By: Harolyn Deason

I’d competed in Team Roping, ridden in “The Sweet Assortment” equestrian drill team, done some gymkhana as a child and even run barrels. Dad raised Thoroughbred racehorses, but at 5’10” I was too tall to be a jockey and one of the few times I rode English the horse slipped and fell on me.

A friend mentioned that Team Penning was just getting organized in our town. I hadn’t heard of it but it sounded like fun. It was the job of a 3-person team to enter a herd of 30 numbered cattle, bring 3 to the other end of the arena and put them in a catch pen. This all needed to happen in about 40 seconds to be competitive and you couldn’t have more than 4 cows cross a foul line. It was fast paced, competitive, and there was a team of three (I am very social), so I accepted the challenge. I would need an athletic horse and probably some lessons to learn to “read” cattle.
[private]I signed up with a great trainer who had begun Team Penning herself and trained cutting horses.

It was Shocking to me that after riding 35 years I was still not a horseman! Oh, I had great balance, and I could sit a horse, but I’d learned the “cowboy way” having narrowly escaped serious injury many times with our racehorses. (When we were kids, Dad also had a bad habit of buying horses at the Friday night sale. He’d run an ad over the weekend and we’d have to ride the broncs for prospective buyers!)

I helped start our Team Penning Association and worked with my trainer on teaching my horse, “Annie” an appendix Quarter Horse, who at 6 was not trained and was very high strung. “Giving to the bit” and “bending” were unknowns to her. My trainer is as competitive and goal oriented as I am. Annie and I were catching on and within a year I was winning locally and decided it was time to travel to out of town events. Looking back I may have been pretty impressed with my self; after all I’d already won a buckle, ridden in the Silver Spur Rodeo and had a few teams.

I had a portable stall that hung on the side of my horse trailer. Annie and I would camp at the arenas for the two-day events. We were good friends; I’d sit by her stall and talk to her. At night if she became agitated I would talk to her through the window and she’d settle right down. I was her “herd” and she followed me everywhere and we could talk about anything.

My horse had become very “cowy”, that is she could read a cow. Because of her cow horse bloodlines she was a lot smarter than me. One of our first out of town competitions was held at a large Equestrian Center. The solid walled arena was surrounded by acres of horse corrals. The cattle were kept at one end of the arena under a huge timing clock. Banners blew and the sound system blared. During warm-ups Annie was high and startled at every moving object. That is until they put the cattle in the arena, and then she was oblivious to anything but the bovines standing at the back fence.

The competition began and our team was called; we entered the arena ready to win. My horse, Annie stood intently at the starting line, seeing nothing but the cattle bunched at the other end of the arena. “Timers ready, flaggers ready, your number is 7, 7, 7” the announcer called. That meant go and we did! On our team we had someone designated to be the “point person”, it was his job to enter the herd first and bring out a cow. The “holder” kept the cattle from scattering and I was the second person to enter the herd. It all happened so fast.

We got all 3 cows out and were heading to the pen in less than 25 seconds. All that was left was to get them in the pen. Unfortunately one cow escaped at a dead run back towards the herd. Since I had the fastest horse I took off down the fence after the cow. Something must have caught my eye and I looked away. All I remember is Annie decided she was far enough past the cow to turn him around. She spun around; stepped into the cow’s path and I guess the centrifugal force whipped me off. I was right up against the fence.

I remember opening my eyes seeing my horse’s front hooves in the air above my head. Friends say she was rearing backwards to avoid stomping me. It was evidently a miracle that she had been able to avoid crushing me the way I had flown in front of her. She whinnied as if to say “are you all right mom”? And then waited for me to remount so we could finish our run. We got a time on our run! We didn’t win the penning.

I will never cease to be amazed at the bond Annie and I had developed. She loves to run and she loves to work cattle, but when it came down to it, she loves me best![/private]