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Ranch ropers here this weekend

The event will be held Saturday and Sunday at the Golden Mile Arena
Exhibition company 2
Moose Jaw Exhibition Grounds. Photo by Jason G. Antonio

Another major equine event is set to take over the Moose Jaw Exhibition Grounds this weekend.

The Canadian Ranch Roping Association will be holding an exhibition and competition of their skills. The event is free and the general public is welcome to attend.

Ranch roping is designed to “show the ability of the horse and riders skills as if they were handling cattle on the ranch,” George Fowler, general manager of the Moose Jaw Exhibition Company said.

Unlike the rodeo sport of calf roping, which is based upon the quickest time of roping and tying up the calf’s legs, Ranch Roping competitions are based upon a set of criteria a rider and horse must accomplish, which is scored by the judges.

Participants work in three-person teams and have four minutes to successfully rope a certain animal within a herd of cattle in a manner which does not overly disturb and disperse the herd, stress out the animals, as well as potentially harm the animal selected to be roped, amongst others.

Working as a team, one rider ropes the cow around the neck and a second rider ropes the cow on the back legs. Then the third rider dismounts and puts the rope around both back legs and then takes the rope off of the neck and puts it around both front feet. 

“This is the closest thing you will see to treating an animal in the pasture,” event co-organizer Ross Smith said. 

“This is like being on a real ranch where you might be a few miles from home and they have to rope and treat a sick animal in the pasture giving it a needle or whatever it needs.

“We want to be low stress as the animal by being sick or hurt is already stressed and we do not want to add to that stress,” he said.

Ranch roping is judged on criteria and not the speed that a selected animal is roped. 

“If they get aggressive or the herd runs away for example they (rider and horse) lose points…this is the humane form of roping and great care is placed upon that,” Fowler said.

Smith said the sport focuses first and foremost on the welfare of the cattle being roped “because the cow you are roping might be in your herd producing calves for the next 10 years and people do not want to hurt them as that is their living,” plus horsemanship, which is the care of the horse as well.

“Everyone is in the mindset that the cow comes first.”

Ranch roping also has degrees of roping with certain looping (how you throw the rope) being more difficult and scoring more points.

Although the contestants might finish well ahead of the four minute time limit, the champions have been contestants whose horses “never go any faster than a walk.”

“It is the complete opposite to what you see at a rodeo…you will get minus points and if you are too aggressive you will get two warnings and the third time you are disqualified,” Smith said, adding “in all my years competing I never had to disqualify anyone,” Smith said.

This is an event Moose Jaw has hosted in the past and it usually is the Canadian championship for the sport, but this year it is a competition only due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It usually is (the national finals) but this year because of COVID they did not have any qualifiers. Normally this would be nationals,” Fowler said, adding the majority of the 50 to 60 riders expected to come to the event are mostly from around Alberta and Saskatchewan. There are a few local competitors but the majority of the riders are from other areas.

Fowler described the contestants as a very open and social group both while on or off their mounts — it is something Smith agrees about the competitors and the atmosphere of the competition.

“We are a family-oriented event where you see both men and women competing…in the open event you will hear some jeering, we kid each other and if you do something wrong we jeer. It is all in fun,” Smith said, adding in the novice competition “we cheer the competitors.”

Smith said the event welcomes spectators who would like to come out and watch the competition.

Ranch Roping will be held this weekend at the Golden Mile Arena located on the Moose Jaw Exhibition Grounds - 250 Thatcher Drive East - and is free to attend. The competition runs at the following times:

Saturday, September 11th from 9 a.m. to finish (approximately 3 to 4 p.m.) OPEN CLASSES - two competitions

Sunday, September 12th from 9 a.m. to finish (approximately 3 to 4 p.m.) OPEN CLASS - one competition and NOVICE CLASS - one competition

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