Page 124 - July 2022
P. 124
THE BACKSIDE
HOME BASE: Morgan, Utah
YEARS EXPERIENCE: “I’m going on about
10 years training in my name.”
ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND ACHIEVEMENTS: In 2021, was nominated for AQHA Champion Trainer and finished fourth nationwide in total wins.
HOBBIES: “I’m big into rodeoing. I shoe a lot of horses for people. I’m a farrier part time as well.”
Riley Moosman went to college on a rodeo scholarship, then decided before getting his diploma that he would drop out and enter the family business—training racehorses.
“I don’t know if it was a smart idea or not,” Moosman joked.
So far, so good. He’s about a decade into his career as a trainer, following in the footsteps of his father Ron Moosman. The Moosman family have been fixtures in the Intermountain Region racing scene, and Riley’s parents, Ron and Laurie, home- breed many of the starters in Riley’s barn.
“Growing up, [racing] was my family’s
life. I always wanted to do it,” Moosman said. “When I was younger, I thought I could be a rodeo cowboy ... and fall back on this. Once I got a little older and started going to school, I wasn’t involved as much and had to pick one or the other.”
Coming off a 2021 campaign where Moosman recorded 81 victories to rank fourth among all AQHA trainers, the future indeed seems bright for the 29-year-old Moosman. He also has a pair of runner-up finishes
under his belt in Bank of America Challenge Championship final races.
Such success has Moosman thinking about life, and competition, beyond the Intermountain.
“Monty Arrossa’s from my neck of the woods. I was talking to Monty at the Challenge Championship. I said, ‘What’s it like? You stuck your neck out, went to California, now you’re at Ruidoso and Oklahoma.’ He said,
‘If you’ve got a passion for it, you need to go. You need to get out there—to Ruidoso, to Los Alamitos, to whatever one you’re looking to.’ It’s just hard to leave your roots, you know?” Check out what Moosman had to say in the latest installment of our Backside series.
What is your philosophy when it comes to training a horse?
“Oh, shoot. My philosophy on it is just, I tell people, the horse will tell you when they’re happy, when they’re ready to run. A lot of us, a lot of us trainers, sometimes we don’t realize a horse will talk to you. Sometimes we don’t want to listen.”
So just picking up on their cues?
“Yeah. All of our two year olds-right now I think we have 40 two year olds - every two year old we have, I break them all. And then I do all my own farrier work. We’re such a hands-on barn. Breaking them and knowing their little quirks, you know every horse’s little detail, and you know if something’s out of whack.”
What’s your favorite track to run at and why?
“I really enjoy Wyoming Downs. It’s about an hour away from our house. We haul in and run and go back home. We still train at home. It’s just a pretty neat atmosphere there.”
There are some good jockeys up that way. Do you feel like racing in the Intermountain is on the rise?
“You know, it is. What’s so tough around our area is the number of jockeys. ... Our main rider, Jesus Valenzuela, he’s been with us for eight, nine years now. Our barn, we have 52 head. We don’t have a groom for every eight horses. None of that. We’re all hands- on. We don’t have two farriers shoeing so many every day. We don’t have gallop people. Our main rider gallops every horse. We train seven days a week. That’s the downfall: there’s not many riders around. When you have a big barn, it’s hard to get enough help.”
RILEY MOOSMAN by John Moorehouse
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SPEEDHORSE July 2022
Riley’s father Ron Moosman
Susan Bachelor, Speedhorse
Susan Bachelor, Speedhorse