 Well the crowd were on their seats for a hard-fought final at the Open Derby Championship at the 2017 NCHA Summer Spectacular. The man of the moment was Austin Shepard on Sir Long Legs and scored a very exciting 229. Congratulations to you Austin. Thank you. I saw you once the moment you got off your horse and you look like you were shaking like you had adrenaline running through your body. How did it feel tonight? Oh it feels really good. I don't it's just very exciting to have a run like that in a finals here. Can you describe it because the crowd was electric, the horse was electric. Can you can you run through what that feeling is like? Now it's just an adrenaline rush. I mean it keeps you going. Not that you're not excited anyway but it's just a really good feeling to have everybody pulling for you. Now what does this win mean to you? It's your first Derby title here in the Will Rogers. It is and anytime you can win anything in this arena I mean these guys are all the best of the best so to win anything in here or anywhere against this group of horses is impressive but you know when you want to cut in here it's there's so much history in here that it's it's more special than winning anywhere else. Did you cut the cows that you chose? What was your plan and how did it pan out? Well my first cow and my second cow we went down there to cut and you know we went down there to cut them. I had another cow and my first cow I was kind of feeling of that I liked and it didn't feel that great so I went with the other one and my second cut I went back there to cut that cow and then you know the run was building so strong I just wanted to be cutting quick as I could without cutting too fast and I couldn't really find anything when I turned around and I didn't want to waste too much time so I just came up top and cut shape on a black cow that I didn't think had been cut. It might have but I was going to cut it anyway. Oh it certainly worked out for you. You really came out and when you say you you didn't want to do it too quickly but you look like a man with a purpose and you made it all happen as though you knew exactly the way it was gonna all turn out. Well I'd like to think I knew how it was gonna turn out but I knew how I wanted it to turn out and I knew I wasn't gonna be able to win anything sitting in the herd I mean we had three or four great runs I mean Matt Miller had a great run and two of them and John Burgess had a really good run right in front of me so I mean it was a very it's probably the semis in the finals here are probably two of the toughest cuttings I've ever seen in here four-year-old cuttings. And I saw Matt come over and he he actually looked like he was pleased to at least to have wondered you know a run like that and a horse like that and a train to like yourself you know getting a 229 it looked like it might have you know he wasn't he wasn't feeling too hard about it. Now Matt and I are really good friends our families our kids everything they're they're like family to us and a couple days ago he let me bring my horse out and work him on some of his fresh cows and that really helped and so he told me he wasn't gonna let me do that anymore. So tell us about so long legs. Well we bought him as a yearling here and I sent him to Gerald Alexander who I started a lot of our best horses I've had and I got him as a three-year-old and trained him and I was second on him at the fraternity and I made the semis at the Superstakes made a few finals and stuff but this is his first win. Any plans now? Well we're gonna go to West Texas down Marilla next week and show him there and then we'll make our regular fall fraternities the cotton stakes in the southern and some of those. One last question for you you mentioned you know really wanted to build a good run what's the secret to doing that how do you really try to create that? Well you want to be you want to be in control but you want to be aggressive you don't want to be so aggressive that you kind of scatter the cows make a mask or horse whatever but at the same time you want to come through there or the purpose and you just have to find an opportunity to be aggressive and if it doesn't present itself you can't do it and that's what I mean by when it fits it fits and I could feel it fitting so I got more aggressive. I said one last question but I do have one more. Do you think there's any psychological advantage coming out last you know the last hole obviously it's pretty tough with the cows but do you think there's any psychological advantage where you know what everybody else has done the crowd is kind of always waiting for a winner at the end do you think there's anything to that? I would say so but you know you know what you have to mark so that's a good thing you may not have a whole lot of cows so that's a bad thing there's pluses and minuses to it but you know it is good that everybody's thinking this is the only horse that can beat the horses one in so I mean that there there is a little buzz to it. Well you certainly made it happen congratulations great Ron. Thank you very much.