I don’t get to nearly enough rodeos any more. I loved them even back when I was just a spectator, and while I’ve never been a contestant except in the fun family games like ribbon-roping, I loved them even more from behind the chutes. I spent quite a few years being the support staff for several cowboys, as I’ve documented here previously, and boy, do I miss that part. Sitting in the stands is fun enough, but climbing up on the fences or the rough-stock chutes to watch people you know and love work their hearts out is really where it’s at.

So yesterday was the local County Fair Rodeo, and I really like that one. It’s extremely small, even though it is on the State circuit at least, and there’s no problem with me driving right in, climbing up on the chutes, and taking pictures from a fantastic vantage point. Cowboy knew I was coming, told me when the slack started and when each of them were roping, and I met my buddy Dennis there too.

The calf roping is one of my favorite parts. The boy, man now, who I considered my step-son is a big calf roper. He’s roping on the PRCA circuit now, although he still does it at the State level, so he hits these little rodeos too. He was also in the big PRCA rodeo over on the coast this week, but drove back here to catch this one in the morning. Team roping’s fun too, and I’ve certainly been to more of these, but calf roping is kind of special to me.

I’ve photographed the hell out of the team roping, but not so much of the calf roping. Chris was doing it before I left, obviously, but he didn’t become a pro until after. It’s a little more fun and easier to photograph, since a lot of the action takes place in one spot. I thought I might show y’all how it’s done.

 

 

First, the cowboy and his horse back into the box. There’s a rope tied across the front to give the calf a head start. If the horse breaks the plane of that rope, which is on a quick-release attached to the calf, before the calf trips it, a ten-second time penalty is added to the score, which is almost always deadly. So they have to teach their horses to be very good about not busting out of there until they say, which is trickier than it sounds, as the horses get really excited about the sport too. That’s his string he’s got in his mouth, where he can get at it easily, and he comes out of the box at a gallop and already swinging. It’s all about the time, you know.

 

 

One or two swings is ideal; any more than that and they’ve chased the calf so far down the arena that they’re probably not going to get a great time no matter how fast they are on the ground.

 

 

As soon as he’s roped the calf around the neck, he’s got the horse stopped and is jumping off. He grabs the slack rope, pulls the calf around to face him without knocking it to the ground, and uses that momentum to help him get down there as quickly as possible.

 

 

And the ground part starts. That red rope paying out from his belt is attached to a pully on his saddle and back up to the horse’s bit to encourage him to stay stopped and to back up and keep that rope tight on the calf so he doens’t have to go chasing all over for it. The very well-trained horses don’t need that extra rope, but this was a new gelding, and his first time in a rodeo. He did just fine.

 

 

Down to the calf, as quickly as I can trip the camera shutter. He grabs the rope at the neck to control the animal, and grabs the calf’s flank. If he’d knocked the calf down either roping it or taking up his slack, he’d have to get it back up to its feet before he flanked it, which also adds time.

 

 

He picks the calf up by the neck and the flank, and flips it down to the ground on its side. This looks like a moderately big one.

 

 

He takes the string out of his mouth and sticks the loop on the calf’s top front foot, and uses his right leg to help scoop up the hind legs.

 

 

Now he crosses the hind legs with the front one, and takes either one or two wraps around all three to tie them together. One wrap is risky, because the calf can sometimes kick out of it, but if they’re really feeling the pressure of someone behind them, sometimes they’ll take that risk.

 

 

Now he flips a half-hitch, or a “hooey” over one of the legs to hold it, pulls it tight, and in the same motion gets up and cuts his arms across to signal that he’s done, stopping the clock.

 

 

But he’s not entirely done yet. The whole time he’s been on the ground, the horse has been working too, keeping tension on the rope so the calf doesn’t struggle.

 

 

He has to go back to his horse, mount up, and ride forward to release the tension. The calf has to stay tied for six seconds before his run is called good and his time accepted. That’s why “one wrap and a hooey” is risky - what’s the point of a second off of your time if the whole thing’s going to be invalidated? They do watch previous runs on the calves, if they can, to see which ones are likely to fight the tie.

 

 

And it was a good time; now to wait and see if anyone beats him. And in this rodeo, five of them did, leaving him in last-place money at sixth. Which is better than no money.

I’d forgotten how much I enjoy this sport, and now that I’m clearly on good terms with his father, I may take up photographing it again some more. My photos are still all over that house, and it’s such a fun subject. Totally worth the sunburn and I get to be around a whole bunch of people that I really like. Oh, and I’m sponsoring him professionally as soon as the money starts coming in from the business. He said he’d put my logo on his trailer, and I figure I’ll have a couple of shirts made for him, and he can be my advertising budget. How cool is that, to have enough money for once to give it to my own personal causes?