I see this at my schools so often, I don’t think I can ever say it enough. So many of you want to buy a nice young rope horse because you figure he’s healthy and sound and he’ll last longer. But did you realize how much his attitude and experience level will affect your roping?
I see a ton of people at my schools riding a young horse, and it holds them back. It would be like a two-on-two basketball game with two NBA players on one side and then this other guy, also an NBA ballplayer, decides he wants to play with a grade-school kid. He has no chance against two professionals in that game.
You’re only as good as your weakest link. If you need to work on your roping, don’t buy a horse that needs a lot of riding in the run. If you’re very focused on what happens with your rope, your riding just isn’t there – and your horse won’t be, either.
If you’re heading on a young horse and that steer brakes hard and moves to the right and all you’re thinking about is getting your rope around the steer’s horns, your horse is going to go straight when he should have moved over, and the whole run is blown. On an inexperienced horse, there are literally times when you have to think only about riding that horse and not about roping.
My son-in-law, Blake, just learned to rope and he’s a #3. I put him on Peggy’s veteran head horse that is completely automatic, and he has a huge advantage over guys on young horses at a low-numbered roping.
On this horse, Blake doesn’t have to think about riding at all. I told him just to point the horse out the middle of the box and only worry about his swing and delivery. The horse does everything else on his own, and Blake can just be along for the ride. Being a coach, that’s the type of situation I would always try to set up for students and my own friends and family.
Everybody wants to ride that green horse and bring him along. But if you’re not excellent at riding position, you will be constantly frustrated. When a student of mine makes a run or two on Switchblade (who stays collected, rates on his own and keeps his spacing), they can’t believe all they have to do is watch the feet and deliver.
If you don’t own an automatic horse yet, ride one just to see how your horse is really supposed to work. If you can get your hands on an older horse that really works, he can teach you so much about certain parts of a team roping run. The less you have to ride and rope at the same time, the more your roping – and riding – should improve. And that’s just smart roping.
Visit SmartRoping.com for more.
