The Working Cowboys And Lassos Compete

Photos by Robert Thomas

Over the weekend the Canadian Ranch Roping Championships were held at the Golden Mile Arena.

Ranch roping is a low key intensity sport where a specified animal is isolated from the herd and roped.

Points are awarded for not only successfully roping the specified animal but also the degree of difficulty the actual lasso entails.

The animal has to be roped with the least disturbance and the event mimics farmers and ranchers roping an animal from a herd for such things as treating them medically.

Here are some photos from Sunday’s action.

An animal is separated and the lasso is being swung to rope it.

A perfect lasso is thrown

One of the competitors looks on at the event

An animal is roped around the horns and the protective headgear all animals wear helps to protect it from injury

The herd

Lining up a lasso attempt

A lasso dropped to the arena floor as the cow won this round

Carefully holding the animal down as would happen if it was being treated out in the pasture