Beginning Team sorting/penning on a young horse?

Hello, I have a coming 4 year old mare I'm looking at putting a lot of miles on this summer. I am very interested in the team pennings/sortings because I think it is something I can do without a trainer(i'm too broke to have one going through college, lol). Anyways, my mare is pretty broke in the basics and can be very catty.

She is getting more sluggish and lazy with a touch of resentment for hard work because she is bred and I haven't ever ridden her consistantly, but hardly ever ride or even work with her on the ground now. I plan on starting her back to riding as soon as she checks out ok by the vet after she foals the first week of April.

I'm wondering if anyone does any dry work with their horses and what they have to have down before you introduce cattle? I have brought up steers for the ropers and she has that down. Every once in a while, I would hold the last steer from going by for a couple minutes before driving them all up the alley. She is broke enough to where I can drive them up myself and sidepass to close the gate to the chute pen before any turn back and take off most of the time. We also like to chase the cattle to the roping chute thing after they have their horn wraps taken off, its pretty dang fun!!!!

I am also interested in hauling my mare for a day to someone who knows how to do all that stuff, so I can get some hands on picking on, lol. I really need it!!!! I'm in central Texas and about 40 miles east of Waco, TX. Also, does anyone know of any beginner friendly sortings/pennings in Texas and are you assigned partners or do you have to bring someone with you? I generally ride and haul by myself. Also, if anyone knows of any extreme cowboy races, I really like to do those as well!!!!

As far as dry work,keep the horse getting off of leg pressure,and walk or trot a little ways,stop,back a step or two,and make it sweep it's front end and go the other direction.as for friendly sortings where you don't have to take a partner,look up a web site www.rsnc.us,and they have a schedule of events around you and you can draw all your partners.

Thank you! I'm checking out the website now, it looks good!

Just a quick question... where does your horse normally keep his head when you are competing/riding him? I work on head set a lot, but she is not to the point where she can keep her poll level with her wither and do anything very quickly. If I'm not worried about her having her head that low, she is a lot quicker and responds better faster, if that makes sense.

The head can be up some,as long as his nose is down and not up in the clouds.

Ok, that sounds great, she doesn't have a very high head set, I just really like to collect her and want a lot of lateral flex to my horses.

Lateral flex is very good,but you don't want him working with his nose in his chest,because a cow horse has to stick his nose out to see the cow and work.

Ok, I'll quick working so much on her face and get to doing some slow walk/turn arounds. She is pretty good at rollbacks and leaving out, but I haven't progressed her with work and school. I think I may go check out a sorting and talk to some people in mid-february. It is pretty fascinating to me!

Oh yes,you'll get hooked.but keep her soft in the face and every time you turn or do a rollback, turn your toe out and squeeze right behind the front girth so she turns and not loops around in her turns.

Ok! Will do. I may do a video and put it on youtube to see if you can give me some pointers on what I'm doing wrong. I'd love it!