Billie Jack Saebens and One Time Pick will rope from the high-call position in Saturday night’s short round of the 4-&-Under Heading at the 2025 ARHFA World Show after stacking a 687.2 on three head Oct. 31.
(Editor’s note: After this story was published, Saebens also made it back high call in the 4-&-Under Heeling on Emojii. Story coming soon.)
Saebens has dominated 2025’s futurities on another Flag Ranch 4-year-old named Una Furiosa (who took a no-time early in this year’s World Show), while the 2024 ARHFA short round was dominated by Flag Ranch horses bred by Larry Rice.
This 4-year-old, owned by Brett Telford, works best with speed and pressure, Saebens said—letting him shine in Amarillo’s spacious setup.
Full ARHFA 4-&-Under Heading Short Round List and Pedigrees
“We bought him out of the Triangle Sale as a 2-year-old,” Saebens said. “Shane Boston picked him out. In the beginning he was a little bit rough, the foot placement and right stuff, and he’s a really big horse. He’s good-minded enough that we just kept showing him how to do it, and then whenever you added speed to it, it was really good.”
Training the long-strided gelding required a counterintuitive approach: embracing the bad reps at slow speed to protect the mind and wait for the run to wake him up.
“Honestly, it was just a lot of trial and error,” Saebens said. “On slow steers, even now, it doesn’t feel very good. Through the early stages, going slow the whole time always felt like crap. When we finally got up to where we could go fast and I felt what it was like, I’m like, ‘OK, it’s in there.’ To keep him quiet and under control, I just dealt with it feeling like crap going slow and trusted that when we put speed with it, it would be there.”
Saebens leaned on foundational work to shape the horse’s style.
“I did a lot of sled work in the beginning,” the Nowata heeler explained. “I was real careful at the start, roped the dummy on him and just kept him slowing down, creating the cow. We saved a lot of rope stuff for out in the pasture, the old roping steers, and just sat out there and roped them and slowed him down.”
The setup this week has showcased the horse at his best.
“They’re kind of running, this is a bigger arena, and he’s at his best whenever he’s running,” Saebens said. “Our second steer, I took way too good of a start and caught up early. He caught up before I was ready and I just skipped it on the horn. They scored him good. He works plenty good doing that, but I feel like that’s how he looks the worst. Being a big horse and having a lot of room sure helps him a lot.”
The horse’s love for lots of room has Saebens with a big goal for the horse some day.
“I want to head on him at the BFI one time before he sells,” Saebens said. “He feels like a BFI horse to me.”
It shoud also be noted that Saebens is high call in the 4 & Under Pre-Futurity heeling on Emojii, the 4-year-old son of Hashtags out of CF Tuff Lucinderella, with a 687.71, giving him another chance at thousands during the Saturday showdown.
