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Kiralynn
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re: Barrel Racing and Team Penning Discussion

Barrel racing is a rodeo event in which a war steed and rider attempt to complete a clover-leaf pattern around barrels in the fastest time. It combines the horse's athletic ability and the horsemanship skills of a rider. The steed's speed, agility, and acceleration are critical. The rider must have great skill to slow his steed for a tight turn around the barrel and then quickly accelerate toward the next one.

The rider must maneuver his steed through a clover leaf pattern around three hobbits pretending to be barrels placed in a rough triangle in the center of the field. The rider must circle the barrels in a specific order and direction.

The race begins when the judge signals with a /charge emote. The timer stops when the war steed has completely passed back over the starting line, exiting the field. If the steed barely touches the hobbit "barrel", the rider's overall time is penalized by 0.5 seconds. If the steed runs over the hobbit, the penalty is 3 seconds. Contact is judged by the "barrels".

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Last edited by Kiralynn of Rohan on 2015/05/14 8:41 am; edited 1 time in total


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Kiralynn
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re: Barrel Racing and Team Penning Discussion

Team penning is a more difficult sport that requires a pair of riders. A herd of cattle (hobbits pretending to be cows) are released on one side of a field. The riders enter the other side. They have between 60 and 75 seconds to separate out specific "cows" and herd them to the designated "pen". The judge will call out the identity of the "cows" as the race begins, such as "all brown cows".

The number of "cows" that must be herded and the time allotment depends on the size of the herd. Sometimes hobbits are dressed as other animals - goats, sheep, chickens and so forth. The judge may call for the team to separate out "all goats".

It can be challenging to separate out the proper "cows" and coax them into the pen. Sometimes a particularly stubborn "cow" will try to return to the herd while no one is watching.

The team's final score is based on how quickly they penned all the proper "cows". There is a penalty of 4 seconds for each incorrect "cow" herded into the pen, and 8 seconds for each correct "cow" that was not successfully penned.





Here is a general guide for "cows":
* Cluster close together when you are with the herd.
* Avoid the horses, but make them get within 1-2 horse lengths before you move away from them.
* If you see an opening, return to the herd. Cows prefer to be with other cows.
* If you are crowded into a fence, "panic" and make some quick direction changes along the fence line.
* Try to move like a pool/billard's ball. If the horse comes straight at you, move straight away from it. If the horse comes at your right side, move left. If the horse comes at an angle to your left side, move back and left.
* Feel free to say Moo or Baaa or whatever is appropriate to your animal species. You can roleplay and ham it up, just don't get too spammy as a herd.
* Search YouTube for "team penning" and watch a lot of videos to see how you should move.


Here is a general guide for wranglers:
* The announcer will tell you which animals are to be penned just before you start.
* Use both riders to break up the herd for a better shot at the correct "cows".
* Once you have penned a "cow", you may need one rider to make sure it doesn't return to the herd while the other rider gets the next animal.
* Search YouTube for "team penning" and watch a lot of videos to see how it's done.


Last edited by Kiralynn of Rohan on 2013/06/06 9:45 am; edited 2 times in total


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re: Barrel Racing and Team Penning Discussion

Doing my usual "looking for potential problems" thing, I am a bit worried about the cow wrangling. How do you insure that the "cows" identified for penning act suitably cowish? As a demonstration event this might prove interesting, even funny, but for prizes there is going to be a lot of potential for people claiming that the bahavior of the target cows prejudiced the results. (It's not like these cows will be working under an AI insuring that they behave similarly for all contestants)

The barrel racing is far less problematic assuming the judge has a good stop watch (times could be VERY close) and is on a really fast (read lag free) computer. Being honest we must admit that time differences could well be less than the lag in either start comands or finish views.

This could be influenced by the size of any prizes. The smaller the prizes the less likely complaints will be, as folks will be more likely to treat the whole thing as "just for the fun of it."

The fashion contests shouod be fine as they are a matter of popular vote. The barrel racing is likely to be relatively problem free.

Just my 2 cents...


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Kiralynn
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re: Barrel Racing and Team Penning Discussion

I think when people see that we have hobbits in animal masks they'll realize that the rodeo is more for fun and roleplay than anything.

As far as I know, all the prize money is coming out of my already overtaxed wallet, so they'll probably be small. It's also impossible to buy Turbine Point cards around here - what a shame! They're about to increase the minimum TP purchase on June 4th, so I can't use the marketplace, either.

Our biggest problem at the moment is that no one has volunteered to be a hobbit "cow". If I had any volunteers, I'd probably schedule a time to meet with them and do a little "cow orientation".

I also only have one barrel for sure (Lindenel/Narania) and no rodeo clowns to perform Byrcha's awesome skits. Obviously I need a better way to encourage sign-ups.


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re: Barrel Racing and Team Penning Discussion

The information on team penning in the second post has been updated.

If you are going to be a "cow" or wrangler, please check out YouTube videos for "team penning" such as this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQxAs4NPpSQ


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re: Barrel Racing and Team Penning Discussion

Wow! Can we do team penning in the game? I've done this many times in real life. It is a lot of fun. Barrel racing is fun too, but I am not that good at it. I like pole bending better. Do we have speed events like these in the game, too?
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re: Barrel Racing and Team Penning Discussion

There is also one on one team penning. The pen is up against the wall instead of in the middle at the end. Then the one rider cuts out only one cow with the number called out.

Teams that are really good at team penning can actually cut out and pen 3 cows within 10-15 seconds! It is cool to watch the riders work together to do this.
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re: Barrel Racing and Team Penning Discussion

We did try to do team penning last year, or at least we practiced it a bunch - I can't recall if it actually made it into the show or not. It was a lot of fun though!


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Kiralynn
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re: Barrel Racing and Team Penning Discussion

We gave up on team penning because it was difficult to get people to run like cows would and not just in random directions. We thought about programming one of those bot controllers to detect the riders and run away, but that's a lot of effort. This year, we did have barrel racing as part of the Spring Racing Carnival. We usually have a rodeo once a year separate from the SRC, as well. If you can think of some good way to do team penning, that would be awesome.


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re: Barrel Racing and Team Penning Discussion

Cattle try to stick together--safety in numbers they think. lol They are going to try to get back to the herd if they can and they can sure scoot quickly when they see an opening if tey do get separated. They may separate if someone blasts through the herd but they will merge back together as soon as they can. If the "cow actors" can keep that in mind, it might work better this time. And once you separate one out of the herd toward the pen at the other end, someone had better keep an eye on them 'cuz they may try to get back to the herd at the other end! That has blown many a good penning!
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re: Barrel Racing and Team Penning Discussion

How do you get numbers on the cow actors? Or do you just have three people with the same color and call out colors instead of numbers?

The cows will try to bunch together in the herd but they will move away from the horse and rider if they are blocked. My mare, Storm, was only three when I started team penning with her. She was rather intimidated by the cows (pew-ee stinky disgusting cows, she thought). So I got her in a smaller pen with about 15 cows that were resting (since they rotate herds in a RL penning). I had to urge her toward the herd and she wasn't too keen on it, but surprise surprise, once she saw the cows would move away from her as she moved forward, she relaxed and began to et more comfortable with it.

The ideal number of cows to have is 21, but you could get by with 12. Might be hard to get 21 people to be cows. You want to have enough in the herd to make it more challenging.

We should try some practices with people as cows and others on horses. I would be glad to demonstrate and coach the cows!
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re: Barrel Racing and Team Penning Discussion

You did actually describe how to be a cow pretty well up under the video of team penning though. I wonder why the cows didn't cooperate!
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re: Barrel Racing and Team Penning Discussion

It was less "not cooperating" and more "really hard to try to imitate bovine behavior". Trying to anticipate the movements of the other cows (to stay together), keeping an eye on the riders, and keeping track of where you are and where you're supposed to be going is harder than you would think. (I was one of the cows in the failed initial attempt.)
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re: Barrel Racing and Team Penning Discussion

Exactly that. The "cows" knew what to do, but actually doing it was extremely difficult. Lag didn't help at all. It can also be difficult to come up with so many volunteers at one time.

We could invent our own equestrian games that would have a much better chance of succeeding. If LOTRO ever allows us to create plug-ins that move characters around, we can multi-box cows and come back to this idea.

Perhaps we can put our minds together and think of other horse-related games.
If they work well in LOTRO, they don't even have to exist as sports in real life.

For example, a few years ago, we did a relay race. We used custom-crafted, named items as batons. Teams of 3 riders had to run a segment of race track and then pass off the baton. This is something we could do really well at the Bree festival grounds. War steeds could take turns running the track there. Each person on the team would do a lap, then exchange the baton in front of the stables/start line.


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re: Barrel Racing and Team Penning Discussion

There is a ranch/show event where one rider and one cow are in the arena and the rider has to move the cow around the arena to a specific pattern/design. That might not be as complicated as having a herd of cattle.

What about reining? That is set to a pattern and combat horses can make some cool sliding stops. I haven't tried any spins on a combat horse or a regular horse for that matter.

Trail class? Walk. trot, lope at certain spots,go over a bridge, around cones, back up, side pass over a ground pole, open a mailbox, put on a slicker. etc. Although I don't know how we would put those things on or what we would use for a bridge or ground pole. Which leads me to ask: How did you pass a baton? How would you know if you dropped it or grabbed it?

Besides barrels. speed classes include: Pole bending, flags, CuddaHo (sp?), and more I can't think of right now. You can do a barrel race with a rider at each end of the arena and they have to share the middle barrel. It would be an elimination type race. Whoever wins the first heat goes on to compete, etc.

There are also Fun Show events: Egg and Spoon, Musical Stalls (like musical chairs), ribbon race (two riders have a paper streamer between them and they have to walk, trot, canter, turn, etc. to the calls without breaking the ribbon). Again how do you make the props work?
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