Use a Roping Dummy

Video Transcript

"This is Randall Powell with Expert Village and in this clip I am going to tell you the importance of dummy roping while becoming a team roper. Whenever you are starting to rope, you need to get a dummy to practice on. If you are a header, they will sell a plastic head at any local feed store or Tractor Supply. You can go and buy a bale of hay and that plastic head and its got prongs to stick into the hay. So you mount your plastic head on your bale of hay and you can practice roping all day long right there on that dummy and that is the best practice in the world. They can say if you can rope the dummy a 100 times in the row without missing, then you are ready to get on a horse. Practice makes perfect on that deal and also they have heeling dummies. You can use a sawhorse and just work on getting your trap under there and make the bottom strand be on the ground firm and the top strand be laying high. You want the back strand of the rope to lay across right above the back knees of the steer so you can just get the sawhorse and practice that. They also sell robot steers and all kinds of electric steers. You can drive behind 4 wheelers and they have robotic steers that you work with remote control that will kick their back feet and run down the pen just like a normal steer would. Just depending on how much money you want to spend is how good a dummy you are going to get to practice on. The cheaper dummies work just as well usually. It's just that the electric dummies and robot dummies help your horse as well. Dummy roping is definitely the most important part of team roping. So maybe those tips will help you get started. "