Calf Roping

Today I did the most american thing one can do as a tourist in the US, I went to a rodeo, it was really awesome! They had different things going on, the most prestigous one was the bull riding, but I would like to talk about a different one, which is appearently called calf roping.

This form of sport emerged from the work cowboys do when they need to catch calfs to vaccinate them, at least this is how the speaker explained it.

The clock starts and they let the calf out, it starts running, at the same time the cowboy gets after it on his horse swinging the lasso.

While the lasso is still in the air on the way to the calf the cowboy jumps in full speed off the horse and starts running towards it.

His horse is trained to strain a rope so the calf can't get away. The cowboy arrives by the calf, turns it on its back and binds its feet together, this is when the time stopps.

The cowboy wacks back and up on the horse. If the calf can free itself within a couple of seconds then this is a miss, if not then the fastest cowboy wins.