Team penning is a fast-paced, timed event that pits a group of three riders against 30 head of cattle numbered zero through nine.

Riders use their horsemanship skills to enter a herd and cut out the steers marked with their team’s number. They have 60 seconds to move one, two, or three steers into a holding pen at the other end of the arena, while keeping the rest of the herd in the “cattle end.”

The extra challenge is that the team can’t have more than one “trash cow” (steer with an incorrect number) or more than three cows total on the pen side of the arena.

Though the event is timed, three steers in the pen beat two steers, and two steers will beat one, no matter the time.