Western Pleasure
The idea behind Western Pleasure is to have your horse listen and to react as they are told to as soon as possible after the judge has said what gait or action should be done. The movement should be preformed safely and accurately while maintaining control of your horse.
There are 3 types of Western Pleasure: The 2yo and 3yo Walk Trot Pleasure, Ranch Horse Western Pleasure (Ranch Pleasure), and Western Pleasure. Ranch Pleasure is for the fast paced horses who would be good to work on the ranch. Western Pleasure is just a bit slower in pace usually, but any horse works for this.
For example, in SSO, Ranch Pleasure would be maxed horses only and Western Pleasure would be any horse of any level.
There are a few terms to know for Western Pleasure: Walk, Jog, Lope, Rail, Clockwise, Counter-Clockwise, Reverse, Halt and Back Up.
For English Riders: a Jog means Trot, a Lope means Canter, the Rail is the Fence, Clockwise/Counter Clockwise is the Direction you face once in the Arena, and a Reverse is a Change of direction.
For Official AQHA Western Pleasure Rules, Click Here (Pages 115-117, 130-133).
Barrel Racing
Barrel Racing is a feat of speed and agility, going around three barrels in a clover pattern, starting either to the left or the right side, without breaking the pattern or loosing your hat. Loosing your hat results in a 5 second penalty, while breaking the pattern or knocking down a barrel results in a no time for the rider for the current event.
Since our horses can not do superman speed turns while staying close to the barrel, we've adapted to have the horse and rider go in wide and come out close, slowing down from a full speed to complete the pattern tight.
For the starting line, we allow running starts and starting the time at the line for a more true to the sport effect, which also results in faster runs and with our two timers, we are able to double check the time and have the time be as accurate and fair as possible for everyone.
At the finish line, we encourage riders to keep going all the way through the starting shoot so they don't accidentally stop before they truly cross the finish line.
Pole Bending
This event involves running down the right or left side of the poles to the opposite end of the poles, doing a sharp U-turn and weaving through 6 poles to the last pole and once again doing a U-turn to weave back down and run along the opposite side of where you started back home. For this event, loosing your hat is a 5 second penalty added to your time, while breaking the pattern or knocking down a pole will result in a no time for the current event.
In SSO, the horses can't turn on a single hoof suddenly, we slow down to a manageable pace, keeping turning as tight and as minimum as possible to have a faster pattern and more accurate representation of the event.
In this event, we allow running starts in the starting zone to be made, giving the rider a more accurate way of doing the event in real life as well as a faster and better time. Once again, we will have two people keeping time and averaging the time for accuracy. Once again, we encourage a clean run through the finish and circling at the end in the starting area to ensure accuracy and passing the finish.
For Official NPBA and AQHA Pole Bending Rules, Click Here.*
*NPBA has recently changed their site and the rulebook has been temporarily lost until further notice. Thank you.
Reining
Reining is a western sport where the rider guides their horse through a precise pattern of spins, circles, and stops at either the lope or a gallop. It's to show how willing a horse will listen and their ability to perform these tasks when asked. It is performed on a 60-80 point scale, with the base of 70 to start and adding 1 1/2, 1, 1/2, 0, or taking 1 1/2, 1, 1/2, 0 from their performance to present their score and performance of the horse. The horse should be willing and patient during the pattern with no foul mood or behavior present.
In SSO, we can't properly perform rollbacks or spins, so we have improvised our way into the game. For a rollback, we will get a running start into a full gallop, and just before we are to roll back, we slow to a lope and rear, turning to the left or right as we rear and upon landing, pick up the previous pace. For a spin, we start standing, and just use the arrow keys to spin to the left or to the right as we count our spins.
To show the judge we have finished, since the official drop of the reins can't be done, we take a bow.
For Official AQHA Reining Patterns, Click Here (Required For Show Option 1)
For Official NRHA Reining Patterns and Rules, Click Here (Required For Show Option 2)
Cattle Work
The sport of Cattle Cutting originally developed among ranches, as it enabled ranchers to quickly "cut" a cow from the herd and provide medical care or other necessitates. The cutting horse must match the movement of the cow, along with anticipating it's actions to prevent the cow from rejoining the herd until the given time has been reached. The horse should do this on it's own from a 'cow sense', and never turn it's tail to the cow during the time.
Some of the official rules get voided due to the SSO game play, such as no reins or controlling the horse during the time, since the horse can only be controlled by the player and won't have that natural instincts. We also have decided to cut the time down to 30 seconds and have gone from there to make the difficulty classes have multiple levels. Another rule we have cut is turning the tail to the cow, as how we teach it has to do with figure 8s, and following the cow can get messy.
The cows are limited to a jog and are other players and we rotate so everyone can have some fun!
Please note all of our western events are made and organized in a way where they work to be spoken, performed, and made to the most realistic ability we have within the game without compromising the integrity of the sport or breaking SSO rules.
Our rules may not line up with the AQHA, NBHA, NPBA, NRHA, NCHA, or other associations on the bases of a) this is a virtual game, b) not all these rules are possible to follow nor can be in game, c) the way we were taught to do these events in real life may differ, and/or d) some events can't be 100% full accurate within the game mechanics and are performed to the best of our ability.