Everything Horses and Livestock® Magazine February 2018 Vol 3 Issue 1

Everything Horses and Livestock Magazine ®

the situation requires. I do the same thing when I use my Hot Heels, mix it up to the point that the horse must respond to my commands because he can’t anticipate too much. One of my favorite drills is the “countdown drill” on the heel side. This drill helps with position and timing. I make a series of 6 runs in a row. The first run I must rope the machine on the 5th hop after the corner and only the 5th hop. The next run is the 4th hop, 3rd hop, you get the point. Ending the series on a crossfire. This drill requires my horse to maintain position and forces me to be in time with the machine jump for jump. I must count my hops to play the game correctly. Stepping up your game means stepping up your practice habits. Hope to see you all at a clinic, jackpot, or rodeo sometime this year! Thanks as always for taking the time to listen to me ramble. God Bless and remember, PRACTICE

situation. For example, can I take as many, or few swings as I want and throw the same loop every time? Or am I a two swings and out type of roper. Although the two swings and out is going to be fast, most of these ropers can’t catch enough steers in a row to make it through a 4-head average. Remember, I must catch all four steers if I want to place. So, evaluate your ground practice, can you successfully navigate different scenarios with success? If not, time to change it and work on our weak spots. Going hand in hand with groundwork comes basic horsemanship. I see this time and time again across the country. People don’t have enough control over their horses to get position and maintain that position. It starts with the basics, will my horse stop when I pull on the reins? Will he move forward when I squeeze? Will he move instantly off my legs on either side when I apply pressure? Will he move only his front or hind when asked? These are things your horse should do before you get out of a walk. I can promise you if your horse won’t do these things at a walk, they definitely won’t at a dead run chasing a

steer. Moving on with this, will my horse kick into the left lead from a standstill? Will he flex at the poll? Can I hold his shoulder up in the corner, or does he take it from me and cause a bad handle or bad position? Will my horse obey me enough to let me rope as I get position on one run and then on the next let me track as far as I need? These questions are all part of evaluating ourselves and being honest about what we need to work on. There are no shortcuts or band aids for these questions that yield consistency. We must have control and discipline with our rope and horsemanship to “own the arena”. I will end this article by describing a typical practice session with one or all my partners. Everyone is under the impression that we only practice going fast because that’s how we must rope. We do practice fast on some runs, but we also work on “owning the arena”. Usually a session starts out going full contact and making some aggressive runs. Somewhere in the middle of those runs, however, we randomly pick a steer and see if we can go make a 10 second run. This ensures that our horses are ready for whatever

HARDER! God bless, Chad Mathes

Call to Schedule: 816-820-0560 Email: mathes58@icloud.com www.ChadMathesRoping.com

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13 Everything Horses and Livestock® | February 2018 | EHALmagazine.com