What are the challenges of Team Penning?
Simple – beating the time and having fun. In the beginning most teams were penning in under a minute and that was considered very competitive. At the 2004 NSW Team Penning Championships, first, second and third place getters were posting times between 33 and 34 seconds. The competitive end of this sport the hundredths of a second count, but no matter what level you wish to participate at, it’s a whole lot of fun and just one more way you can enjoy your horse. How can you get disqualified? Any unnecessary roughness towards cattle or horses will lead to disqualification as will contact with the cattle by the rider or any of their equipment. There are other ways but some of the main ones are a team calling for a time with any wrong numbers in the pen, too many cattle on the pen side of the time or foul line or if the riders delay the start of their run 30 seconds after the first call of the announcer. A full list of the rules can be found in AQHA’s Handbook on page 41 of the blue section.
