The Californio's ~ Part 2

Here they come!

                                          Old Glory.

       Respect while the National Anthem is sung.

 Here is an example of some of the roping. My photography skills are still obviously lacking, and for some reason I couldn't get the focus right in most of my pictures. But you can get the idea. This yearling was headed, and has been caught by one back foot - and this buckaroo is catching the front feet.

     Got him down and set the ropes. All done in a relatively slow and smooth manner. I was surprised how much I enjoyed watching these events. I was fully prepared to get bored out of my head. I took books, my Ipod, and writing notebooks. But I ended up sitting  in the stands with My Cowboy most of the time. Except a few times that this pregnant lady had to go eat.
     It was like beautiful music. The cowboys worked the cattle smoothly, quietly, and with experience. Sure, they made mistakes, but they were good. The background music was soothing, traditional, cowboy songs - not thundering country music.

 The judges: From left to right - (I can't remember the first judges name), Martin Black, and Dave Weaver. It was kind of neat to see such good hands in person. We had only seen them on instructional DVD's, so far.

 The arena. They only used about 1/4 of the arena for the actual competition, andother 1/4 for warm-up space, and the rest was curtained off.  Huge place! The spectators you see here comprised about 3/4 of the total crowd. It was nice that there weren't too many people. My Cowboy is in this photo - can you spot him? :)