Success, said southwest Oklahoma rancher and horse trainer Miles Baker, is doing what he’s been put on this earth to do and to serve and influence others along the way.
“I’ve been gifted with talents; that’s my purpose. It feeds into what I’m doing now,” Baker said. What the former rodeo cowboy is doing now is training horses on a large scale with business partner Trevor Brazile in Decatur, Texas.
Brazile is a retired rodeo champion who holds the record for the most Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association World Champion titles with 26. Baker, who has become one of the leading roping industry trainers, teamed with Brazile to form Relentless Remuda, which is their hand-selected horse herd. Their mission is to pursue excellence in the equine athletics field and in the rope horse industry. Out of Mountain Park in southwest Oklahoma, Baker is also connected to Rockin B Land and Cattle, LLC and Baker Performance Horses, LLC.
Baker grew up about 30 miles west of Lawton in the small community of Snyder into a ranching world guided by a strong work ethic. His parents, Darren and Stephanie [Brewer] Baker both grew up in Indiahoma and went to school together. On both sides of the family tree are cattlemen, ranchers, farmers, cowboys and a paternal great-grandfather, Louie V. Myers, who was well known in the area for horse training.
“I came back to it,” Baker said in a recent phone interview. “It’s in my blood.”
He first started riding horses at the age of four, and at 12 began junior rodeoing as a calf roper. At 16, Baker was team roping with “all my dad’s buddies, which was convenient,” he said. “I learned the family work ethic at an early age. It’s about hard work and dirty hands.”
In junior high, at about age 14 or 15, Baker said he was up at 4:30 a.m. to feed the cows before school and then after school he doctored cattle with his dad. All work was done on horseback.
“We didn’t use 4-wheelers or feed trucks. We used horses. It was our way of operating. I’m thankful to have been able to grow up with the background that I did. I was instilled with good values and good morals,” he said. “The Western industry has good people in it.”
One principle Baker reiterates frequently in horse training videos and media interviews is that “you’ve got to put a good foundation on them.” It’s fair to say that he had a good foundation put on him growing up in southwest Oklahoma. In addition to the influence of multiple generations of family, Baker mentioned two more important mentors from his youth. One was football coach Robert Babcock and the other was his youth pastor from the First Baptist Church of Snyder, Zack Ange.
“I enjoyed football because of my coach,” Baker said. “He was a life lessons guy. He was a good Christian man and taught us life values. One thing I learned from him that still applies today is, ‘You get out of it what you put into it.’
“Our youth pastor was very good and got us kids involved. He was a good influence on me, and it’s stuck. I went on two summer missions. One year I helped with construction work on a maternity ward in Punta Gorda, Belize. It was just an eye-opening experience. It made me realize the resources we have access to in America that we take for granted.”
A high school football injury eventually sidelined Baker and it just became “more convenient to rodeo,” he said. “I got hit in the leg and it tore some ligaments, but I continued playing and my leg got weaker. My ankle extended and ended up broken. I was in a cast for three months and never played again after that.”
Baker graduated from Snyder High School in 2011 and attended Oklahoma State University where he earned a degree in Animal Science/Business. At OSU he met Daci and they married after graduation. Baker rodeoed through college, but not for the OSU Rodeo Team; he was already competing with the PRCA. Among other highlights on his rodeo resume, he and a friend, Zack Woods, turned three steers in 17.0 seconds to win the Ram Prairie Circuit Finals Championship held in Duncan in October of 2021.
With all of Baker’s success in the rodeo arena, training horses and a successful business partnership, he still hasn’t lost sight of his desire to serve and influence others along the way. He has been a kidney organ donor to a friend in need and there “never was any question whether to do it or not,” he said. “God put it on my heart. We were a really good match. It was meant to be.”
Baker and his dad also teamed up with McPhail Land & Cattle of Mountain Park for the Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association’s Ranch Rodeo in August of 2020. The rodeo benefitted The Children’s Hospital Foundation. McPhail’s team was the all-around winner that also benefitted The Children’s Hospital at OU Medicine, according to an OCA press release.
“There is a bigger purpose outside of roping and riding and business and all training aside,” Baker said. “There’s only one thing that matters and that is faith in Jesus Christ.”