Equestrian events such as reining, roping, and team penning started as a way for cowboys to show off the moves they and their horses could do when working cattle. All of the moves in Western events are derived from practical moves used to work cattle, but they've become more stylized for competition.

Reining has been called Western dressage because of the precise moves it requires. In reining, the horse needs to be taught the cues he needs to stop exactly when you ask him to, to spin in a circle moving only his front feet and stop before overshooting the number of spins required in a particular pattern, and to canter calmly in small and large circles without breaking stride. This is a discipline that can require many hours of drill work and is not in the realm of pleasure and recreational riding.

Horseback roping usually involves cows. If you want to become a skilled roper, you have to practice, practice, practice. You can practice with a fake cow — there are cow heads you can buy to stick into a bale of hay or attach to a sawhorse — and rope the cow while it's stationary. When you are ready to rope a moving cow, you can buy motorized fake cows on tracks that pivot and turn almost like the real thing.

Interestingly, barrel racing originally developed as something for the wives and girlfriends of bronc-busters and bull-riders to do while the men competed in rodeo events. Today the sport is open to both sexes. In barrel racing, a horse and rider go as fast as possible in a specific clover-leaf pattern around three fifty-five gallon barrels set up in a triangle pattern in an arena. In a rodeo event, the race is timed manually or by an electric eye device, tripped when the horse crosses a laser light beam. Points are taken off the time for hitting a barrel. The rider may be eliminated for knocking over barrels, going off course, or using unsanctioned equipment.

Team penning is an activity similar to the gaming events. It can be fun, but since it requires cattle, it probably isn't something you will set up in your backyard. You should scout out a local team-penning club that has events on a regular basis, offers some practice time, and is open to riders new to the event.

A team of three riders picks a number out of a hat. A herd of as many as thirty young cattle with numbers painted on them are waiting in the arena, and three of them are painted with the number the team picked. Two of the team members cut one of the cows with their number out of the herd and work the cow down to a small pen somewhere near the other end of the arena. When they get the cow into the pen — which is no small task, given a cow's desire to remain with the herd — the third rider stays behind to keep the cow there. Two riders head back to the herd, cut out the second cow, and herd the cow into the pen. They repeat the process for the third cow. When the pen door is shut, the team's time is recorded.

After all teams have competed, the team with the best time wins. Since this is a timed activity, horsemanship is not scored, but the better your riding skills and the more in tune you are with your horse, the less time you will waste in getting to the cattle and moving your horse where you need him or holding his position. Being involved with team penning will also expose your horse to cattle, yet another thing for you to support him through and help you gain further trust.

Cowboys invented the rodeo to have fun and to show off their ranchwork and cattle-driving skills. But riding in the rodeo circuit is now an intense activity in and of itself, and most people who pursue it seriously are professionals in the business. If you want to become a rodeo rider, you will probably need to be in the western part of the United States and Canada, where rodeos abound. For the armchair rodeo rider, you can often find a rodeo as Saturday night fare on the sports channels on television.