By Anna Porter
Special to Ropers Sports News
KERMAN, CALIF. – When my husband, Tyson, asked me if I wanted to go to London and Paris for our 10th anniversary I said yes, of course. I’ve always wanted to go to Paris. A few weeks later when we were getting ready to buy our plane tickets, he told me that on the first weekend of our trip, there happened to be a World Series Roping in Northern Italy, and how did I feel about changing our plans from London to Italy?
I was open to the idea so he talked to Mike Crouch, the person putting the roping on, about coming. We looked up information on Turin, Italy and the area surrounding the roping arena. The Italian/French/Swiss Alps are an hour and a half drive to the north and there is a great wine region an hour south of Turin. At first it sounded like a compromise, roping the first part of our trip for my husband and Paris for me, but it ended up being an unforgettable experience.
We flew into Turin’s Caselle Airport which is about 20 minutes from the town of Ciconio, where the roping was held. We rented a car from the airport and stayed our first night in the city center of Turin. The former capital of Italy has a fantastic old town and world class museums. We went out to the arena on Friday night for a warm up roping. When we arrived Mike had a beautiful horse saddled and ready to rope. The arena was covered which helped keep everything dry during the light rain that night. Mike found partners for Tyson and we quickly made friends with some people from New Zealand
We stayed at a farmhouse turned bed and breakfast five minutes drive from the arena called Agritourismo La Desiderata. The owners were friendly, rooms were clean and the breakfast was delicious. People from nine different countries came to rope that weekend. They drove horse trailers all the way from Germany, Czech Republic and France. Lucky for us, English was the shared language and the ropings were announced in Italian and English. We ate dinner at the arena and got to know people from Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, New Zealand, and of course, Italy. The food was wonderful and the atmosphere was very friendly and relaxed.
Saturday was the main event with the European World Series Qualifier #10, All Girl Roping, kids breakaway roping, and first round of the #9. Tyson had partners he met through Mike and the warm up roping the previous night. The roping looked just like a roping here in the USA. People were dressed the same, there were really nice horses, and the steers were an even pen of grey horned cattle. Tyson’s only complaint was that they drank American Coors beer instead of his favorite Italian beer, Peroni.
The roping could not have gone any better. Tyson won 1st and 2nd in the #10 World Series Qualifier. He was on a solid horse and his partners roped great. The high teams were even more exciting when announced in Italian and we were proud to represent America on Sunday morning when people from each of nine different countries took turns carrying their flags on horseback to their national anthem
After the roping, we drove to the Alps, walked on a glacier, toured castles, went wine tasting and took the six-hour bullet train to Paris. Paris was beautiful, romantic and crowded. Our time in Italy was special because of the connections we made. It was icing on the cake to actually win over $1,500 and 2 entries to the Las Vegas World Series Finale! Our hosts, Mike Crouch and his family, were welcoming, helpful and generous. We heard the other day that some of people we met in Italy are planning on coming to rope in Las Vegas this month and we hope we will get to see them again and repay some of that generosity.
Tyson Porter won 1st and 2nd in the #10 World Series Qualifier held Sept. 5-7 in Ciconio, Italy.
