Jen Landon: Shorty Went Still When Teeter Lost Colby | Yellowstone Behind the Scenes

What does a horse do when you fall apart on its back?

Shorty went still.

Jen Landon was mid-take on the Four Sixes, in a herd of cattle, flies everywhere, the day Teeter learns that Colby is gone. The tears turned real. Her cutting horse, a horse built to react to everything, stopped and held her.

Jen played Teeter on Yellowstone, the pink-haired ranch hand so many horsewomen felt seen by. This conversation is Jen Landon the horse girl, and she is a beginner, and proud of it.

She tells me which parts of Teeter were on the page and which were hers. The dip. The ball cap. She tells me about the audition she was sure she'd tanked, and the line she said on the way out the door that still makes her laugh. And she tells me that in twenty years of work, Teeter was the only part where the story was hers.

Then we go back further. Jen stopped riding as a little girl, after watching her mom fall from a horse that was barely started. She arrived at Yellowstone afraid of horses, on the ground and in the saddle. She describes that fear as going offline. Her nervous system shuts down the way a frightened horse's does.

So what got her through?

Cowboy camp. Eggs on spoons. Ribbon races. Team penning, cutting, roping. Wranglers who taught by doing. A team roping run in front of 300 extras in the final season that she calls one of the proudest days of her life. "I was so afraid of this. I have no natural ability. I wanna do this."

And Shorty. A cutting horse she met at cowboy camp, rode through the last seasons, and thought she would never see again. Then a belt woven from his tail. A sale from Taylor to Lindy Birch, then from Lindy to Jen. A year as Lindy's turnback horse in Texas. And now, California, twenty minutes from her door, where she rides him every day.

She is starting over with him. Learning diagonals. Learning to pick feet. Standing in the stirrups at the walk and swinging her arms to find her balance again. Coming home some nights in tears, because she wants so badly to get it right for him.

Jen wants to give you permission. To be a beginner. To wade through the suckage. To fail up.

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

And she found the reason she will keep riding for the rest of her life. On the days the call sheet had horses on it, the acting came easier. The difference between a good day and a great day was a horse.

I know that feeling. I rode Shorty in Texas, cutting cows with Lindy and Barbra Schulte, for Unbridled Episode 4. He is every bit the legend Jen says he is.

Watch Unbridled Episodes 1: https://youtu.be/XI6lxdaSM7Y

and Episode 2: https://youtu.be/X0xOcksn7TQ

Watch Jen interview me about Unbridled: https://youtu.be/H8t-yqzsSp4

Buy Unbridled Season 1 on NF+: https://noellefloyd.com/pages/noelle-floyd-unbridled

Chapters

0:00 Laskas, Shorty and Texas heat

3:25 How much of Teeter was Jen? The dip, the hat, the audition

7:23 Teeter's core: loyalty and rage

9:22 20 years, and the one role where the story was hers

13:40 Preparing for Teeter: "Can she ride?"

15:38 Her mom's fall, and a childhood fear of horses

21:08 What fear feels like: going offline

23:34 Permission to be a beginner

27:04 Roping in front of 300 extras, and failing up

31:12 Inside Yellowstone cowboy camp

34:00 Back to basics: diagonals, helmets, hooves

39:28 Finding balance again on Shorty

45:03 How Shorty came into her life

46:20 The Four Sixes scene: when Shorty went still

49:05 What a turnback horse does

49:55 Bringing Shorty to California

52:34 How a horse holds space

57:00 Why she'll never stop riding

1:00:55 Rapid fire

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