Rating and Fence Work

I recently had the privilege of judging the NRCHA Derby with Bobby Ingersoll. What an honor and an educational experience it was for me. I believe the sign of a true master is one who knows their subject so thoroughly that they can reduce an incredibly complex subject and convey it in utter simplicity. Bobby does that with his keen insight and ability to observe. As we discussed the fence work one day, Bobby said, “It’s all about rate-stop-turn”. This inspired me to try to break that down since the more I’ve come to understand these components (in particular the “rate”), the more meaningful they have become ….. 

Rate is a very important component of all cattle events including steer stopping, cutting and going down the fence. My understanding of rate is when a horse quickly gets into the position of control on a cow and maintains it by getting in sync with the animal, matching its speed, thus, allowing the rider to choose the moment to throw their rope or slightly increase speed in order to turn it. Training a horse to rate for your event allows the rider to execute the required maneuver with a much higher degree of precision. 

Let’s look more closely at rate-stop-turn that Bobby spoke about on the fence: 

Rate- determines the amount of control you have or don’t have throughout the whole run and the accuracy of your turns. From start to finish, rate is very important for the fence work. When you’re boxing and establishing a rhythm with the cow, you have to rate it, stop with it and turn with it. There is a little more margin for error while boxing to be slightly out of sync. The first crucial part is rating the cow is driving through the corner. If your horse won’t allow you to place him exactly where you need to be and at exactly the speed you need to be to drive the cow through the corner and exit well, your rate down the fence will suffer. The run down the fence is where it’s easiest to see good rate. The horse should leave the box in good position with very little separation (between the horse and the cow) and maintain it until the rider nudges him by the cow allowing the horse to nail the turn.

Stop- when a horse stops on its hindquarters it allows the horse to have a strong base of support to hold the turn and exit powerfully.

Turn- when all 3 parts of the turn (the entrance, the turn itself and the exit) are executed with good form, in sync with, and virtually no separation between the horse and the cow, complete control of the cow is achieved, and credit is earned.

Rating on the circles is very important as the horse has to get right up eyeball to eyeball with the cow and maintain that position without overshooting or being behind. It requires a lot of time to teach a horse how to read the cow in the circles, but pays off big time!

Riders who consistently have great runs on many different kinds of cattle are masters of this little discussed component of training.

Below, is a video of a fence run I had with Stressolena many moons ago that shows pretty good rate throughout.

Please share any of your pearls of wisdom below!

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