- Legal Catches There will be only three legal heading catches:
- Head or both horns
- Half a head
- Around the neck
- Any heel catch behind both shoulders is legal if the rope goes up heels. One hind foot receives 5-second fine.
- Illegal Catches
- Any figure eight, head catch, or front leg in the catch.
- Hondo passing over one horn and the loop over the other horn.
- Loop crossing itself in a head catch. This does not include heel catches.
- Roper or ropers must complete legal catch within 60 seconds to receive points either for time or score.
- All 4-H ropers must have passed Nebraska 4-H Horsemanship Level 3 to enter or assist a partner at the 4-H Rodeo. A roper's points are determined only in their entered event.
Scoring
Heading and heeling horses are scored on a scale of 0-100, with 70 being average.
- The heading horse is scored on manners in roping box, scoring out of box, speed to steer, ability of horse to rate, check, turn, and set steer in position for heeler. The heeling horse is scored on manners in roping box, ease and smoothness in which it turns, positions and sets itself for the heeler's throw and dally.
- The roper's time yields points and the judge's score on working ability of their mount yields points. The roper with the greater total points places the highest. See chart on page 138 for combining the two values.
Dally Team Roping
- Contestants will start from behind a barrier. There will be a 10-second penalty assessed for breaking the barrier.
- Animal belongs to contestant when they call for it, regardless of what happens. Exceptions: 1) In cases of mechanical failure; 2) if animal gets out of arena, flag will be dropped and the roper gets the steer back, lap, and tap with the time added that was taken when the steer left the arena.
- Each contestant will be allowed to carry only one rope.
- Roping steers without turning loose the loop will be considered no catch. Roper must dally to stop steer. No tied ropes allowed.
- Time will be taken when steer is roped, both horses facing steer in line with ropes dallied and tight. Ropes must be wrapped around the saddle horn at least one complete turn before it is considered a dally. Steer must be standing up when roped by head or heels.
- All changes in lists of roping order to split horses, etc., must be made before any stock for that event is loaded in chutes. After stock is loaded, ropers must rope in order listed.
- Steer must not be handled roughly at any time and ropers may be disqualified if, in the opinion of the field judge, they have intentionally done so.
- If header accidentally jerks steer off its feet or steer trips or falls, header must not drag steer over 8 feet before steer regains its feet or the team will be disqualified.
- Broken rope or dropped rope will be considered no time, regardless of whether time has been taken or not.
- If steer is roped by one horn, roper is not allowed to ride up and put rope over other horn or head with their hands.
- If heeler ropes a front foot or feet in the heel loop, this is a foul catch. Neither contestant may remove the front foot or feet from the loop by hand. However, should the front foot or feet come out of the heel loop by the time the field flag judge drops a flag, time will be counted.
- In case the field flag judge flags out a team that still legally has one or more loops coming, the judge may give the same steer back, lap, and tap, and a 5-second penalty will be assessed for each loop already thrown.
- There shall be two timers: a barrier judge and a field flag judge. Time will be taken between the two flags. Arena conditions will determine score, length of score to be set by arena director and time event director or spokesman, if present. (See Calf Roping Rules.)
- Animals used for this event should be inspected and objectionable ones eliminated. No steer wrestling cattle may be used in team roping without approval of the event director or a recognized representative of the team roping director.
- Any questions as to catches in this contest will be decided by the judges.
- Neck ropes on cattle must be tied with string. No metal snaps or hardware shall be used on neck ropes in the timed events. Adjustable slide shall be used on all neck ropes for cattle used in the timed events.
- Electronic barrier may be used if available. 18. The roper should ride into the box and call for their animal in a reasonable amount of time. If the judge feels an excessive amount of time is used, the exhibitor can be disqualified.
Nebraska 4-H Dally Team Roping Additional Rules
- Exhibitors may provide their own partner in either Heading and/or Heeling to help in Dally Team Roping. All 4-H ropers must have passed Nebraska 4-H Horsemanship Level 3 to assist a partner at the 4-H Rodeo. If exhibitors do not have partners, they will be provided adequate partners picked from a random draw. Partners (if adults) cannot use horses used in the roping competition.
- The roper being judged is allowed 2 loops (Header — 2 loop, Heeler — 2 loop).
- Headers must make legal head catch. After Header makes legal head catch, the Heeler can throw until they make a legal catch within 60 seconds. (If the header catches and the heeler misses the header will receive a red ribbon in heading.)
- Heeler must make legal heel catch within 60 seconds. The Heeler's Header has two options.
Option No. 1 — the Header may throw 2 loops at head.
Option No. 2 — the Header may put head loop around horns or neck in the roping chute and follow the cattle down the arena past a line or marker 135 feet (45 yards) from the front of the roping chute before turning cattle back for the Heeler's throw. In arenas shorter than 180 feet, the turn back line should be 3/4 distance from roping chute. Turning the steer before its nose crosses the marker constitutes a no time.