I want to thank you for developing such a great roping tool, it’s been worth every penny to us. My husband and I always give Sparky the credit for excelling my rookie year of Team Roping in 2008. I was new to team roping, where as my husband had competed for a good 12 years. I knew all aspects of roping and had practiced most components of the sport except that I had never roped off horse back. We live British Columbia, Canada and in an area where there use to be a lot of Team Roping practice with live cattle. In order for us to practise we would have to travel at least an hour and a half one way to rope live cattle. So we started to research and shop around for a roping dummy. We chose to purchase a Sparky as it looked like the best roping dummy for the full Team Roping deal. I was starting out as a Header and my husband is a seasoned a heeler. Our Sparky arrived in February 2008 and we were excited! We needed our Team Roper neighbor to help us unload it and the guys were like a couple of kids. We used him for the rest of the winter at an indoor arena and towed him with our horses, (we purchased the non motorized package), then in the spring we moved to our local outdoor rodeo grounds and pulled Sparky with an ATV. Our first local rodeo (my first year competing in Team Roping) was in May with two other local rodeos later in the summer. I was doing very well heading Sparky and catching almost every time. Sparky is such a great tool, as it helps you to safely put all the pieces together in this sport. You can work on your horse, in so many ways, help him rate the steer, keep him in before turning the steer off and work on facing up. As a heeler it’s great for rating your horse, timing your throw and you can so easily work on keeping your horse in position. The header and heeler can both safely practise their dallies with this roping dummy. It’s also a fantastic tool for working on the riders skills, you can slow the process down in order for you to work step by step, or come out of the roping boxes and practise a rodeo run. So here we are it’s the beginning of May 2008, I had been heading consistently on Sparky since we purchased him in February. My husband asked me if I wanted to enter up in the May long weekend rodeo. I said, FOR SURE, as I was doing so well and have waited a long time to get to this point. When John told his long time roping partner, his partner said, “Karen has never roped a live steer and you entered her up”? This made John nervous. We had two weeks to practise on live steer at a ranch in a neighboring town. I had already given it some thought before John asked me to enter up, that if I couldn’t rope the live steer then he’d have to find another partner. What a thrill it was and so natural to actually rope the live steer after roping Sparky. The 100 Mile House - Rough Stock rodeo in May arrived and we were the fifth team up. Bingo we both caught and won money. Woo Hoo I was hooked. July long weekend was the second rodeo to enter and I had caught again. The Interlakes BCRA rodeo held on the August long weekend is a big event in our area, which draws some tough competition. I was just going to be happy if we caught and did not have strong hopes to place in the money. Well another great run and John and I were very happy for a clean, 11 second run and perhaps a good photo of us. I’m the chairperson for this rodeo, and when it came time to collect the names from the rodeo secretary of the All Round Winners, I was shocked to have learned that I won the All Round Cowgirl buckle for entering 2 events. Team Roping and Breakaway. WOO HOO that was a trill and unbelievable. In my wildest dreams I would have never had thought this was possible. To this day we give a huge amount of credit to the Sparky Roping dummy for putting me on the fast track of Team Roping, and earning my first ever buckle and All Round Buckle to boot. We have since retired (my husband’s bombproof rope horse, Mac), what a way to go into horse retirement. I’ve heard lots of compliments from seasoned ropers about my roping ability and have had some people think I’ve roped for years, THANKS SPARKY!