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Rating is probably the least understood and undervalued part of run content in a fence work, yet besides position and control, could be the most important. Rating is a skill that both horse and the rider can and must develop. It is crucial in steer stopping, cutting,...

Many times when turning a cow on the fence, it manages to come off the fence. There are a few reasons why this happens. One would be the cow jumping over the horses rear end (see the picture). There’s no way, that this wouldn’t require a loop. There’s no penalty for...

By popular demand, I’ve burrowed down into the archives to get you 2 really good runs to clear up any confusion about that darned “circling turn”. The first video shows a very difficult cow. It’s numb and pushy and doesn’t want to be on the fence. Matt open field...

Finally, there’s clarity on the circling turn! The NRCHA 2020 rulebook now has a 2- point penalty for a horse that “fails to change sides after a circling turn, prior to the first circle” What is a circling turn? When the horse is in the open field (20’ off the wall)...

The quicker you get your job done with the cow in the fence work, the better chance you have of a big score. That said, many scores have gone way down, because the rider decided to go with 2 turns on the fence instead of 3. Dun It With Chics- One of my all time...

In my last fencework article, I went over boxing, rate and form and quality of your turns. In this article, I’ll continue with the run content boxes of position and control, degree of difficulty and eye appeal.Position and Control I think most judges would agree that...

Let’s go over ways that the score for a fence run can go up (or down) from a 70 by getting credit in the run content boxes. In this article I'll go over boxing, rating and quality of the turns.Boxing - your score can go up if you step right up and challenge your cow,...

I really don’t like to dwell on the negative aspects of a run, that’s why I started the previous segment on boxing with the ways to improve your score. However, the score card has many more ways to lose points than to gain them, so let’s spend some time on things we...

There are only 5 credit boxes for the Limited Cow class. They are all connected to each other. By that, I mean, that if you are crediting one box, you’re probably gaining credit in at least one other box. And likewise, if you are losing credit in 1, you’re probably in...

In previous articles, I shared boxing tips, leaving the corner well, rating and turning on the fence. All that’s left now is to “circle up”. There are some strategies for circling like all the other phases of the fence work. Let’s say you’re going down the left wall,...