ride herd

1. 1.

   driving animals such as horses and cattle while riding along with them

   “Joe was riding herd during the day”

   Broaderride

Questions about ride herd

What does ride herd mean?

ride herd means "driving animals such as horses and cattle while riding along with them".

Is ride herd a common word?

ride herd is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.