Unveiling the Success of Calf Horses Peso and TJ Under Logan Bird's Expert Care

Nanton, Alberta houses one of the best calf horse trainers in the business.

Logan Bird has had two geldings in the last few years that have won an extraordinarily high amount of money on the biggest stages in rodeo. Not many realize that TJ and Peso were owned and trained by the same person.

Peso, Shiners Black Cat, quickly went viral after shining at last year’s National Finals Rodeo. At the 2024 NFR three cowboys swung a leg over him and in total won a little over $272,000. This included four go round wins.

Into this new year, Kyle Lucas, Ty Harris, and Logan Bird have all competed on him. As of February 24, they have won a combined $74,000 at larger rodeos like Tucson, San Antonio, Fort Worth, etc.

While Peso is the current hot topic, Bird and Shane Hanchey teamed up with Bird's other horse TJ, Hollywood Himself, to dominate the big stages in years prior. In 2020, the team was the American Champion. TJ went to the NFR 3x and was an average champion the same year he won the American. After winning $1.1 million in his career, TJ was inducted into the 2024 Canadian Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame.

When TJ won the average, he earned a victory lap following round 10. The next year TJ would unfortunately pass 5 days before the 2021 NFR and Peso would go on to get the first round win. This means the two horses, that Logan trained, would get back to back victory laps (technically).

This team of calf horses that Logan had were two of the best in the country. In 2018 and 2019 when Bird was hauling both, he would often end up flipping a coin for who to ride that day.

When you own calf horses of this caliber people are constantly wanting to jump on. There are many times that Logan has to turn down people because he knows that runs are limited on such athletes.

“Shane Hanchey took TJ and Peso both to their first NFR, so he put me and my horses on the world stage. He will always be first in line to ride my horses,” says Bird. There are people who have always been in his corner and therefore take precedence over others.

Bird also wants his horses to have the best chance for success which means some of the more successful athletes will get to jump on first. The health and wellness of his equine partners comes first and foremost.

This past year at the Canadian Finals would be a good example of this. Harris, Lucas, and Bird all rode Peso. Peso would help them to a year end Maple Leaf Circuit Finals title, an average title, reserve average title and go-round wins.

Training calf horses and roping is a family business for the Birds. They stay down in Arizona for part of the year and on any given day will be on 15-20 calf horses. Their business continues to grow and it’s a full time job now for Logan.

These two horses have changed Logan’s life. With almost $2 million in earnings between the two, the rodeo world was able to see what Logan is capable of with his training.

As the year goes on Rodeo on SI will continue to watch and cheer for Peso as well as the athletes who are lucky enough to back into the box on him. Watch Bird and Lucas on him at Rodeo Houston March 13 through 15.

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