many times of frustrated.

Equestrian Mindset

“I wrote a big long post after my run with Stevie this year and the mantra was that I didn’t want to go and didn’t want to do it, but trust in your training, trust in your horse and trust in yourself,” says Kim.

At the major shows you’ll only have access to the arena at 3:00 am or 4:00 am and they’ll just go out there and stop their horse over and over. Eventually, you start to see the stops getting worse and worse. Kim only stops Stevie twice in warm up because she loves them and she’s good.

When she’s at home, she does the stuff that isn’t fun so that she can really flourish with those things that are fun. Working hard, grind at it, and, as they say on Cow Horse Full Contact, that you have to grind and put in the work. As Kim says, she has to do work because she’s out of nobody, by nobody, is the highest earning horse from CalPoly and is nothing on paper. Show up early, keep grinding and, eventually, it will all pay off.

National Beef Ambassador

The National Beef Ambassador program is something that, if you had met Kim her freshman year of high school, that you would be astonished that public speaking would be added to her resume and job title. She hated public speaking and reading in front of people, in fact she couldn’t even speak about a chapter she read in biology.

The Nevada County Cattlewomen approached her to apply for their beef ambassador spot that was helping at the county fair, but then it would go to the state competition. They had never had a state ambassador from their county before, but they encouraged her to try. She applied and got the spot. The cattle women in her county took her to the state competition which she knew nothing about.

Answering consumer questions about beef, current events, animal handling, etc. and, somehow, Kim won the contest. Then they told her there was a National Beef Contest and her county was so excited she won state that they hadn’t even told her about the National contest. In her first year in College she traveled to Ohio and competed where she had to prepare a classroom presentations, consumer mock interview styles, and was set up as an ambassador on a radio show or representing the cattle industry. It was a combination of knowledge, consumer interaction, and the classroom presentations prepared ahead of time.

Kim won the classroom presentation portion and ultimately received a spot on the team of five that spent the next year traveling around the country talking about beef and how cattle are raised. They went, quite literally, coast-to-coast in these travels where they were at expos, fairs, cooking demos, marathons and more.

It was a great experience of traveling through her first year of college and allowed Kim to realize that being a voice for the beef industry was exactly where she wanted to be for the rest of her life and solidified her career choice.

Gelbvieh Association

Originally, Kim had expected to go back to grad school but the whole program never got up to ground. Kim was devastated as she had always wanted to go to grad school and took an intern with the Gelbvieh Association in Denver, Colorado, and worked herself into the membership & registry areas. Managing accounts, transferring ownership, DNA tests, and more, she answered 90 phone calls and 100’s of emails a day. Not uncommon with the ability to use databases to have a limited staff, the technology was there but the members aren’t at a level to be able to use it.

This meant that a lot of Kim’s time was spent was teaching rancher’s how to use the technology, a job that she is grateful for as they taught her so much about customer service. Something else she learned, that customer service for the rest of her life was not for her.

“Those people that can do that full time their whole life, hats off to you,” says Kim.

5 Rivers Cattle Feeding LLC

Contacted by a friend, Kim was alerted to a job at 5 Rivers Cattle Feeding LLC which required some paperwork but also tours at the feed yards. A great phone call later, she was asked to do a preliminary interview and, after that moment, she was asked to do an interview in front of the entire JBS and 5 Rivers corporate team.

“I knew one of the men through mutual friends and he was the only friendly face in the room to me,” says Kim. “Looking back, I know them all and their nice, but it was a grueling interview. At one point, someone said … ‘you’re giving us the answer we want and not the real answer.’”

Putting her hands on the table, Kim raised her voice, and told him what was what. Calling her friend on the way home, she relayed that she had almost cried, she had yelled at someone and there was no way she would get it! She wasn’t even home when she got the call for the job with 5 Rivers Cattle Feeding as the specialty beef program manager.

Skillsets as a Young Female Voice

“I have learned more in the past five years with 5 Rivers than I did in all of college,” says Kim who shared on her Facebook recently about what it’s like to be the only girl in the room and often being the only person under 30 years of age. At the yard itself, it’s a fun young group at the yard but she’s often the only girl but feels supported by not only the men she works with but the company as a whole. Checking in on her horse shows and congratulations on her COWGIRL Magazine 30 Under 30 award as well.

“You have to walk a fine line between do no harm and take no shit,” says Kim with a laugh about being a woman in the industry. “You have to do it and it’s a voice you have to figure out. Luckily I had been in a customer service job before this so I had the sweet and spicy balance down. But it can be tough sometimes, trying to figure out how to communicate with men.”

Women should never go in with the defeated before you speak attitude, because men are trained to come in with the confidence that they have already won. Kim quit apologizing in emails, removed “just” and tried to write her emails and have her phone calls in a man’s tone of voice. It’s not that men are better than women, it’s just that they have a different communication style, which also rolls over to her presentations.

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