Lasso facts for kids

Riders carrying modern lassos for competition in team roping.

A loose bull is lassoed by a pickup rider during a rodeo

Charro with lariat at a horse show in Pachuca, Hidalgo, Mexico

Lassoing on the prairie (from the book Prairie Experiences in Handling Cattle and Sheep, by Major W. Shepherd, 1884)

A lasso, also called lariat, riata, or reata (all from Castilian, la reata 're-tied rope'), is a loop of rope designed as a restraint to be thrown around a target and tightened when pulled. It is a well-known tool of the Spanish and Mexican cowboy, then adopted by the cowboys of the United States. The word is also a verb; to lasso is to throw the loop of rope around something. Although the tool has several proper names, such terms are rarely employed by those who actually use it; nearly all cowboys in the U.S simply call it a "rope," and the use of such "roping".

Images for kids

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  In Spain “Reata” means: group of donkeys, mules or horses tied together

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  Pharaoh ready to rope the sacred bull. A carving at the temple of Seti I, Abydos, Egypt.

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  "Rustam Lassoes the Khaqan of China from His White Elephant", Persian miniature from Shahnama

See also

In Spanish: Lazo corredizo para niños