BY CLIFF SMELLEY
Telegraph Staff Writer
After completing her exams to wrap up the fall semester at Santa Fe College, Delaney Crosby headed to central Florida, but it wasn’t to enjoy anything that’s appealing to most tourists nowadays.
No, she took a step back in time, while also putting to use the skills she’s been honing at New River Ranch.
Crosby, a 2022 Bradford High School graduate, took part in the Dec. 4-10 Great Cattle Drive, a re-enactment to celebrate of 500 years of cattle in Florida. She spent seven days helping to move 1,000 head of cattle 78 miles, traversing what the event described as “Old Florida-style lands.”
She was given the opportunity by Wayne and Carita Wall of New River Farms, where she works. The Walls also participated in the event.
“I enjoyed it,” Crosby said. “I got to meet a lot of people and hear lots of stories.”
The approximate 500 participants, who rode on horses or in wagons, were encouraged to dress in 1800s-era attire.
“We dressed and kind of played the part,” Wayne Wall said.
Crosby said she had to do some research to get an idea of how people dressed in the 1800s.
“I went to Goodwills and found outfits,” she said. “That’s how I did it. We made our own (attire).
“It turned out I got a lot of compliments on my outfits.”
The event occurred during finals week at Santa Fe College.
“I had to finish all of my essays and assignments a week early, which was very difficult,” said Crosby, who was taking a full course load, “but I happened to pass all of my classes with ‘B’s and higher — my first semester of college.”
The Great Florida Cattle Drive began in 1995 (Florida’s 150th birthday) as a way of reminding people of the state’s cattle history, which began when animals were brought to the state by the Spanish in the 1500s. In the 1800s, pioneers began rounding up wild cattle and driving them to ports for export.
Thus, the start of the cattle business in the U.S.
“Everybody thinks horses and cattle came from out west, but Florida was actually the first state to have cattle in it,” Wall said.
The cattle business isn’t simply part of a bygone era. Florida has five of America’s 10 largest cow herds today. The Great Florida Cattle Drive that Crosby and Wall were a part of crossed part of Deseret Ranch, which consists of 295,000 acres and is one of the largest cattle ranches in the country.
“Florida is still one of the top five cattle industries in the United States,” Wall said.
Reliving history and bonding with horse
The 2022 Great Florida Cattle Drive, which was postponed from December 2021 because of covid, began at Kirchman Foundation’s Lake X Ranch near St. Cloud and ended at Sliver Spurs Arena in Kenansville. In between the two points, participants got a taste of life on the trail, which included sleeping on the ground.
Crosby said participants were limited to carrying a maximum of 60 pounds.
“We had to be careful about what we brought,” she said. “We brought three outfits for a week. That’s kind of how everybody was.”
Participants didn’t have to carry food or cooking utensils, Bagged lunches were provided, while meals were prepared at campsites.
“We had cooks come in and cook for us,” Wall said, adding, “Back then, you had to cook whatever you found, I guess.”
Each day consisted of traveling 10-15 miles.
“We would get up around 4:30 and saddle horses,” Wall said. “Then we’d break our camp down and pack it up and be ready to move out by 8.”
Crosby said she’s sort of an early riser anyway, but added, “Not 4 o’clock early.”
The biggest eye-opener wasn’t having to open her eyes that early in the morning. It was the magnitude of what she and the other participants were doing.
“That’s the most cows I’ve ever moved,” Crosby said.
Crosby said one of the reasons she wanted to participate in the event was to give experience to her 2-year-old horse, Doc. She said the horse, which she’s had since May, wound up doing better than probably 75 percent of the horses at the event.
“I had to keep a good eye on him because a lot of horses struggled, but he was prepared,” Crosby said. “I had to work with him months ahead of time to make sure he was ready.”
Crosby said she had confidence in Doc. The only things she worried about were him getting sick or becoming lame or too sore to be ridden.
“He held up pretty good,” Crosby said.
A lot of times, Wall didn’t see Crosby during the drive until they stopped to set up camp each day, but he enjoyed the opportunities he did have of watching her take part in a unique opportunity and become a really good horse rider in the process.
“She was able to handle that horse work, and I trusted her to make good decisions for her horse and for herself, to not put herself or her horse in a bad situation,” Wall said. “When I would see her in the afternoons, she was just happy.”
Spending so much time with her horse was one of the highlights of the drive for Crosby.
“I got to bond with my horse more,” she said. “I got to learn more about my horse. I was with my horse like 24 hours, seven days.”
Bonding with horses is part of what Crosby does working at New River Farms.
Working with horses and a whole lot more
Crosby has been around horses for four years. Her grandmother, Dannette Williams, gives riding lessons and owns 20-25 horses.
“We did barrel races and stuff, but I really wanted to do more cow work, and I wanted to train,” Crosby said. “There was a girl there (at her grandmother’s) who trained mustangs. I’d go to lessons early to help her out with the mustangs.
“I kind of slowly started to realize that’s what I enjoyed — to train.”
She got her opportunity when Wall approached her at the Bradford Agricultural Fair, where she was showing a pig. Wall said Matt Waters, who’s Crosby’s uncle, told him she needed a job. He asked her if she knew how to ride and had her come out to New River Farms so he could give her a tour and have her ride some of his horses so he could gauge where her skills were at.
Once she was hired, she jumped right into doing whatever needed to be done.
“Her first job, we went to Texas and picked up two horses,” Wall said.
Crosby said, “We came back at 3 a.m.”
“She has worked from daylight to dark here a lot of days, sometimes until 1 or 2 in the morning,” Wall said
Some of the duties at New River Farms are training horses to become used to being ridden and performing certain jobs on the farm.
“She was used to riding horses that were broken,” Wall said. “Then you get on a young horse — he’s moving forward, slowing down, going left, going right. It’s hard to keep your seat. It’s hard to stay balanced.”
Wall said the Great Florida Cattle Drive showed how much Crosby has learned working with New River Farms horses.
“To see Delaney come from not growing up on a big farm to be able to get a horse that nobody’s ever rode, to break him out and be able to take him on that — it was really good to be able to see her do that, to understand the work it takes to get a horse prepared to become a good horse and to be able to rope off him and pop a whip off him and ride him where you want to ride him, in and out of traffic.
“That takes a lot of time and a lot of work.”
Crosby has been around all kinds of animals growing up and has exhibited in the Bradford Agricultural Fair’s goat, poultry and swine shows. Horses are her favorite animals to be around, she said, explaining she likes the bond she’s able to form with them.
It’s a good feeling when she works with a horse at New River Farms and gets it to respond to her and the training she’s putting it through.
“It makes me feel like I’m doing it right,” Crosby said.
Working with horses is only part of her job at New River Farms. Wall said Crosby has trimmed goats’ feet, fixed fences, prepped fields for planting hay by operating a 16-foot Batwing mower and using a windrower to cut hay, which she has also moved and stacked in the barn. She has hauled cattle to market, picked up feed and cleaned out the barn and its stalls.
“She has done everything we do on this farm,” Wall said.
Crosby has even palpated cows, which, if you didn’t know, is inserting your hand into the cow’s rectum to determine if it’s pregnant.
“I’ve always wanted to do that, as funny as it sounds,” Crosby said.
Wall said he likes to give youth opportunities to work on New River Farms, saying, “We try to take on students every summer when school’s out to keep them out of trouble and for some who don’t have that opportunity to work on a farm or to even understand the agriculture side of the world is. We raise cattle. We cut hay. We train horses. It’s a good agricultural experience for a teenage kid that could change their lives. We try to offer that to kids.
They have to want to do it because it’s a lot of work”
Crosby admitted it’s not the kind of work that’s meant for everybody, but she enjoys it and sees it as always being a part of her life.
“I want to do what Wayne does,” Crosby said. “I’m in college, and I want to go into nursing, but I still want to be a part of the horses.”
And if there’s another Great Florida Cattle Drive event in the future? Crosby didn’t hesitate to say that she would definitely take part in another such re-enactment.
