Down the Fence is on track to be completed by the end of summer 2015.

Filmmaker MJ Isakson set out six years ago to create a film documenting reined cow horse, its horses, its competitors, and legends. Now, with a successful online fundraiser behind them, Isakson and her team are on the cusp of completing the project.

Reined cow horse, or simply “cow horse,” is the three-day eventing of the Western world. The competition has three components: reining, called the dry work; cutting, called the herd work; and fence work, the celebrated highlight, grand finale—full tilt, flying down the fence while working a 900-pound steer in a specific pattern and manner. Each of these requires skill, courage, finesse, and a lot of guts for both rider and horse.

Most all horses have a certain amount of “cowiness”—the ability to rate and move a cow—but it takes a talented, special horse to learn how to go down the fence and cut a cow out of a herd