Overheard: Huh?!

"...and that's why it's funny that Stephan's from the South side and I'm from the North side."

"Oh, yeah, it's like Clint being a Roughie and me being a Loopie."

Uh huh. Yeah. Just like that. Seems there are three people in the world, Roughies, Loopies, and Timies (time-eys). These are different distinctions of Rodeo-folk. It took about half an hour to explain all this to me. Lucky for you, I took notes.

Roughies: riders of 'rough' or untrained stock animals
1. Saddle bronc riders- these are people who get saddles onto wild horses (horses that haven't been ridden or 'broken') and try to get their 8 seconds on them after being released from the gate. You see this is lot in movies.
2. Bareback riders- Same thing, except without the saddles. This is more traditional. Its history is when ranch-people took wild horses, jumped on them, and tried to 'break' them. This still happens on some ranches.
3. Bull Riders- they ride bulls. Bulls are always male (I learned this last spring) and can be very very aggressive. When someone says PBR here, they mean Professional Bull Riders.

Loopies: riders of trained stock, trying to lasso (a word they don't use) something on the ground
1. Breakaway Ropers are always female. Once the rope is around the calf's neck, the roper signals the horse to stop suddenly. The rope is tied to the saddle horn with a string. When the calf hits the end of the rope, the rope is pulled taught and the string breaks. The breaking of the string marks the end of the run (that was all from Wikipedia)
2. Team Ropers- two riders (male or female), one ropes the head of the calf, the other ropes the hind legs. This is a timed event as well.
3. Tie-Down Ropers- (used to be called Calf Roping, but the ASPCA folks got mad) these people ride horses, rope the neck of a calf, jump off their horse, and tie the feet of the calf together. Another timed event.

Timies: Riders of trained stock, racing around.
1. Barrel Racers- on a horse, they ride figure eights around big barrels. This is a timed event, usually run by women. There are many women-barrel racers who have been made into action figures.
2. Steer Doggers- jump off of horses and wrestle calves to the ground. I think these are always men, and sometimes it's also called "Bull Dogging".
3. Pole Bending- is like the skiing event, but on a horse. It's figure eights again, timed, and both men and women compete.
4. Goat Tying- is the same as Tie Down roping, but with girls, and goats. Goats, apparently, are less hostile than baby cows.

There are also a group of rodeo events that are just for fun. Use your imagination, or ask me to describe them. I'm getting tired of looking up rodeo things. They include wild cow milking, wild horse racing, mutton busting, team branding, steer loading, and the hide race. For the hide race, imagine being pulled behind a speed boat on an inner tube, but instead of the boat, it's a horse, instead of water, it's the dirt arena, and instead of the inner tube, you're on a large piece of leather.