That even applies to the sport of ranch roping, where just getting the loop over the calf’s head and feet isn’t quite enough at the highest of levels.
Fans of rodeo roping events will be able to check out some of the best-of-the-best the sport has to offer during the Canadian Ranch Roping Association Finals at the Golden Mile Arena during the Sept. 13 weekend.
And yes, there will be ropers out there putting a bit of a different look to their throws than what one would traditionally see, all with the goal of maxing out their score as much as possible.
“There are even points for the types of loops they do,” explained Marian Finucane with the CRRA. “There are loops for the head and there’s one called the houlihan (a throwing technique where the rope is thrown from a counter-clockwise motion as opposed to clockwise in the traditional overhand style) and they’ll get extra points for things like that… So that’s kind of cool, that’s the kind of thing you’ll see from the more experienced ropers. Some of them will get really fancy and it can be entertaining to see what they try and do.”
It isn’t all about style over substance though – this is real work being simulated, the kind of activity one would see every day on a working cattle ranch.
“Most of the participants will have cattle, and ranch roping is what they do when they have to doctor their cattle,” Finucane explained. “They will rope them, get them down on the ground safely and quietly, they do their doctoring if someone is sick or has bad feet. Then they let it go.”
The main body of the competition will take place Saturday and Sunday, and event patrons will see a bit of a departure from the usual team roping they’d see at a rodeo. The focus is less on brute speed and power and more on being as safe and calm as possible.
“It’s all about being quiet and stress-free because usually, they’re in a cow pasture so if a cow they’re trying to get gets spooked then they all try and run away,” Finucane said. “So when they’re out there, they’re on their horse, everyone is calm and they just do their job as best they can and as safely as they can for both the riders and the animals.”
Competitive ranch roping is performed with three-rider teams, with one working the head, the other the heels and a third rider dismounting, fixing the ropes and ending the run with essentially the kind of position they’d see before any kind of work was done on the calf.
Events are timed, with additional points for the aforementioned ‘flourishes’ and deductions for any mistakes by the rider or animal. Each team goes through three rounds, with each rider taking a turn as a header. The best overall score takes home the prestigious belt buckles.
The competition opens Friday with a brand new event, the Ranch Hand Competition.
There, horses will run through a pattern similar to what one would see in Western riding or dressage followed by a section called ‘boxing the cow’, where the calf’s head is roped, a helper ropes the feet and the rider dismounts to adjust the ropes. This time, all eyes are on the horse and how it performs.
“It has to follow the competitor and they’re actually attached to the rider, so they have to all move the right ways,” Finucane said. “It comes from being out in the field, say you’re off the horse and he gets spooked and you’re not attached, he’s gone… so it’s about the horse doing its job to help the rider.”
Around 70 teams are expected to compete through the weekend, with the Ranch Hand competition starting at 6 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 13 and running until around 10 p.m. before the Ranch Roping event takes over at 8 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 14 and Sunday, Sept. 15, running until about 5 p.m. both days.
Admission is free all three days.
For more information, check out www.canadianranchroping.ca or search for the Canadian Ranch Roping Association on Facebook for full rules, schedules and plenty of other information on the Finals.
