Breaking it Down by Speed Williams – October 2024
Between the headers that come for lessons, and Gabe working on his heading, we have a lot of conversations about the many parts that make up a successful run. One of the trickiest is facing. Facing is a major factor in narrow arenas where the header comes to the left wall quickly. In big, open arenas it’s not as big of a problem. When done correctly, facing can shave seconds off your run.
To understand facing and teach the horse the correct way, we start by doing it at a walk. Walk your horse across the arena dragging your rope while using your left hand and right leg to keep the same angle you’re going across the arena. Face your horse at the same speed without slowing or speeding up. As long as you keep momentum going across the arena, you can get away with facing multiple ways.
Once you accomplish that, speed up and do the same exercise at a trot. The important thing is continuing the angle and not let your horse lead to the right, or stop and back up when you face. When the steer’s head loses momentum and he drifts right, he can take his head down and his butt comes up. Those mistakes can cause heelers to lose legs, and sometimes both legs.
When you have a left wall, in a narrow arena, it becomes even more important to keep the momentum moving forward because it’s easy for head horses to stop pulling on a left wall. That was one of the things that made Viper special at the NFR. He was 15H, thick and very strong. He could come back up the wall and face while still keeping the cow moving forward, giving us a fast flag. It’s crucial to be faced and looking at your heeler when the rope comes tight. Done correctly, facing is done in a fluid motion while still moving the steer forward.
Many head horses struggle to face correctly due to rider error. If the rider does not put his feet and hands in the right place, the horse gets hit with the weight of the steer at a bad angle. That’s when they stop pulling from anticipation. This mistake can make the heeler look bad if he loses the steer, when in reality it comes from the head horse not pulling. Facing correctly makes a huge difference in how fast the clock stops, and helps your heeler keep two feet.
Gabriel is starting to see progress in his heading and understand the importance of studying technique. We flew up to watch Hali rope at Puyallup, Washington, and he filmed all the team ropers. We watched the video and discussed theories about how different people rope. My answer to him is he has to be able to duplicate all the styles and figure out which one he likes the best.
Since my kids were small, I’ve taught them to balance in the stirrups when riding across the line and not sit in the saddle. Normally Hali rides the stirrups very well, but her leg injury has caused her to create a habit of sitting on her butt coming across the line without weight in her right stirrup and her knee bent. This came from trying to protect her right foot because it hurts when she pushes. Sitting in the saddle takes away her balance, speed, and accuracy. If the calf ducks left or right, she gets off balance. We knew our first calf moved hard to the right after 20’. When she came across the line, she was not ready to throw because she didn’t have weight in her stirrup. This is not a good time to be on Redlight because he will duck with the calf. After the run Hali said, “Dad it felt like I was going to fall off, I had no balance.”
We have some reprogramming to do on riding across the line. Her foot is doing better but still hurts at times. She was told it would take eight months to two years to heal and if it isn’t well after that, she will require surgery. We met a chiropractor at Puyallup who worked on Hali and me. She told Hali her right leg is not firing and not engaging when she pushes. It has been a tough year for Hali, both mentally and physically, trying to compete in such a fast event without having balance.
Currently she’s 10th in the Breakaway Standings and has a chance to make the NFR. Hopefully we can get qualified for the Kimes Ranch Million Dollar Breakaway held in Scottsdale, AZ, November 27th-30th. They take the top 10 breakaway ropers in the world standings plus 15 qualifiers. The payout is unprecedented for breakaway ropers. $82,500 Total Paid per Go Round x 10 = $825,000 and $175,000 Total Paid in the Average with an Overall Payout of $1 MILLION. I’m certainly looking forward to the next three to five years and what is in store for Breakaway ropers. The possibilities are very exciting for these young ladies.
What’s new with me: We’re pretty excited about the new room we’ve built at our indoor arena. It’s a 40’ x 60’ entertainment room with a bathroom, shower, and kitchen. It’s where we watch and breakdown videos with room to rope the Speed Trainer. Plus, my clients will get to eat some of my mom’s good home cooking.
