Cowboy catalog shopping
Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

By Julie Carter

Topping this year’s dynamic Christmas gifts, for the cowboy who has everything, is the latest innovation in roping practice equipment, the cooler dummy.

Combining two essentials for roping practice, there is now a plastic steer head can be attached to any flat-top cooler eliminating the mess of a hay bale. We all know, you can’t rope, either in dummy-roping practice or at the arena with the real cattle, without the ever-present cooler loaded with ice and a favorite adult beverage.

Of course, the catalog copywriters know just how to appeal to their market. “Use the cooler or tool box to store items in for travel and then pull it out to practice with or sit on at your destination.”

This makes perfect sense if you are a roper. It also makes me laugh that the world of retail has found one more toy for the cowboy. There was a time when a cowboy was happy with a good whittling knife and worn-out rope.

Catalogs for the cowboy, especially the ropers, have blossomed from a few simple pages of saddle blankets, buckets and a stock offering of ropes to a glossy, burgeoning book that would rival the likes of a Sears and Roebuck catalog of old.

Cover to cover, you can you order anything a cowboy might need from the sheets he sleeps on, decorated Western style of course, to the $30,000 trailer to haul his horse. Every attention to detail is given to the ropers’ needs including his reading material, his practice gear and his competition gear.

In case he needs chaps, chinks or a holster for his pistol, they are offered as well. His style of dress is catered to with selections of shirts, jeans, boots and even jewelry.

His dog, cat and horse can all be healthy with an assortment of veterinary items to select from and his stable can be clean and free of flies if he chooses to shop in that section of the book.

Perhaps a clearer picture that the direction the “cowboy” world is headed can be found in the catalog section that offers Western decorated cell phone holders, remote control holders and magazine racks, to hold roper supply catalogs and magazines, of course.

A complete section is dedicated to video, CDs and books on how to be a better horseman or roper. Every facet is covered in media selections ranging from teaching a colt his first lessons to the mental and physical preparation of the competition cowboy.

Not to be overlooked are the pages offering barrel racing, horsemanship and all kinds of roping clinics.

It is simple marketing genius to teach a few more recliner jockeys how to join the cowboy world and then provide them with absolutely everything they will ever need to look and be the cowboy of their dreams.

The world of “cowboy” supply is first creating the market, then catering to it completely.

And yes, there is even a “horses for sale” section. Let Fed Ex deliver your next roping horse to your door.

Christmas shopping for your favorite cowboy has never been easier.


Shop Julie’s Web site for Christmas – her book, Cowgirl Sass & Savvy is the perfect gift. www.julie-carter.com