Team roping is the fastest growing equestrian sport in the country with thousands of participant’s throughout the United States. Team roping originated as a way for working ranch cowboys and Mexican vaqueros to brand and provide medical attention to their cattle. Although team roping is still used on cattle ranches it has also grown into a rodeo event in which one cowboy known as the “header” rides his horse into position to rope a fast running steer (cow with horns) around the horns and control the steer’s momentum in order to give his partner the “heeler” a shot at roping the steer’s legs. A winning team roping run will be in the six to eight second range. First place at a national final roping can win as much as $150,000 and local ropings pay anywhere from a couple of hundred to ten thousand dollars for a first place finish.
Before any of you PETA people start picketing in front of my home because you think team roping abuses animals, try to understand the facts of the matter. The cattle we use for team roping are expensive and not easily replaced; ropers take excellent care of their cattle because the cost of replacing them is so high. Roping cattle are fed well so they stay healthy and perform well. Please also note that all team roping steers wear a protective wrap around their head and horns to protect them from any damage that might be done to them by a rope.
Team roping steers have life pretty easy, the average team roping run is about 8 seconds; team roping cattle will make no more than 15 or so runs per week for a total work time of less than a couple of minutes per week. The rest of the week the cattle are free to roam large pens or pastures, eat, drink and socialize among themselves to their hearts content. Sounds like a pretty good life to me.
A video of me roping at the 2007 World Series Championships in Las Vegas can be viewed by clicking here:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=9iPIohVK5PE
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