My new favorite rodeo event: Open Ranch Class

After a very nice lunch at “The Nat­ur­al” with Eli, Car­ol, Shel­ley, and NANCY I walked home through the Earl W. show­grounds enjoy­ing all the hors­es and rodeo activ­i­ty. In the are­na itself I dis­cov­ered a new (to me) rodeo event, “Open Ranch Class”. Below is a mon­tage show­ing some of today’s teams in action.

The event is struc­tured thus: A fence runs across the are­na about 40% in from the west end. There is a fenced chan­nel thru the mid­dle of this bar­ri­er (image #1). 36 cows are inside this 40% area divid­ed into groups of three and so numbered. 

To com­mence the event two rid­ers enter this 40% area thru the chan­nel (image #1) and are simul­ta­ne­ous­ly giv­en a num­ber from the announc­er. Their goal is to cull out the three cows with the giv­en num­ber into the 60% emp­ty space of the are­na with­out let­ting any oth­er cows out of the 40% space (images 2 & 3). Next the two rid­ers have to dri­ve only two of the three cows back to the herd in the 40% area, open the gate to a pen in the far east end of the 60% are­na and dri­ve the one remain­ing cow into the pen, ride in them­selves, and close and lock the gate. To stop the clock the two rid­ers then have only three trys to las­so the cow, one over the head and the oth­er the hind leg or legs (image 4).

Lots of rid­ing skill, horse train­ing, and team­work are need­ed as well as some luck with hav­ing cows behave as wished. All in all very fun and inter­est­ing to watch. It takes sev­er­al hours to have the 30 or so teams com­pete in this event as well as three herds of cows so it is not done dur­ing the night time per­for­mance of the rodeo which explains why I have nev­er seen it.

There is a larger/clearer mon­tage you can view by click­ing on the one above.