Why Work Buffalo, Not Barrels? The Secret to Kit and Isaac Johnson’s Program and Wolverrine’s Success

Barrel trainer Kit McCall Johnson keeps Wolverrine, The Goodbye Lane’s son out of Lisa Lockhart’s great buckskin mare Rosas Cantina CC, sharp on her husband’s cattle and a live buffalo instead of the barrel pattern. That husband, cow horse trainer Isaac Johnson, rides Vudu Chic in the finals of the National Reined Cow Horse Association Snaffle Bit Futurity on Oct. 24 at Will Rogers Memorial Center in Fort Worth.

Isaac made the finals on a mare he didn’t show until two weeks before the Futurity. It isn’t his first time in the spotlight in Fort Worth. He won the Limited Open at the 2025 Snaffle Bit Futurity aboard Ima Jackie Rey (Stevie Rey Von x Ima Sixy Chick x Six Up Top), owned by Bridget Smith. He and Wyldcat are also NRCHA Limited Open Hackamore world champions, marking a 432 at the NRCHA Celebration of Champions in Fort Worth for owners Mill Iron Livestock and Tyson and Del Bieleny. Mill Iron also owns Wolverrine.

But the barrel racing world knows the Johnsons for Wolverrine, and what makes him unusual is how much of his training happens on cattle.

A Rosa son with a cow horse education

Rosas Cantina CC is the buckskin Corona Cartel mare Lockhart has ridden to the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo. “Rosa,” owned by Mill Iron Livestock, carried Lockhart to the 2025 Cheyenne Frontier Days barrel racing title and had $636,468 in QData earnings at the time.

Rosa’s offspring have followed her into the winner’s circle. Bucky Wonder Horse, by First Down Dash, has won at major winter rodeos under Shelley Morgan, and Monsterr, by Tres Seis, has won at aged and open events. Jaguarr, a Dash Ta Fame son of Rosa, was a sought-after young sire with a full book before he died after a freak accident, Mill Iron Livestock announced.

Wolverrine is owned by Mill Iron Livestock, according to his Select Breeders Services stallion profile. The plan was to have him ready for the Barrel Futurities of America World Championship. Then Kit found out she was pregnant.

“So I got Wolverrine and I just thought he was really, really talented,” Kit said. “And we made the decision that we think we could have him ready for the BFA. And then a few weeks later I found out that I was pregnant. And so actually my husband should get all the credit for Wolverrine because I was pregnant. My due date was November 9th, so safe to say we did not make the BFA. So he had a little bit later start to his futurity year, but I was luckily able to bounce back pretty quick, went to riding him. So between figuring out how to be a mom and having one of the best horses I’ve ever had in my life, we had a really good futurity year. He ended up winning his first futurity we ever entered. Did really good, had really big go-round wins. We’re now deep into his derby year and he just continues to impress everyone.”

The Johnsons’ son, Axel, was born in November 2024. Kit and Wolverrine won the $10,000-added futurity at the March Into Spring Fling in Shawnee, Oklahoma, in March 2025.

“He’s crazy fast,” Kit said. “He’s got a big personality and he’s just kind of my boy. I love him.”

What Isaac did while Kit was pregnant

Isaac doesn’t call himself a barrel horse trainer, or anything that specific.

“I like riding horses,” he said. “I like horses that are talented. I really appreciate when people go and do whatever their interest is with horses. So I’m not, no, not genre specific. I like training horses and I think good trained horses can go any direction with the good start. Obviously they have to specialize, but a good start’s a good start.”

Wolverrine came to the Johnsons with miles already on him. Isaac’s job was to get the stallion broke to their program, and he did a lot of it on the buffalo.

“So we got him, he was obviously a 3-year-old coming 4-year-old, so he’d already been ridden quite a bit,” Isaac said. “So there was a little bit of changing around to fit kind of our style and that’s mainly what I did. I just kind of got him lined out to where we were on the same page with the direction we wanted to go. He’d already seen the barrels a little bit. He kind of knew that. So I got him a little bit more broke, worked the buffalo on him a bunch and then took him over, finished him on a pattern and away they went.”

Why Wolverrine works the buffalo instead of the barrels

Now that Wolverrine is finished, Kit keeps him in shape by working the buffalo and cattle rather than drilling the pattern. It has become part of the program for every barrel horse she rides.

“Yeah, we do that. And actually that’s what I do a lot now,” Kit said. “He’s finished, to keep him in shape, and it works really good for anxiety, the pressure. And he’s actually very cowy. And so I kind of started doing it with all my barrel horses working the buffalo. So they don’t need pattern work, but they still need to get exercise and stay in shape. So I steal my husband’s cows and the buffalo and it’s part of my program.”

That includes the cow horse staple of going down the fence, not to make a full fence run, but to let the stallion run, rate and soften.

“Yeah, we do it all the time,” Isaac said. “She goes down the fence on him and not to make a fence run, but she’ll send him up there and if he gets a little strong, she’ll kind of pick up until he softens and then run back up there. Yeah, it has changed. So she worked the buffalo for a week straight and then never saw a barrel and went to a barrel race and set the arena record and then the next day went and broke that arena record. And all she did was work the buffalo before she went.”

The point, Isaac said, is the mind as much as the body.

“It takes the anxiety out of a lot,” he said. “So those barrel horses, they have a reputation of being really strong, really up. He can stay pretty level. He thinks through pressure situations because he sees it all the time.”

Kit believes the cow work built Wolverrine’s style on the pattern.

“Yeah. And I feel like it’s helped develop a style because I mean we essentially still make a barrel turn when you’re doing a fence turn, but the barrel’s moving and so he’s reading it,” she said. “And I think that’s also what’s really helped him become very smart about the ground is because that barrel’s not just standing still and it’s not just a repetition where they become numb to it. He’s very intrigued. He’s a very, very intelligent horse just overall. And so I think it was the key to keeping him very engaged, loving his job, loving the differences, and hopefully he goes and takes that on if the rodeo career is the next step for him.”

Vudu Chic: no expectations, then the finals

The same no-pressure approach got Vudu Chic to the finals. The Johnsons bought her at the Snaffle Bit Futurity sale in 2024. She wasn’t big, but she stood out.

“So we have a horse, her name’s Vudu Chic,” Isaac said. “We bought her here at the Snaffle Bit sale two years ago and she just had something that connected with us. There’s tons, hundreds of nice horses that sell here, but she had a spark somehow and she wasn’t very big, but we loved her and it worked out to get her bought. Went home, started riding her. She was just talented at everything. We talked a lot about it because she was good at it physically, but just a little mentally immature, just kind of juvenile thinking about things. So we held her off from showing her because I wanted to make a good aged-event horse. And if the futurity fit in between here and there, we were going to do it.”

Isaac didn’t show the mare until two weeks before the Futurity, at a show in Pueblo, Colorado.

“We went to Pueblo, Colorado, and mainly just kind of went and had a good experience,” he said. “She felt really good. So we kept on with our plan, came here and she just went and did her thing. I think that was part of our success too, is the expectation of going and winning it wasn’t there. I wanted her to go have a good show. I knew she was trained. I knew she was ready. I know she’s talented. And so we just went and had a good time and she said, ‘Hold my beer,’ and went and did the thing.”

Kit said she has learned to watch her husband show without the nerves.

“I used to be way more nervous watching him than ever me competing, but similar, we just came in and this is his only horse that he’s showing this entire thing,” she said. “We left all the aged horses home and we only had one futurity horse. So she knows that we love her and we don’t really feel like she owes us anything because we like her. And going in there, it’s just exciting. We’re just here and having a good time.”

Run-on-cow crosses

Asked whether Vudu Chic might someday be crossed on Wolverrine, Isaac said, “It’s not a bad idea. Not a bad idea at all.”

“We’ve actually both ridden, me in the barrels and him in the cow horse, the run-cow cross,” Kit said. “So we’ve had success in both arenas on those crosses, and so I’m down to cross the run on the cow.”

The first Wolverrine babies

Kit started Wolverrine’s oldest foal this summer, a 2-year-old filly called “Juice.”

“So this summer was super fun for me. I got to start the oldest Wolverrine baby. Her name’s Juice and she’s 2 and she’s just dreamy,” Kit said. “I love her. Everything comes so easy. So she’s got the natural talent from her dad and then her mom was a big-time winner and I see a lot of her mom in there. And then I own a super, super nice yearling that I had considered selling, but I start loving him more and more every day. So I think he’s going to stay with me. And then we have, I think, five Wolverrine weanlings. He’s throwing beautiful color. He’s throwing conformation, and both the fillies and the stud colts, just they’re special.”

Kit starts most of the colts herself. Isaac takes the ones that need it.

“Well, if they’re wild, yes, I ride them,” Isaac said.

“I have a little bit more self-preservation now, being a mom starting 2-year-olds, but yeah, that’s been our business together, is starting 2-year-olds,” Kit said. “And that’s kind of where I came from before I was super competitive and focusing more on running barrels. So yeah, we start a lot of 2-year-olds.”