By Chance: Day 15

Word Total: 90,094

Year to Date: 990,490

Summary of Events:

Steele did some practise for the roping demonstration he was going to do for the riding school's autumn festival to see if the makeshift setup would work, as well as going to the place where he usually practised to do some practise runs with his competition horse in the evening. The following day, however, his knee started feeling sore and he felt concerned that he'd damaged it, so he got an emergency x-ray done, but there was no new damage, and the doctor suggested he was just diving back into what he usually did a little too quickly. After resting it overnight and for much of the morning, Steele's knee felt fine and he prepared to do the roping demonstration after Alida explained how it worked, including the penalties that were faced in actual competition…

Excerpt of the Day:

“They also only get one chance to catch the calf,” Alida continued. “If their rope misses the calf they get no time and, as a result, no money. Additionally, they have to make sure they don’t incur penalties, of which there are two. The first penalty is if they break the barrier which is stretched across their box in an actual rodeo setting. This barrier is connected to the door of the chute the calf is in, and is released when the calf exits the chute. If the barrier is broken by the roper, he’s gotten an illegal head start and gets a ten-second time penalty. The other penalty comes if his pigging string is unable to hold the calf’s legs together for six seconds, which causes his time to be wiped off the board completely. Because this isn’t a professional setting, we’ll let Steele have more tries if he needs, and we won’t be timing him either. With that, take it away Steele.”

Nodding, Steele rode Farley over to where the calf was standing by its mother and forced it to move away from the pen toward Skelton, who caught the calf around its neck and led it despite bawling protests to stand alongside the makeshift box into which Steele rode Farley as he set his pigging string in his mouth.

Farley backed neatly into the corner, shifting his weight slightly, but otherwise standing calmly. The calf bawled and fought against Skelton’s strong hold. Its mother lowed back, which sounded very loud despite the size of the arena.

Steele made eye contact with Skelton and nodded. 

The calf shot forward and Steele cued Farley after it.

His rope sailed over the calf’s head and caused it to be flipped to the ground when Farley stopped, causing the rope to go tight.

By the time Steele reached the calf it’d clambered to its hooves again, but Steele threw it down and tied its legs before throwing his hands up.

The crowd cheered as the calf bawled and struggled while Steele got to his feet, lowering his hands and walking back over to Farley, who was keeping the tension in the line with occasional, subtle shifts of his hooves.

Steele climbed back into the saddle and cued Farley to step forward, releasing tension in the rope as Shea untied the calf’s legs before flipping the rope off the calf’s head, allowing it to surge up and run over to its mother, who nosed it through the rails while Steele coiled up his rope and accepted his pigging string back from Shea.

“That was a perfect run,” Alida said. “At least so far as we could tell.”

Steele nodded as the crowd cheered.

Next Post: 30 November