September 2009 Issue
 I’m going to start this article by re-emphasizing something I said last month: Remember, most of the problems we have with our horses are things we, or previous owners, have taught them in the practice pen.
This month I want to address the importance of rating and how to get your horse to do that. Often times the more a horse can run, the less “cow” they have in them, or the less they rate. The best way to get a horse to rate is to teach him to watch the steer.
Bring your horse out of the box at a walk and have someone pull a roping machine and make it move left, move right and slow up. Doing this at a slow speed will help your horse watch for what’s going to happen. As he gets better at it, speed up to a trot, then to a lope and eventually wide open where he will run up to a steer and just melt (slow down and stop smoothly) when he gets there.
I’ve had horses that could run fast but couldn’t run and then melt. That’s what made my good horse, Bob, so great. Teaching a head horse to rate reduces problems like split horns. Split horns are often caused when the roper is either speeding up or slowing down (because their horse isn’t rating), which is changing the plane of their loop. A horse that rates makes heading much easier. Next month we’ll talk about scoring.
What’s new with me: I’m constantly amazed at how exciting and challenging it is to be on the ground floor of a start-up business. I have been traveling to some of our match ropings and it’s good to get out in the roping pen and listen to what ropers have to say.
One of the things I’m most excited about is our new training program. Anyone interested in producing a Speed’s Match Roping can visit our website, watch the training video, take the test online and be qualified to produce a roping anywhere. This is much better than when secretaries and producers traveled to Scottsdale for training. Be sure and check out our new website at www.matchroping.com.
www.fastbackropes.com
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