Roping horses= useless.

Tonight's roping practice was, well, disappointing to me. I caught about 3 out of 20 steers that I chased down the pen on Cash. The thing that's so frustrating is that I don't know what I'm doing wrong. If I could figure out what I'm doing wrong, I could fix it.

Then, everyone (in true team roper form) started pitching in with their unsolicited advice. "Get your elbow down." "Put a tie-down on that horse." "Looks like your horse's teeth need floating." And so on. I appreciate all the help I can get. The elbow thing was true- I was doing that wrong, and when I started getting it right, I was catching. The teeth floating thing may be true- I'll have to check on that. The tie down thing just plain annoys me though. A tie down doesn't solve the main issue- a horse that tosses his head UP instead of tucking it DOWN when I pull back on the reins. It's my one complaint about Cash, and the one thing I think could take him from "good" to "great" if he could just learn it.

My roping skills are a struggle mostly because I'm having trouble staying motivated. I started out going to team roping practice just to have a specific, kid-free, riding time on Wednesday nights last year. Then, when I began to ranch rodeo a little more, I realized that to do well at it, I needed to be able to rope. This year, my work schedule has me booked up for every ranch rodeo for the first 5 months of the year. I guess that's good in a way, because it gives me more time to practice. But, it's bad in a way too, because I'm lacking the motivation of actually seeing and doing the ranch rodeos.

On another note..
Josh has been heeling on Tex for the last two weeks because Jethro is lame. This means he's riding in the Jr. Cowhorse bit with a curb chain, neck reining, and roping off him. I just try not to watch. I'm proud that Tex is tracking the cows nicely. But, I'm just not agreeing with the roughness in the hands that Josh is using. It looks to me like horsemanship gets sacrificed when there's a rope involved. Tonight, those suspects were confirmed. At the end of the night, I rode Tex on the heading side for a few runs, and he was antsy in the box! I was shocked! Tex has NEVER been a prancy, jumpy, or rearing horse, and here he was, pawing, getting light on his front end, and acting an idiot- jumping every time a cow moved in the chute and not responding to my cues.

Last week was a round robin competition, so Josh rode Cash and I rode around on Jethro. When I asked him to go to the heel side, or to push cows up, or to sidepass to the left, he threw a major hissyfit. I have no patience for that horse. He's what I categorize as a typical team roping horse. High headed, high strung, and just a butthead. 

I've just about decided that many of the good roping horses out there are about as useless as a barrel racing horse. They're always looking for a tie down, don't know how to do any lead but their left lead, and only want to run one routine in the roping pen and then be done.


So, that's it. No more sacrificing horsemanship for the sake of roping on my little grulla horse. I will rope off him ONLY when he's calm in the box, collected, and happy.