A team penning competitor from Unity has made her mark at the Calgary Stampede by placing in the Top 10 twice at this year's competition.
"Team penning is my passion and it's like an addiction," says Bev Jones, broker/owner of Realty Executives Unity.
"I placed sixth in the 10 Class with Blaine Lake's Morris Hubbard and Spiritwood's Charles Schira. I also placed fourth in the 7 Class with Richard Robitaille from Fort Saskatchewan and Joan DeRudder from Stoney Plain," Jones explains.
Jones says she has been competing since 2008 and when her teammates suggested entering the Stampede, "I figured why not!"
Jones has been competing with her new horse, Ace, the past two years and says she is happy with how he has improved and grown to love the sport.
The sport runs year round can be tiring for both horse and rider. Practice with any of her teams is difficult due to distances and other commitments, but the stars aligned right for these two teams this year and their names will now be in the Calgary Stampede record books, along all Top 10 finishers.
Jones travels in Saskatchewan and Alberta with Ace and her horse trailer complete with front living quarters. She says team penning can be an expensive hobby much like other rodeo sports, but it is something she absolutely loves to do. And this year the winnings have outweighed the expenses."
"It's the excitement, the adrenalin rush. Team penning is a fast-paced sport. You're moving, you're thinking on the go and you're dealing with cattle that have a mind of their own and that can be very unpredictable," she says.
"It's a timed event, not judged, so you have to make up for your mistakes and fix them, within the sixty-second time limit, or you get a 'no-time' hung on you."
The Stampede's Team Cattle Penning Competition is one of the sport's annual marquee events. This year's edition, during the Stampede's centennial celebrations, attracted 777 teams from across the continent, with an estimated total prize purse of $400,000 and a dozen Centennial trophy saddles up for grabs.
Team cattle penning, a race against the clock, gives a team of three riders on horseback 60 seconds to separate three specifically identified cattle from a herd of 30 and direct them into a 16- by 24-foot pen at the opposite end of the arena. Teamwork is key, with all three riders working in harmony to cut out the correct cattle and drive them to the pen. Teams of riders enter the Stampede's four classes based on relative skill and experience - in ascending order from 7 Class to 10 Class to 14 Class to the professionals of the Open Class.
