Cade Rice has a world-championship training operation that thrives on quality and efficiency. One of his secrets? Taking his head ropes off in the arena. 

Cattle Mix 

I’ve got a bunch of lopers in my practice herd, and I run them a lot. And all of those steers allow us to take the rope off in the arena, all day long. Here’s what that does. 

Horse Performance

When you’ve got steers that let you take the rope off in the arena and know that’s coming, most of the time, they follow. A steer that follows allows you to track, track, track and to really let your horses hit the ground with the cows. I can rope them, and my horses get on their butts. I think there’s a lot to that, and it’s something I learned from working with Clay Logan forever. At Clay’s, we never went to the stripping chute and we never had a steer that dragged. 

How to Train Your Cattle

When we get fresh steers, we process them, give them a week or two off, then we start by putting the rope around their necks. We push them around, turn them, and set them down. When we do that, we take the rope off. As soon as we start roping them, the header will just get them on a short-enough rope that he can pop his dally off and teach the steer to let you take that head rope off right there. After four or five runs, they’ve got it. They’re ready to have their rope taken off and head to the watering hole. TRJ