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As with saddle bronc riding and team roping, the roots of tie-down roping can be traced back to the working ranches of the Old West. When calves were sick or injured, cowboys had to rope and immobilize them quickly for veterinary treatment.
Ranch hands prided themselves on the speed with which they could rope and tie calves, and they soon turned their work into informal contest.
As the event matured, being a good horseman and a fast sprinter became as important to the competitive tie-down roper as being quick and accurate with a rope. Today, the mounted cowboy starts from a box, a three sided fenced area adjacent to the chute holding the calf. The fourth side of the box opens into the arena.
The calf receives a head start that is determined by the length of the arena. One end of a breakaway rope barrier is looped around the calfs neck and stretched across the open end of the box. When the calf reaches its advantage point, the barrier is released. If the roper breaks the barrier before the calf reaches its head start, the cowboy is assessed a 10-second penalty.
The horse is trained to come to a stop as soon as the cowboy throws his loop and catches the calf. The cowboy then dismounts, sprints to the calf and throws it by hand, a maneuver called flanking. If the calf is not standing when the cowboy reaches it, he must allow the calf to get back on its feet before flanking it. After the calf is flanked, the roper ties any three legs together with a pigging string - a short, looped rope he clenches in his teeth during the run.
When the roper finishes tying the calf, he throws his hands in the air as a sign that the run is complete. The roper then remounts his horse, rides forward to create slack in the rope and waits six seconds to see if the calf remains tied. If the calf kicks free, the roper receives no time.
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The only true team event in ProRodeo, requires close cooperation and timing between two highly skilled ropers - a header and a heeler - and their horse. The event originated on ranches when cowboys needed to treat or brand large steers and the task proved too difficult for one man.
The key to success? Hard work and endless practice. Team roping partners must perfect their timing, both as a team and with their respective horses.
Similar to tie-down ropers and steer wrestlers, team ropers start from the boxes on each side of the chute from which the steer enters the arena. The steer gets a head start determined by the length of the arena.
One end of the breakaway barrier is attached to the steer and stretched across the open end of the headers box. When the steer reaches his advantage point, the barrier is released, and the header takes off in pursuit, with the heeler trailing slightly further behind. The ropers are assessed a 10-second penalty if the header breaks the barrier before the steer completes his head start. Some rodeos use heeler barriers too.
The header ropes first and must make one of three legal catches on the steer - around both horns, around one horn and the head or around the neck. Any other catch by the header is considered illegal and the team is disqualified. After the header makes his catch, he turns the steer to the left and exposes the steers hind legs to the heeler. The heeler then attemps to rope both hind legs. If he catches only one foot, the team is assessed a five-second penalty. After the cowboys catch the steer, the clock is stopped when there is no slack in their ropes and their horses face one another.
Another important aspect to the event is the type of horses used by the ropers. The American quarter horse is the most popular among all timed-event competitors, particularly team ropers
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Breakaway roping is a variation of calf roping where a calf is roped, but not thrown and tied. It is a rodeo event that features a calf and one mounted rider. The calves are moved one at a time through narrow runs leading to a chute with spring-loaded doors. The horse and rider wait in a box next to the chute that has a spring-loaded rope, known as the barrier, stretched in front. A light rope is fastened from the chute to the calf's neck, releasing once the calf is well away
from the chute and releasing the barrier, which is used to ensure that the calf gets a head start. Once the barrier has released, the horse runs out of the box while the roper attempts to throw a lasso around the neck of the calf.
Once the rope is around the calf's neck, the roper signals the horse to stop suddenly. The rope is tied to the saddle horn with a string. When the calf hits the end of the rope, the rope is pulled tight and the string breaks. The breaking of the string marks the end of the run. The rope usually has a small white flag at the end that makes the moment the rope breaks more easily seen by the timer. The fastest run wins.
Breakaway roping is usually seen in junior, high school, college, semi-professional, and professional rodeos. At the collegiate, semi-professional, and professional level, it is exclusively a women's event, but at lower levels competitors can be both male and female. Some amateur rodeos also have breakaway roping as part of their event line-up. It is also used as a substitute for calf roping in some parts of Europe, where traditional calf roping, also called tie-down roping, is banned.
In 2019, the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) started including Women’s Professional Rodeo Association (WPRA) sanctioned breakaway roping at some of their events, making it along with the standard WPRA barrel racing the two rodeo events for women. Since 2020, the year-end National Finals Breakaway Roping (NFBR) has been held to determine the WPRA world champion breakaway roper. This event is held in conjunction with the PRCA’s National Finals Rodeo (NFR).