A Story Of Success

The circumstances of how Robert and I began working together are quite interesting because it was actually my mother who told me a cowboy wanted to speak to me after church. I was beyond excited because I had always wanted to ride horses, but never really knew where or how to even begin. 

Thankfully, after talking to Robert, he offered to teach me how to ride horses and so much more but as a nine-year-old kid all I heard was horse and that was enough for me. Only six months after meeting Robert my mother and I relocated, but kept in touch. Years later as a sophomore high school I still had a passion for horses even going as far as to watching videos on YouTube of rodeos and wagon races to the ridicule of my classmates. However, that summer I was offered the opportunity to learn what it really meant to be a cowboy, and I took the opportunity. It was an experience that I could never get anywhere else that taught me the importance of dedication and honesty hard work and determination. I learned to drive cattle operate farm equipment, even compete and mounted shooting in one summer as an inner city kid. 

That one summer that I spent out west became a core part of who I am today in since then, as a professional western variety artist it’s allowed me to work for some of the biggest names and brands in the country. 

I’ve had the distinct honor and pleasure of performing stands on horseback for Dolly Parton feature film, live productions, the Savannah Bananas, Nike, McDonald’s and my very first job by special request was Beyoncé. That being said without Robert’s guidance in specific regard to keeping God in the forefront there’s a very likely chance that I would not have understood what it meant to work to earn to build to develop and to even fail in some regards. As I looked at the future, I hope to instill the same core values in the more youth that I come across and I know he’ll continue to do the same.

- J.J. Cash

Now the other side of the story…

Jamin, his mother, and I attended the same church in Las Cruces, NM. He came out to my home and learned a little bit about horses. Before long, his mother had decided to return to Philadelphia.

 Off they went. 

Jamin and I kept in touch. He would call me periodically and his normal greeting was “I wanna be a cowboy, I wanna to be a cowboy, I wanna be a cowboy.”

I thought this was so interesting from this youngster living in the inner city of Philadelphia. 

A couple of years later, when he was in high school, it was agreed he would come out to New Mexico and spend the summer helping me with our children's riding program in Las Cruces, NM.

With his mother’s permission, Jamin came out and spent the summer with me. He'd sleep on the couch, or he'd sleep on the floor in the living room. And the agreement was that he would get up early and he would groom horses, clean stalls, work around the property. The effort on our part was to teach him how to be a cowboy.

Well, that didn't go very well. Typical teenager. Had a bit of a lazy streak. Mornings were a little difficult as I would wake him early, I’d get my chores done and come back in the house and find he’d gone back to sleep. This went on for a number of weeks. There came a point when he began to really understand that being a cowboy was more than just sleeping in every morning. 

The summer ended with him competing in cowboy mounted shooting and working cattle on a large ranch. The realization that being a cowboy was more than just an idea.He returned to Philadelphia, and we talked a few times by phone, asking me to return the next summer. But eventually the calls stopped. We had lost contact with each other.

Two years ago. I received a video via text message of an individual riding a horse in an arena full of spectators. The rider was doing tricks off horseback. I thought it was a mistaken text message, a wrong number. A few minutes another video. And this time I text back asking who was sending the videos

The message returned saying “Mr. Barnard. it's me, Jamin.”

I responded. “Oh! Hey, how are you doing? And. Who's that a video of?”

Jamie responded. “Mr. Barnard, that's me.”

My knees almost buckled. The emotions flowed. I was absolutely stunned. How did this kid turn into a trick rider???

He explained while in high school he took an acting class and after high school he managed to get a job at Dollywood cleaning stalls. And from cleaning stalls he then cared for the horses, and from caring for the horses, grooming, cleaning and exercising horses. And from that he became their star trick rider at Dolly Parton’s Stampede.

Now JJ is truly a star. And a very unique individual. 

This is what the horse, a kid’s dream, maturity, hard work, and determination can do.