redroanchronicles

Awhile back, I went to the local fairgrounds to watch a couple of my coworkers tackle a bit of team sorting. The locals get together every week or so when the weather is good to get some practice putting their horses onto cattle and honing their own cattle-sorting (and counting!) skills.

Anyway, in team sorting you basically have a group of cattle in a pen, and you have to sort them out one at a time, by number, while not letting the rest of the cattle escape. The riders enter in teams of three, so one horse and rider guard the gate, one goes in and cuts the steer out, and the last one helps to isolate the steer* they want and turn back the ones they don't. In this particular practice, the teams seemed to choose on their own what steer to start with, and then I think they continued (or meant to, anyway) in numerical order from there, trying to cut a total of five steers out without errors.

The horses can get pretty intense when they're moving cattle... you'll see a lot of pinned ears, but it's usually more about trying to intimidate the steers than reaction to anything the rider's doing.

It was great fun to watch (I've seen team penning before, but never team sorting) and getting involved is definitely a goal for when I'm able to ride Juno. I'm sure she'd take to those cattle like it's nothing... she seems to think that cattle are really just very homely horses, and definitely beneath her in the social order. When I've had her pastured with cattle before, she's had a grand time bossing them around.

My coworkers, Tammy and Laura, are both Parelli students in addition to being employees, and it was great to see them out there working competitively (and doing quite well!) with their horses only in rope hackamores. The event's organizers recommended that people ride without any sort of tie-down, because it's easy for a steer's horn to hook through a tie-down and cause a major wreck, so there were a few horses there who, without their customary tie-downs, were a little... excitable. I always love to see people, Parelli students or not, who've invested in training their horses well enough that they can safely and easily ride in that kind of environment without all sorts of big bits and tie-downs to keep their horses under control.

Tammy pushes their chosen steer toward the gate, while Laura moves aside to lt it pass.

Tammy riding into the herd

Working cattle can really bring out the confident and dominant side of even more timid horses. Laura's horse is already plenty confident, and does not want to let those steers by!

A job well done :)

I love getting out to gatherings like these because you'll often see a nice slice of the local horse community. Some people show up just to get their horses used to the experience, and it's a fantastic low-pressure environment for that sort of thing (though sometimes the horses aren't as keen!). Some folks show up dressed the nines like they're ready for a western pleasure class, some turn up in t-shirts, some have obviously been working cattle all their lives and some just have really big hats. Really, really big hats.

*Those of you who are not country folk may be interested to know that a steer is a castrated male... if you call them all "cows," people will laugh at you. Not with you.

For more images from team sorting at Red Ryder fairgrounds, check out the full gallery.