March 2010 Issue

Being Ready to Rope

Last month we talked about riding across the line. The next step in the process is having your rope ready when you get there. Not being ready to rope is one of the biggest obstacles that hinder ropers. Many people don’t swing their rope right away or they are swinging at the wrong angle when they reach the steer. By the time this is corrected they are half or three-quarters of the way down the arena.

This is the biggest thing that separates low number from high number headers. Low number headers tend to track their steer while high number headers are ready to rope as soon as they get in position. There are a number of drills you can do on the ground and on your horse to help you rope faster.

Ground drills on the dummy will ultimately improve your roping horseback. One thing you can do is walk or trot on foot towards the heading dummy and throw when you get in position.  Do the same basic drill on your horse roping the mechanical dummy. Throw as soon as you are in position. This is hard for many people because they try so hard to catch and I promise you will miss quite a bit in the beginning. My philosophy is if you never miss or fail in the practice pen, then you’re not challenging yourself enough.

Another good ground drill is to move around and throw and catch from different positions. People repeatedly tend to rope the dummy from where they can catch and seldom challenge themselves. It’s just like playing “Around the World” in basketball. You need to be able to throw and catch from any possible position on your horse.

What’s new with me – My website is growing with new videos being added every week at speedwilliamsteamroping.com. Paying members can now see video from my runs at the San Angelo rodeo and the Wildfire Open roping. I’ve also loaded videos from my practices and exercises I’m doing with my new horse. We’ve added a feature I’m pretty excited about. If you have a horse for sale that you think I would be interested in you can upload video for me to look at. The access code is compaccess. Very soon we will have a classified ad section where you can pay to post video of horses you have for sale.

www.fastbackropes.com