Showing posts with label ranch sorting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ranch sorting. Show all posts

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Cow Pony


You've heard the phrase "Attitude is everything", right? Well, this little pony personifies it! She's smaller than most of our cows and yet she's amazing at Ranch Sorting. She's not the least bit worried about heading into the herd (Unlike some of our big horses!) and the cows always do exactly what she tells them to do. Her little legs move so quickly that they are blurry and it's awesome to watch her work the cows.

The woman on the right hand side of this photo is the judge. She is positioned right over the gate that each cow has to be driven out of, in order. As each cow exits the pen, she clicks the lap timer on her stopwatch. The team that gets the most cows out, in the shortest amount of time is the winning team. If however, a cow that is not in chronological order should slip out of the gate, she is right where she can see it, and she will raise her orange flag and disqualify that team.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Back off, Brother!


Yikes! This is when 2-Man Ranch Sorting gets really nerve-wracking! Right behind the cowboy on the right is a 12 foot gate that he is guarding, trying to prevent the herd from running through it. The cowboy on the other side of the pen is supposed to only be driving the one cow with the correct number on its collar out that gate. However, he has just given his brother the really tough job of stopping several cows. I couldn't stand the suspense, so I looked ahead and not only did he stop those cows, but the one on the right was the correct cow and in the next picture he was heading out the gate, while the others turned back to the other side of the pen. Whew!!

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Ranch Sorting


Today our team penning club held a Ranch Sorting - 13 cows are put into a 60 foot round pen with a 12 foot gate opening. 10 of the cows are numbered 0 through 9, the other 3 are blanks that are put in there to complicate matters! Each team of 2 riders has either 60 seconds, or 90 seconds, depending on the level of competition. One rider will stand his horse in the middle of the gate, hoping to stop any cows that try to rush out, while the other rider enters the herd and tries to sort out cows numerically, starting with an assigned number. After the rider drives out each cow, he will switch with the rider in the gate. The object is to get all 10 cows of the pen in order, within the time allotted. It's fast paced, WICKED FUN sport!! This photo is of one of our Quebec friends running his cow out the gate. QUICKLY!!