You’ve heard of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Hunter Koch’s 2024 ProRodeo season was the Tale of Two Horses: Crypto and Casino.

Their names conjure images of money, and they both carried Koch to plenty of it this season, carrying the Texas team roper to his fourth Wrangler National Finals Rodeo qualification on a wave of more than $110,000 in earnings.

The two sorrels share the work ethic required for any roper to endure a long season on the road, but beyond that the similarities are few.

Casino has been-there and done-that at 17 years old; Crypto is just 6, still futurity eligible and actually made his first rodeo runs this season.

Crypto, Canteburys Cherrey, is a son of Cantebury Cat, one of the $86 million earning progeny of the legendary High Brow Cat. His dam is the Dual Rey daughter Cherrey.

“J.D. McGuire bought him from a sale as a 3-year-old,” Koch said.

Along with McGuire, TyDaniel Haller and Koch did all the training on Crypto from that point.

Meanwhile, Smart Little Cab—aka Casino—was bred by Jess Ranch in Ione, California. He is by Oaklena who is by Little Lena Doc and out of Taxis Little Cab by Tuf N Busy. Casino’s roping story begins in Wyoming with the Flag Ranch, who purchased him as a 5-year-old. The ranch’s Dale Bennett started and trained the gelding before Casino was sent to PRCA World Champion Jhett Johnson for seasoning. 

“Jhett had him as a colt, and then he sold to (another PRCA World Champ) Paul (Eaves),” Koch explained. 

Eaves bought Casino in 2016, and he was voted third in the AQHA/PRCA Heel Horse of the Year voting in 2019.

“Paul made the Finals on him and then sold him to Madison (Bumgarner),” Koch noted.

Bumgarner is the three-time World Series winning Major League Baseball pitcher who was outed for his love of team roping after winning big at Rancho Rio in Wickenburg, Arizona, during the off-season while riding Casino. He is also a friend of Koch’s, and when his team roping took a backseat to baseball, he offered the gelding to Koch.

“He texted me and gave me the opportunity to buy him, and I took it,” Koch said. That was three years ago. “I’d been around him since Paul had him and seen the success he had. I didn’t even try him.”

“I picked him up at Salinas and drove to Spanish Fork and was 4.5 on him there in our first run together,” Koch continued.

Calling him the old veteran, Casino has been the steady partner Koch thought he would from day one.

“We placed a lot this year at those one-headers,” Koch said. “A lot of 3’s, 4’s and 5’s…we were 3.9 at Filer (Idaho). Just lots of checks.”

The biggest check of the year is not included in their PRCA totals: that’s the $100,000 win at The American in March behind 2023 partner Luke Brown.

“He’s a lot smaller and really good in those short setups because of his size and because he’s short strided and tighter,” Koch said.

The young gun, Crypto, got the call for the larger, outdoor rodeos this year and picked up wins at two of the toughest setups, La Fiesta de los Vaqueros in Tucson and Prescott Frontier Days, both in Arizona.

“He’s big—about 15.1 hands—and strong and can really run,” Koch said. “He’s a great team player and has tremendous athletic ability.”

Though his rodeo career is in its infancy, Crypto has already had success at the futurities including a win in the #12.5 All Age Riata with McGuire as a four year old.

“He was fifth in Fort Worth last year and placed at Houston and the Gold Buckle,” Koch noted.

During the ARHFA World Championship Futurity Heeling Finals on Oct. 18, 2024, Koch rode Crypto to a reserve finish, adding $25,000 to his LTE.

The transition between rodeos and jackpots has been seamless for the gelding. HIs first ProRodeo was the Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo in late January with his first win coming just a month later at Tucson.

“He did good in Fort Worth and then got the win in Tucson,” Koch said. “He just went right to it every time.”

“I ride him the same,” Koch continued. “I don’t really do anything different [showing] than jackpotting or rodeoing.”

In fact, Crypto was named the Horse of the Clay Logan Open earlier in 2024.

“He’s been pretty easy,” Koch said. “He’s got a great mind and a winning attitude.”

Definitely traits that Crypto shares with his elder trailer mate, Casino.

“Casino is pretty similar to Crypto…he’s willing to help me,” Koch said. “He gives me every opportunity to win. He just tries hard to get into a position to catch, and he never hinders me from what I’m trying to do. He’s never in my way.”

Personality-wise, the pair are as opposite as their ages.

“He’s the grumpy old man,” Koch laughed off Casino. “He’s super gentle and easy to be around, but he’s not too lovey-dovey.”

“Crypto’s like a pet dog; he’s everybody’s friend,” Koch continued.

For his fourth NFR, Koch is planning to go with the veteran, who carried him to a career-best $162,542 a year ago, including a go-round win and reserve finish in the average.

“I’ve got a run on him that I like,” Koch noted of the quick setup inside the Thomas & Mack, home of the NFR. 

“He’s a really good horse, I think one of the best for a long time,” Koch said.

Still, Crypto will be in Vegas and ready to go if the 17-year old needs a break during the grueling ten days.

“I’ll dang sure have Crypto ready,” Koch said.

No matter which mount gets the call, Koch is excited to be back in Vegas again, this time roping with Cody Snow and starting the rodeo ranked 14th.

“I’m grateful every time I qualify,” Koch said.

The post Hunter Koch’s Tale of Two Horses: Crypto and Casino Fuel his ProRodeo Season appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Offspring of stallion Gunners Special Nite carried Trevor Brazile to his long-awaited first ARHFA World Championship and Joseph Harrison to his fourth, marking the first time in ARHFA history that two colts from the same sire swept the titles.

Both horses also won the 4-&-Under World Championship earlier in the day, another first at the $200,000-added event in Fort Worth’s John Justin Arena.

Full Results: 2024 ARHFA World Championship

“We’re super excited, and we’ve been a fan for a long time of the rope horse business,” said Tom McCutcheon, who stands Gunners Special Nite and who won $235,000 on him in his reining career. “It’s really exciting for me to see it and be successful. His colts are so good minded, it’s not a surprise to me. We’ve been fortunate to get some nice colts in the right hands. We’ve never pushed him toward the roping because he’s one of reining’s top sires, but I guess that might change.”

RR Gunners Affair & Trevor Brazile

In the eight year history of the ARHFA World Championships, Brazile has been high call in exactly half of the Open heading short rounds. But the King of the Cowboys finally walked out of the arena with the title Friday, Oct. 18, 2024, on RR Gunners Affair, a 4-year-old, owned by Jared Wittwer, in just his third trip to town, and $51,000 for his efforts. (That’s $6,000 in go-round winnings, plus $20,000 for the 4-&-Under title and $25,000 for the Open title. Chrome Cash and Royal Crown Stallion Incentive earnings aren’t posted yet.)

“This thing has always been good to us, but it is, it’s nice to finally win it,” Brazile said. “I don’t know that you ever—even once you win it—you don’t want to win it any less because this is a great win. They’ve got a great crowd, and it’s just a culmination of a big year for these horses, and it’s a new group annually, and so they go against their peers and it’s a lot of fun…We really take pride in this and when we do come to town, we want the horses to look and ourselves to look like the work we’ve been putting in.”

Watch: How Miles Baker Started RR Gunners Affair

RR Gunners Affair is a maternal sibling to WND Affair, the horse Brazile and Baker owned who won the ARHFA World Championship on the heel side with Harrison in 2021.

“That dam is old-school reining-bred,” Brazile said. “She’s worked for our industry. They’ve all had plenty of gas, been stone-cold soldiers in the box and been big with good structure.”

Because he made the short rounds in both the 4-year-old and Open divisions, RR Gunners Affair had to make two short-round runs under the bright lights with the big crowd and loud music. But he wasn’t phased, marking a 236.71 and 233.56 in both short rounds and finishing with a 944.55 in the 4-&-Under and a 941.40 for the Open win. In the Open, Brazile bested himself on RR Buckles Clubhouse (by Show Me The Buckles out of Hail Olena) at second place, for $20,000 with a score of 938.8.

“We had a great day in the prelims of the heading. We had a terrible day in the prelims of the healing, so it was definitely a roller coaster as far as that goes, because we went from one day where we were, I felt like the horses were great. Me and Miles had good days, and then to the next day, 24 hours later, we couldn’t do much right. So it’s just part of it, and I love it for the horses when we win. I hate it for the horses and the owners when we don’t, but it’s not from lack of effort.”

The irony of two Gunners Special Nite siblings getting the titles isn’t lost on Brazile.

“You would’ve probably lost a lot of money in a bet on that,” Brazile said. “In the heeling, I see it a lot, but that mare they crossed him on was kind of old-school reining. I think she goes back to a Major Vaquero, and they said it was just a bigger, grittier line. Whatever it was, they tapped into something that dang sure had enough zing in the run, and the size and grit that it is no surprise to see him in the heeling win. But that’s the only Gunners Special Nite that I’ve ever headed on.”

Brazile had the help of two-time and reigning World Champion Wesley Thorp on the heel side.

“Wesley was perfect for me, and I was less than perfect on the goes I gave him a lot of times too,” Brazile admitted. “I mean, the steers were not ideal to heel sometimes, and you would’ve never known it with him. I mean, he literally was perfect. He got two feet every time I turned him and didn’t take long to do it.”

One Nite Special & Joseph Harrison

Joseph Harrison brought his string of seasoned futurity horses to town for the ARHFA World Championship, but his youngest—the 4-year-old One Nite Special—came out on top when the dust settled Friday night.

“We say this about all the ones that we do good on, but he really is pretty special for a 4-year-old man,” Harrison said. “To be honest, he’s still a hair immature. I think some of those horses as 4-year-olds, especially those Gunners Special Nites, have a little bit of a reputation for being just a hair immature when they’re young, but they’re extremely talented. They’re pretty horses, and they’re fun horses. That little horse there, he is just fun.”

One Nite Special placed in the first round for $1,500, and then won the third round for another $4,000 to come back high call in both the 4-&-Under and Open short rounds. For the 4-&-Under, Harrison and One Nite Special won $20,000, and for the Open, they picked up $30,000. When Chrome Cash and Royal Crown Incentive money is added into the mix, the horse’s earnings for the two days in Fort Worth will top $60,000.

This is Harrison’s fourth Open title at the ARHFA, but his first since 2021.

“He’s honestly a little cowy,” Harrison said. “I mean, just a little bit. Not bad cowy, but pretty kind of good cow. He really wants to hook you into the cow in a good place and stuff like that. So I mean, for a 4-year-old I can kind of put my hand down on him more so than I can some of the other 4-year-olds.”

The post Brazile on RR Gunners Affair, Harrison on One Nite Special Sweep ARHFA World Championships on Gunners Special Nite Colts appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

The $7.8 million sire Gunners Special Nite—who himself earned $235,000 in the reining—is the first horse to sire both heading and heeling high-call horses in the Open division of the American Rope Horse Futurity Association World Championship.

ARHFA Short-Round List on CHC

The 4-year-old gelding One Nite Special and Joseph Harrison hold a 2.48-point over the second-place team of Canteburys Cherry and Hunter Koch—setting Harrison up to vie for his fourth ARHFA heeling championship. Meanwhile, on the head side, Trevor Brazile will rope for his long-eluded title on the Relentless Remuda’s RR Gunners Affair, also by Gunners Special Nite.

“To be honest, Miles (Baker) had good luck a couple times with Gunners Special Nites,” Harrison said of the stud owned by Turnabout Farm Inc.. “Steve Orth had a buckskin and had good luck. I had said something in an interview that maybe I hadn’t rode a Gunners Special Nite, and I wanted to.”

Arizona’s Chris “Gucci Man” Young heard the interview, and he called to tell Harrison about a 3-year-old bay he should try.

“He sent him to me, and here we are,” Harrison said. “He’s the first one I’ve ever rode. Miles told me they could be a hair immature minded. I noticed right away with mine, that he plays all the time. He’s playing when you catch him, he’s playing while you saddle him, he’s always playing. He’s playing when you school on him and ride him at the house. But when you get to town, he’s not playing.”

Brazile pointed to the skills of the small herd of Gunners Special Nite horses that have found their way into the Remuda string over the last few years, including Gunners Nite Train who Baker’s shown the last two years, and RR Gold Starr, who Baker showed for the first time this week.

“They naturally want to have their butts down and their shoulders up,” Brazile said. “That comes easy for them.”

Gunners Special Nite is the No. 8 all-time leading reining sire with $7.8 million, and he’s No. 50 on QData’s all-time leading rope horse sire list with $201,744.

Harrison will first go for the 4-&-Under Heeling title at 2 p.m., followed by the Open finals at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 18.

“He’s had a touch of bad luck,” Harrison said of the horse who placed at the ARHFA Sun Circuit this March and second at the Royal Crown in Guthrie. “I should have won way more on him than I have. I’ve messed up on him from second or third high callback or better. He’s just a good horse. He’s big enough, he’s strong enough. All of Miles’ have been good bodied, strong. They’re all big, strong, pretty horses.”

Harrison has had the help of Clay Smith, while Brazile will count on Wesley Thorp.

The post With Harrison & One Nite Special, Gunners Special Nite Dominates High Call Spots at 2024 ARHFA World Championship appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Trevor Brazile will get another chance at the one title in his $7-million-and-then-some career that’s eluded him—the ARHFA World Championship—when he ropes in Fort Worth Friday, Oct. 18 at high call in the Open heading short round on 4-year-old gelding RR Gunners Affair.

Full Results: 2024 ARHFA World Championship

Brazile and RR Gunners Affair, owned by Jared Wittwer, enter the short round with a score of 707.84 on three head, a full 4.13 points ahead of Andy Holcomb and Cheyenne Red Cat at second call.

“He feels really pure right now,” Brazile said of the 4-year-old. “Obviously all these young horses go through stages and you want them peaking on these big stages. Sometimes it’s not your timeline. But this one is really pure right now. I had a good feeling about it going into it.”

Must-Watch: RR Gunners Affair and Baker at 90 Rides

The gelding—by reining stallion Gunners Special Nite—is a maternal sibling to WND Affair, the horse Brazile and Relentless Remuda partner Miles Baker owned that won an ARHFA World Championship on the heel side with Joseph Harrison. The unassuming sorrel that Baker started in the Remuda program as a 2-year-old will give Brazile another chance to head a steer for the ARHFA World Championship, a spot he’s been in three times before but has yet to sealed the deal.

Watch: Miles Baker Rides RR Gunners Affair as a 2-Year-Old with 90 Rides

“This is a big deal because it’s not just me,” Brazile said. “It would pay more to win second and third than to win first, but it’s cool for horses and owners. It’s a complicated scenario. There’s a lot of people, you know, involved. And it’s fun when they get recognized too.”

The Relentless Remuda is team roping’s all-time leading owner, having won $975,553 on horses they own alone since QData started tracking roping numbers. Brazile and his wife, Shada, also own Treda LLC, which has won another $459,413 as owners—much of that on BoomBoom Firecracker, a horse Brazile was high back on at the Futurity but never quite sealed the deal with in his show career.

Brazile also was high back aboard Lari Dee Guy’s American Greed and the Remuda’s Tuckin Away Buckles, but both came up short.

The Remuda won $413,393 of that $975,533 in 2024—but a mere $33,537 of that money was on RR Gunners Affair, perhaps the least decorated of the horses the Remuda has entered in Fort Worth at the ARHFA World Championship. Brazile and Baker bring eight horses back to the short round of the nine they brought to town in the heading.

“We said it from the start that it was going to be a dog fight,” Brazile said. “Everybody executed really well yesterday. You look through that list, it’s just tight. The game has elevated so much—I remember making the short round with a great chance with a barrier. Now, a barrier is the cutoff to get out of the first round. This year, I don’t think a leg made it back. That’s tough.”

There were no legs for Brazile and Baker, who had the help of reigning and two-time World Champion Heeler Wesley Thorp.

“When you heel as good as Wesley does the only negative to it is people expect it day in day out,” Brazile said. “It’s awesome, but it doesn’t surprise me.”

Brazile already picked up $2,000 on RR Gunners Affair for third in Round 1 and $4,000 for the Round 3 win to solidify his spot in the short round.

Baker started RR Gunners Affair as a 2-year-old in Decatur at the Remuda’s headquarters, a foundation that Brazile sees as critical to what the horse is doing now.

“This is the third one we’ve had out of this mare line,” Brazile explained. “And to have it started there on the place, by Miles, means a lot. It makes a big difference when they’ve had the same goal in mind from when they’re 2 to when they’re 4.”

The post RR Gunners Affair & Trevor Brazile Will Rope High Call in 2024 ARHFA Open Heading Short Round appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

The ProRodeo trail may not exactly be like the magical Emerald City from The Wizard of Oz, but it does have its own version of the horse of many colors.

The aptly named El Chapo changes from a chestnut in the summer to a dark, almost bay in the winter, according to his owner J.C. Yeahquo. 

What never changes is his performance.

“He’s good at everything and so easy,” Yeahquo, 24, said. “He’s maybe not great at anything but he’s good at everything.”

Thanks in large part to El Chapo, Yeahquo is heading to his first Wrangler National Finals Rodeo (NFR) in 2024 after earning $126,296 while roping with Buddy Hawkins. He’ll go into Las Vegas ranked eighth in the PRCA World Standings.

El Chapo was bred by Jim Mullin of Westville, Oklahoma, and is registered Captain Playboy Chex. The 14-year-old gelding is by the Freckles Playboy son Playboy Alice and out of MJ Snickels Doll by Great Captain Jac.

Yeahquo’s dad, Luke, first spotted the horse when he was owned by his neighbors, the Fierros. 

“They roped on him a bit, and I’d always seen him and he looked like he moved his feet good,” Yeahquo noted. “My dad found out they were thinking of selling and said, ‘You want to come try him?’”

Trying was believing, and Yeahquo was sold after the first ride.

“After that, I had to have him,” he joked. “He’s been awesome, a really fun ride, and it’s cool to have one this good that came from a friend.”

El Chapo joined Yeahquo’s stable in 2019.

“He had been to some ropings but no rodeos,” he explained. “I used him in high school and college rodeos, so he’s been through the ringer at this point.”

Riding El Chapo, Yeahquo won a Reserve National Championship at the College National Finals Rodeo in 2021 with brother L.J. before setting out on the ProRodeo trail full-time.

“El Chapo’s been so good to me,” Yeahquo said. “He’s done everything I’ve asked and done it pretty darn good.”

The Yeahquos liked El Chapo so much that they sought Mullin out to see if he had any brothers and sisters. They discovered that he had lost MJ Snickels Doll and was no longer breeding Playboy Alice, more or less leaving El Chapo a one-of-a-kind.

For those wondering, the horse’s name came from his confirmation and not the infamous drug gang-lord.

“El Chapo is Spanish slang for shorty, and he’s maybe 14.3 and pretty darn wide,” Yeahquo chuckled.

Yeahquo says the gelding is gentle enough to turn his young nephews loose on but does have his quirks.

“He’s pretty easy, the only bad habit—and I should probably do something about it but I just let him do it—is he tries to walk really fast and is a little jittery,” he admitted. 

Concrete and fairs are something else, too.

“He’s not very handy on concrete,” Yeahquo said. “When I have to ride him through a fair or carnival, he gets really nervous acting and jumps sideways. He gets all crazy and fired up. But he loves his job.”

After finishing 27th in the PRCA World Standings a year ago, El Chapo and Yeahquo’s 2024 campaign started with a huge boost thanks to winning RodeoHouston in March.

Ironically, his biggest win didn’t start with El Chapo. Yeahquo chose another horse from his string for the first two rounds of the Super Series competition before switching back to old faithful when the chips were down. With El Chapo underneath him, Yeahquo and Hawkins swept through the final round of the Super Series and into the SemifInals and ultimately claimed the championship worth $54,375.

“He’s amazing indoors, there’s probably not many better,” Yeahquo said. “He’s got a good stride, pulls good and never gets caught in the wall.”

“He’s good outside,” Yeahquo noted, explaining some of his rationale for not starting with the gelding initially inside the huge Reliant Energy Arena at Houston, “but he’s not as fast.”

Thanks to maintenance treatments like the use of a Magnawave machine, El Chapo has felt his best in 2024 despite being in his teens and traveling the long rodeo road.

“He started running harder, like a whole different horse,” Yeahquo laughed. “I had to figure out how to get back in time with him but he’s never missed a step.”

With a rejuvenated—and now sorrel El Chapo—the summer was golden, allowing Yeahquo to continue to pick up checks and coast into his first Finals. Though El Chapo will probably be looking bay by December, Yeahquo thinks he’ll shine in any color inside the tiny Thomas & Mack in Vegas.

“I think he’ll enjoy it,” he said. “He scores so good for short barriers, and he doesn’t overrun steers.”

One part of the NFR experience that isn’t likely to be on El Chapo’s list? Two words: Grand. Entry.

“I rode him in the grand entry at the CNFR and he was as stiff as could be in the bit,” Yeahquo chuckled at the memory. “He just took off.”

“If I ride him in a grand entry, he’s worked up for the rest of the night.”

Luckily, others can pitch hit for the parade of states, leaving the job of winning big checks in the team roping to the steady gelding that Yeahquo describes as irreplaceable.

“It would be hard for a horse to fill his shoes,” he said. “I don’t think I could find another one that would fit me like he does.”

The post From High School Rodeo to The Thomas & Mack: J.C. Yeahquo’s Ol’ Faithful Mount is NFR-Ready appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Kolton Hunter and Aaron Stout topped the Riata #8.5 with a time of 44.16 on four head, winning $25,000 aboard two horses sired by Show Me A Song Joes.

On the head side, Kolton Hunter was aboard Show Joe Duchess, an 8-year-old gelding by Show Me A Song Joes and out of Red Eyed Dutchess. On the heel side, Aaron Stout rode Quest Two Best, a 10-year-old stallion by Show Me A Song Joes and out of Miss Trippers Red.

Although they are both from Utah, Hunter and Stout had never roped together prior to arriving at the Lazy E.

“We had never met until yesterday,” Stout said. “We roped for the first time together in the #9.5 yesterday.”

Stout’s family owns Stout Performance Horses, owners of the stallion, Quest Two Best, that Stout rode in the #8.5. Stout Performance Horses also owns the gelding Hunter rode, Show Joe Duchess.

The stallion Stout rode in the #8.5 is a half-brother to 2021 AQHA Heading World Champion, CT Show Me Your Guns, and the full brother to standing Pitzer Ranch stallion, Oh Hell Yes.

“Pitzer Ranch owned and showed him (Show Me A Song Joes),” Stout said. “They showed him at the World Show and won the world on him in the heading. Both Show Me A Song Joes we have are very similar in the way they act and their mannerisms. They’re both built very similar, too. They both are really good, strong to the horn, let you handle them in the bridle.”

Hunter and Stout switched ends in both the #8.5 and #9.5 to maximize their entries.

“I stayed on Quest Two Best, our stud and he (Stout) stayed on Show Joe Duchess,” Hunter said. “We just kept switching back and forth on each end. These horses are just so nice.”

The Utah team roped four head in 44.16, roping a leg in the third round.

“We came out and caught the first one,” Stout said. “We were clean on him and good. On our second one, we caught and were clean. On the third one, I legged him. I thought I missed him, so I was glad to see I at least got a leg.”

On the head side, Hunter knew he needed to stay clean to come back to the final round.

“I wasn’t going to miss one today,” Hunter said. I knew I needed to give Aaron a chance because he would clean it up. I just tried to make sure I got him roped around the horns. I slowed a few down for Aaron (Stout) too much but he was patient with me. The horses worked good, so it was awesome.”

Hunter is the son of two-time NFR qualifier Nancy Hunter. Nancy qualified for the Finals in 2014 and 2015, but shortly after her last NFR qualification, she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Nancy lost her battle with cancer in 2016.

“My mom was very successful,” Hunter said. “My dad has been a horse trainer his whole life and has had some really nice horses. He still has nice horses. I have to thank Riata for all you guys are doing. I think it’s very important that this is about the horse, that’s the coolest part.”

As for the $25,000 the team won, they haven’t quite decided what to do with it yet.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do with the money, I haven’t got that far yet,” Stout said. “It’s a nice chunk of change. I will probably feed some horses, pay some bills, but I know we’re going to dinner to celebrate.”

The money will come in handy for the Stouts, who ranch in Utah.

“My wife trains horses full-time, and I help her a little bit,” Stout said. “I also day work on ranches and build some fence. I also have a welding business. I just do whatever I can to keep the lights on.”

Hunter, for his part, is the associate vice president of instruction at a technical college.

“So, I help in education,” Hunter said. “We teach all kinds of trades at our school that are so important. I help the instructors in education at the technical college.”

The post Kolton Hunter and Aaron Stout Win the Riata #8.5 for $25K Aboard Show Me A Song Joes Horses appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

The Metallic Cat son Stevie Rey Von jumped back atop the stallion leaderboard at the Riata after Day 4, with earnings on his offspring topping $267,780 in the team roping and steer stopping at the Lazy E.

[[All numbers and results are unofficial]]

1. Stevie Rey Von: $267,780

Craig Moore and You Rey—by Stevie Rey Von out of You N Me Baby by Smart Mate—won first and second in the #9.5 on Saturday, Sept. 28, plus first and second in the futurity incentive, worth a massive $99,700 for Moore’s 5-year-old head horse.

Stevie Rey Von’s other colts winning at the Riata include Seven S Razmataz, out of Seven S Dixie Chic and CJ Sugar Lena, and Christian Dewbre’s colt, who earned $47,250 for second place in the #12.5 and $4,000 for first in the futurity incentive. Trevor Brazile and Miles Baker heeled on stallion Pride And Joyy, by Stevie Rey Von, out of Fun N Fancy Free by Peptoboonsmal, earning $6,480 in the #14.5 and $27,000 in the #12.5, respectively. Pride And Joyy, owned by the Relentless Remuda, Solo Select, and Kaleb Terlip, has lifetime earnings of over $273,724 at just 5 years old.

Fults Ranch owns Stevie Rey Von, the 2015 NCHA Futurity Champion with over $420,000 in career earnings. The stallion stands at Beau Galyean Stallion Station, with a fee of $10,000 for 2025. He is by Metallic Cat and out of Miss Ella Rey by Dual Rey.

2. Bet Hesa Cat: $203,480

Bet Hesa Cat is a 2006 Riata stallion from 6666s Ranch, and through four days, Smartlookncat is still his highest Riata earner. This 2019 red roan, ridden by Cord Forzano on the heel side, clinched first with Reed Boos and third with J.D. Yates in the #14.5. Smartlookncat is out of Miss Plain Plain, a full sibling to Plain Catty, the 2017 NRCHA Snaffle Bit Futurity Champion.

On Saturday, Bet Memorials Zacks and Cayce Lewis won second in the #9.5, worth $36,700 for the biggest Bet Hesa Cat check of the day. Plus, Riata stallion Bet Hesa Freckledcat—a son of Bet Hesa Cat—earned another $10,200 for eighth in the Riata #9.5 with John Coltharp and $19,440 with Denton Parish for fifth in the #14.5 earlier in the week.

Former Riata Champ Jessica Koppitz won $11,000 on her Bet Hesa Cat horse, Gold Six Cat, while Bet Memorial Zacks and Cayce Lewis won $8,300 for 11th in the #12.5.

Born in 2006, Bet Hesa Cat is by High Brow Cat and out of Bet Yer Blue Boons by Freckles Playboy. His own performance career in cutting amassed $272,151.

3. CD Diamond: $172,125

CD Diamond has had a banner week at the Riata, with the 7-year-old mare SJR Diamond Metalica and Tauna Alcorn continuing to win over four days. On Saturday, Alcorn won second in the steer stopping, too, for another $7,375 to add to CD Diamond’s progeny earnings.

CD Diamond, the 2012 NCHA Futurity Champion, earned $153,320 in his career. He sired NRCHA Snaffle Bit Futurity Champion SJR Diamond Mist, who earned $179,883. CD Diamond is by CD Olena and out of Shiners Diamond Girl by Shining Spark. He is also the sire of SJR Diamond Billy, the futurity head horse Cody Snow aims to qualify for the NFR on in 2024. CD Diamond’s stud fee is $3,000, standing at Weatherford Equine.

4. Hickory Holly Time: $102,555

Devin Coleman and DT Hickory Blue Steel helped jump Hickory Holly Time back into the top five Riata stallions of 2024’s event with $8,150 in the #9.5 All-Ages.

Hickory Holly Time, owned by DT Horses, is by One Time Pepto and out of Hickorys Holly Cee, by Docs Hickory. The horse won the World’s Greatest Horseman title and the NRCHA Derby, and he earned over $231,052 in his performance career. 

Editor’s note: DT Horses provides a $50,000 bonus to ropers competing at the Riata. Plus, Dean Tuftin is offering a $500 discount to any purchaser that has a current World Series of Team Roping membership.

5. Metallic Malice: $98,465

Metallic Malice continues his breakout performance as a sire at the 2024 Riata coming out of Day 4 with $98,465.

Metallic Malice, owned by 70 Ranch Performance Horses, is by Metallic Cat out of High Boon by Mecom Blue. At this year’s Riata on Day 2, he earned $76,200 in produce earnings.

Clay Hurst won third and $33,250 in the #12.5 heeling on Metallic Remodel, while Metallic Lee Hot and Rodney Wilson placed 11th on the head side, earning $8,300. Wilson and Metallic Lee Hot also earned $6,000 for second in the #12.5 Heading Futurity Incentive, and Jordan Allyn got $4,000 for third in the same incentive. Hurst earned another $6,000 on Metallic Remodel for second in the futurity incentive on the heel side in the #12.5.

The post Stevie Rey Von Offspring Top $267K in Earnings in Four Days of ’24 Riata Championships appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Kylie McLean and her 5-year-old gelding, DMC Rey N Playboy by Reynshine, topped the inaugural Cowgirl Steer Stopping at the 2024 Riata winning $10,326.

The Canadian-cowgirl-turned-Arizona-resident was 10th callback aboard DMC Rey N Playboy and fourth callback on DT Doc Holly Day. McLean missed her fourth callback short round steer but cashed in on her 10th callback run to be 17.17 on three.

McLean practiced stopping on DMC Rey N Playboy at home, but this was the first place they entered since she purchased him two months ago (and since this was the first place holding a timed, three-head steer stopping in recent memory on a major stage).

“He’s a 5-year-old Reynshine that I bought two months ago,” McLean said. “I found him on Facebook, and he’s really good to head on.”

The Arizona cowgirl says she isn’t a fast roper, but the 4.84-second run she clocked in the short round says otherwise.

“I’m a catcher,” McLean said. “I thought, well, if the opportunity’s there, I’m going to take it and see how it works out. And it just worked out.”

McLean has been roping on the 5-year-old gelding at the Riata all week, but so far, has only found luck in the Cowgirl Steer Stopping.  

“On the first steer he stopped, but he didn’t stop very good,” McLean said. The second one, he was kind of like, okay, I kind of know what I’m doing. And the third one, he worked really good. He scores good and runs hard, he’s a kind boy. He lets me do whatever.”

The Perfect Storm

McLean trains rope horses for a living so when she rode DMC Rey N Playboy for the first time, she knew she needed to buy him without even roping a steer.

“I saw him on Facebook right before we left for the Spicer Gripp,” McLean said. “I called the kid who had him, Raider Mendenhall, who has a place up in Big Forks, Montana. I called him and asked if he still had him and he said yes.”

The Arizona cowgirl told Mendenhall if he still had the horse in two weeks when she got back from the Spicer Gripp, she would fly to Big Forks and try him.

“On the Friday before we headed home, I called him and told him I was still interested and he told me he still had him,” McLean said. “So, I booked my flight for the next Wednesday and told him not to sell him before I got up there.”

The gelding being in Big Forks played into McLean’s favor. Her mom, only lives four hours from Big Forks in Alberta, Canada. McLean’s mom met her in Big Forks to hang out and try the horse.  

“My mom drove down,” McLean said. “My hairdresser, that I absolutely love moved to Big Forks two years ago. So when I went up there, I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, I get to see my mom, get my hair done and maybe buy a horse, this is great!”

When McLean showed up to try the horse, they didn’t have any steers to run.

“When I showed up to try him, they told me they didn’t have steers,” McLean said. “So I loped some circles and he was nice and quiet. He was so nice I didn’t even need to rope on him. If I like their stride, then I’m going to do what I want to do on them.”

As fate would have it, McLean ended up buying DMC Rey N Playboy.

“It worked out so perfect,” McLean said. “The kids (Raider Mendenhall and family) go to school in Provo, so they drove him from Big Forks down to Provo. They were going to the first University of Albuquerque game and told me they could meet me in Cortez. So, I met him in Cortez, which is only 50 minutes from my house and got the horse. It was all a meant to be deal.”

Family Ties

McLean grew up riding horses on her families ranch in Nanton, Alberta.

“My mom halter broke a bunch of colts when she was pregnant with me,” McLean said. “She always said she just wanted me to be a little cowgirl. She had me on a horse before I could even walk. At three I had an old horse that I could put a bareback pad on and go ride. My mom always said she didn’t know what I was doing, but I was gone, on the back of a horse, all day.”

McLean has been dreaming of making a career out of riding and training horses her entire life.

“My mom brought me to Arizona in 2003,” McLean said. “After we spent that week in January roping outside, I went home and wrote down a goal that I wanted to live in the United States and train horses for a living.”

It may have taken McLean 10 years to achieve her goal that she wrote down that day, but she achieved it.

“I found a partner down there, Roger Sorenson,” McLean said. “He sent me a horse to ride. Then, I had a horse come up for sale. I asked him if he wanted to go in as partners, buying and selling horses. He asked if that’s what I wanted to do and I told him that was the biggest dream of my life.”

With the help of Sorenson, McLean got started in Bar Diamond.

“I was going back and forth (to Canada) too much and having to pay GST on all those horses,” McLean said. “Roger asked if I wanted to live with him in the United States and I told him that was my biggest dream in the world. So, he stepped in and sponsored me and I moved to Arizona. That’s when my biggest dream came true.”

The post Kylie McLean Wins $10K Inaugural Cowgirl Steer Stopping at Riata on DMC Rey N Playboy appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Craig Moore and Bobby Simmons pocketed $106,000 between the 2024 Riata #9.5 win and the head and heel horse incentives on You Rey and Sundae Rebel.

The Texas team took the win Saturday, Sept. 28, after roping four steers in 36.88 seconds. Moore and You Rey also picked up second for $73,400.

“This means everything,” Moore said. “The biggest thing for me is I’ve been around people my whole life and the passion that all of these guys have with this sport, I think they’d be here even if this kind of money wasn’t here. How family-oriented all of this is, for me, I just have a passion for it. The money’s wonderful, don’t get me wrong—we’re all all about it. But I’d be here if it was just giving a buckle away.”

Both Moore and Simmons were entered up in the Riata, starting the #12.5 for Moore and the #14.5 for Simmons, but hadn’t had the luck they were hoping for until the #9.5. The win is added redemption for Simmons, who’s been adjusting to roping after three surgeries.

“When when we made the short round I was like, ‘Just don’t mess up Bobby,'” Simmons said with a laugh. “It’s awesome just to get to win, and to win at any level is fun. I’m the type of guy that If I’m pitching quarters out, I’m all in to try to win. It’s all about competition.”

You Rey

By Stevie Rey Von out of You N Me Baby, Moore bought You Rey almost two years ago from Cody Wheeler who trained the 5-year-old stallion and took him to futurities. Moore turned You Rey out with no intentions of riding him for the next two years, until the Riata opportunity presented itself.

“I was not going to ride him until he was 7,” Moore explained. “But all this with the Riata here, I was like, I’m going to enter. I pulled him out and Martin Lucero helped me get him ready.”

You Rey is Moore’s first Stevie Rey Von progeny, and he won’t be his last as he appreciates how he can handle so many runs in one day.

“He is the sweetest, he just stays in your pocket all the time,” Moore said. “I’ve rode a bunch of horses where you go to throw your rope bag over them and they’ll jump plum through their skin. But it doesn’t matter, he is just calm about everything.”

Moore’s had some a-list help, too. From 16-time NFR qualifier Martin to three-time World Champion and ProRodeo Hall of Famer Tee Woolman.

“I would’ve been nothing in this industry without Tee,” Moore said. “Tee has helped me for 11 years, and he’s like a brother, dad, uncle—whatever—to me. He has been really good to me.”

Sundae Rebel

Simmons bought Sundae Rebel, the 6-year-old stallion by Metallic Rebel out of Starstruck Ichi, through the Select Online Sale.

“I bought quite a few horses from [Melanie Smith], and I called her and she goes, ‘Bobby, quit buying horses, I’ll call you when I got one that you’ll like,'” Simmons recalled with a laugh. “She called me and said, ‘You’re going to like this one.'”

While Moore and Simmons haven’t roped much together, they have a common friend in Lucero, who helped ride Sundae Rebel after Simmons bought him. He then went to TyDaniel Haller, who has had him since April after Simmons’ back surgery, and he’s become a versatile horse.

“He’s just easy,” Simmons said. “He’s good at my age; he’s soft, gentle and he doesn’t do anything but just his job. You can ride him at the open level or you can ride him in the #8 roping.”

As his first Metallic Rebel baby, Simmons likes the conformation and laid back attitude of Sundae Rebel.

“I like the bone of Metallic Rebel horses,” Simmons said. “This horse has a lot of bone, and his mind is just exceptional. He’s exceptional.”

Riata #9.5 results

The post Craig Moore and Bobby Simmons Bank $106K for Riata #9.5 Win and Incentives on You Rey and Sundae Rebel appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Colorado’s 16-year-old Hogan Kelley struck big on his 8-year-old A Smooth Guy gelding Wicked Smooth Guy to win first and fast-time in the Riata Buckle #10.5 Junior, banking $19,600.

The Golden, Colorado, native was 32.91 on four with his cousin, Klayt Staudt, who rode a proxy horse.

Kelley also rode Bethesalilbitcat on the heel side to win fast time in the short round his dad, Luke, on the head side aboard Wicked Smooth Guy.

In total the 16-year-old won $20,600 on two different horses.

“We have another A Smooth Guy at home, he is a palomino we got from Jesse Jolly,” Kelley said. “Both horses are great, we really like them.”

Kelley Family Ties

Roping is in the family for Kelley, who roped with his dad and cousin both in the #10.5.

“Not everyone gets to rope with their family every day,” Kelley said. “We (Kelley and Staudt) have always won good together, and today we just had good runs.”

Despite roping a leg in the first round, the young team made quick runs to bring them back in the No. 3 position.

“Our first one, we didn’t draw the best and he (Staudt) got a leg,” Kelley said. “We drew a great one on our second steer and we were 5.90. On the third one, I just went and caught him and Klayt made up time. On our short round steer, we wanted to put a lot of pressure on the next two teams, since we were third callback. We did just that. Klayt heeled the last one perfect and we were 6.63.”

This isn’t the first time Wicked Smooth Guy has seen the bright lights of the Riata Buckle.

Average Results

The post 16-Year-Old Hogan Kelley Wins Big Aboard Wicked Smooth Guy, Earning $20,600 at Riata Junior #10.5 appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

San Juan Ranch’s CD Diamond jumped atop the 2024 Riata Championships stallion leaderboard after a sweeping performance by Tauna Alcorn’s SJR Diamond Metalica, who won both the #12.5 and #10.5 and picked up a third-place check in the #12.5, too.

Watch the Riata Championships on Roping.com

1. CD Diamond $164,750

Tauna Alcorn and SJR Diamond Metalica won over $140,000 across two ropings in two days at the Riata, skyrocketing the 7-year-old near the top of the leaderboard of all-time earning mares in a hurry.

CD Diamond, the 2012 NCHA Futurity Champion, earned $153,320 in his career. He sired NRCHA Snaffle Bit Futurity Champion SJR Diamond Mist, who earned $179,883. CD Diamond is by CD Olena and out of Shiners Diamond Girl by Shining Spark. He is also the sire of SJR Diamond Billy, the futurity head horse Cody Snow aims to qualify for the NFR on in 2024. CD Diamond’s stud fee is $3,000, standing at Weatherford Equine.

Full 2024 Riata Championships Results

2. Stevie Rey Von $143,530

Stevie Rey Von held at $143,530 in earnings after a quiet day on Day 3 for his offspring at the Riata Championships.

Stevie Rey Von’s colts include Seven S Razmataz, out of Seven S Dixie Chic and CJ Sugar Lena, and Christian Dewbre’s colt, who earned $47,250 for second place in the #12.5 and $4,000 for first in the futurity incentive. Trevor Brazile and Miles Baker heeled on stallion Pride And Joyy, by Stevie Rey Von, out of Fun N Fancy Free by Peptoboonsmal, earning $6,480 in the #14.5 and $27,000 in the #12.5, respectively. Pride And Joyy, owned by the Relentless Remuda, Solo Select, and Kaleb Terlip, has lifetime earnings of over $273,724 at just 5 years old.

Fults Ranch owns Stevie Rey Von, the 2015 NCHA Futurity Champion with over $420,000 in career earnings. The stallion stands at Beau Galyean Stallion Station, with a fee of $10,000 for 2025. He is by Metallic Cat and out of Miss Ella Rey by Dual Rey.

3. Bet Hesa Cat $133,310

Bet Hesa Cat is a 2006 Riata stallion from 6666s Ranch, and through three days, Smartlookncat is still his highest earner. This 2019 red roan, ridden by Cord Forzano on the heel side, clinched first with Reed Boos and third with J.D. Yates in the #14.5. Smartlookncat is out of Miss Plain Plain, a full sibling to Plain Catty, the 2017 NRCHA Snaffle Bit Futurity Champion.

Former Riata Champ Jessica Koppitz won $11,000 on her Bet Hesa Cat horse, Gold Six Cat, while Bet Memorial Zacks and Cayce Lewis won $8,300 for 11th in the #12.5.

Born in 2006, Bet Hesa Cat is by High Brow Cat and out of Bet Yer Blue Boons by Freckles Playboy. His own performance career in cutting amassed $272,151.

4. Once In A Blue Boon $91,450

Once In A Blu Boon, with offspring earnings over $12 million, added $91,450 to his produce record after three days of the Riata Championships. Mike Bacon won $61,000 on Once In A Blu Boon’s 6-year-old daughter Play Like Boon for winning the #12.5, plus another $8,000 in the futurity incentive. Shawn Gray won $8,300 in the same roping on the Once In A Blu Boon colt Neato, and Jessie Nelson won another $1,600 on Once In A Blu Boon horse Boons Yer Daddy.

Once In A Blu Boon, by Peptoboonsmal out of Autumn Boon by Dual Pep, earned $316,564 in his performance career. He stands at Brightstone Ranch, with a stud fee to be determined.

5. Metallic Malice $87,250

Metallic Malice, owned by 70 Ranch Performance Horses, is by Metallic Cat out of High Boon by Mecom Blue. At this year’s Riata on Day 2, he earned $76,200 in produce earnings.

Clay Hurst won third and $33,250 in the #12.5 heeling on Metallic Remodel, while Metallic Lee Hot and Rodney Wilson placed 11th on the head side, earning $8,300. Wilson and Metallic Lee Hot also earned $6,000 for second in the #12.5 Heading Futurity Incentive, and Jordan Allyn got $4,000 for third in the same incentive. Hurst earned another $6,000 on Metallic Remodel for second in the futurity incentive on the heel side in the #12.5.

The post CD Diamond Tops All Riata Producers After Day 3 with $164,750 in Offspring Earnings appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Tauna Alcorn and SJR Diamond Metalica have had a historic two days inside the Lazy E at the 2024 Riata winning $140,800 between the #12.5 and #10.5.

Alcorn and the 7-year-old mare by CD Diamond out of SJR Missin Metallica won first and fourth in the #12.5 Thursday, Sept. 26, and followed it up with the #10.5 win for $109,600 with Taylor Pettigrew on Call Me Mr Jonez Sept. 27.

“There are no words,” New Mexico’s Alcorn said. “All I can say is it’s on everybody’s time and when it’s your day, it’s your day and hopefully mine just continues to go.”

SJR Diamond Metalica is the first CD Diamond baby Alcorn has had in her herd, and they purchased her off of Facebook as a 2-year-old on track for the Snaffle Bit. Alcorn credits her husband, Travis, for the foundation he put in the mare.

“If it wasn’t for Travis’s Foundation and the foundation that she got started on, I don’t think I’d be where I’m at today,” Alcorn said. “My husband’s done a great job with her, keeping her athletic for me and keeping her behind my hand.”

Pettigrew’s 5-year-old gelding by Travelin Jonez out of Last Drop O Rocky MC also won the 6-year-old heel horse incentive for $8,000. Like SJR Diamond Metalica, Call Me Mr Jonez was a Facebook buy. Pettigrew bought him as a 4-year-old, and he’s spent the last year and a half getting where he is today.

“I just worked on getting him broke and getting soft,” Pettigrew said. “Just lots of miles. I’ll breed some mares to [Travelin Jonez] next year though. I like him—he’s big and he’s fast. This horse is also fast.”

That speed also makes Call Me Mr Jonez a solid head horse, making him versatile in Pettigrew’s lineup.

“He’s a nice head horse,” Pettigrew said. “He’s fast, and that’s good to head on. He’s broke good, likes to stop—he’s just a good horse.”

Familiar partners

Alcorn and Pettigrew came back second high call, and their 8.87-second run in the short round sealed the deal on their win putting them 34.87 seconds on four steers. The team lives just an hour apart in New Mexico, so they have some prior experience roping together.

“There really wasn’t a plan, I don’t think,” Alcorn said with a laugh. “We both made the short go in the # 12.5 yesterday, so we were kind of just like, let’s do it again.”

Call Me Mr Jonez will be able to make another roper’s $100,000 dreams come true as he will be in the Dec. 8, Riata Showcase Horse Sale in Las Vegas.

“I’ve got a 4-year-old at home and I’ve got a bunch of colts, and I’m just getting older and can’t ride as many,” Pettigrew said. “I’ve just been camped out on him and, now, I’m going to have to camp out on the next one.” 

#10.5 Total Payoff: $645,600

The post Tauna Alcorn and SJR Diamond Metalica Pocket $140K at Riata After #10.5 Win with Taylor Pettigrew appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

The NCHA Futurity Champion Stevie Rey Von leads all stallions in offspring earnings after two days of competition at the Riata Championships in 2024 at the Lazy E with $143,530.

1. Stevie Rey Von

Stevie Rey Von’s colts were headlined by Seven S Razmataz, out of the mare Seven S Dixie Chic and CJ Sugar Lena, and Christian Dewbre’s $47,250 check for second in the #12.5 and $4,000 check for first in the futurity incentive in that roping. Trevor Brazile and Miles Baker also heeled on stallion Pride And Joyy, by Stevie Rey Von, out of Fun N Fancy Free by Peptoboonsmal, to $6,480 in the #14.5 and $27,000 in the #12.5, respectively. (The Riata pushed Pride And Joyy, owned by the Relentless Remuda, Solo Select and Kaleb Terlip, over $273,724 in lifetime earnings at just 5 years old.)

Fults Ranch owns the Stevie Rey Von, who won the 2015 NCHA Futurity and earned over $420,000 in his career. The stallion, whose fee is $10,000 for 2025, stands at Beau Galyean Stallion Station and is by Metallic Cat out of Miss Ella Rey by Dual Rey.

2. Bet Hesa Cat

Bet Hesa Cat gained on Day 2 of the Riata, moving to $133,310 in earnings but slipping to second in the earnings list.

The Riata stallion from the 6666s Ranch still counts Smartlookncat as his highest earner. This 2019 red roan, ridden by Cord Forzano on the heel side, clinched first with Reed Boos and third with J.D. Yates in the #14.5. Smartlookncat is out of Miss Plain Plain, a full sibling to Plain Catty, the 2017 NRCHA Snaffle Bit Futurity Champion.

Former Riata Champ Jessica Koppitz won $11,000 on her Bet Hesa Cat horse, Gold Six Cat, while Bet Memorial Zacks and Cayce Lewis won $8,300 for 11th in the #12.5.

Born in 2006, Bet Hesa Cat is by High Brow Cat and out of Bet Yer Blue Boons by Freckles Playboy. His own performance career in cutting amassed $272,151.

3. CD Diamond

CD Diamond leapt into the top five with $103,100 after a dominate performance by SJR Diamond Metalica and Tauna Alcorn in the #12.5. Higgins won first and fourth in that roping on the San Juan Ranch-bred 7-year-old daughter of the mare SJR Missin Metallic by Metallic Cat. (When Sept. 27’s earnings are calculated, CD Diamond will jump higher thanks to Alcorn winning the #10.5 on the same horse.)

CD Diamond was the 2012 NCHA Futurity Champion who won $153,320 in his career, producing NRCHA Snaffle Bit Futurity Champion and earner $179,883, SJR Diamond Mist. CD Diamond is by CD Olena out of Shiners Diamond Girl by Shining Spark, and he’s also the sire of SJR Diamond Billy, the futurity head horse Cody Snow is poised to qualify for the NFR on in 2024. CD Diamond’s stud fee is $3,000.

4. Once In A Blu Boon

Once In A Blu Boon—who already has offspring earnings over $12 million—added $91,450 to his produce record after Day 2 of the Riata Championships. Mike Bacon won $61,000 on Once In A Blu Boon 6-year-old daughter Play Like Boon for winning the #12.5, also winning another $8,000 in the futurity incentive. Shawn Gray won $8,300 in the same roping on the Once In A Blu Boon colt Neato, while Jessie Nelson won another $1,600 on Once In A Blu Boon horse Boons Yer Daddy.

Once In A Blu Boon, by Peptoboomsmal out of cutting’s blue hen mare Autumn Boon by Dual Pep, earned $316,564 in his performance career himself, and he stands at Brightstone Ranch, with a stud fee to be determined.

5. Metallic Malice

Metallic Malice, owned by 70 Ranch Performance Horses, is by Metallic Cat out of High Boon by Mecom Blue, exploded onto the earnings scene at this year’s Riata in Day 2, banking $76,200 in produce earnings.

Clay Hurst won third and $33,250 in the #12.5 on Metallic Remodel in the heeling, while Metallic Lee Hot and Rodney Wilson were 11th in that roping on the heads side worth $8,300. Wilson and Metallic Lee Hot picked up another $6,000 for second in the #12.5 Heading Futurity Incentive, and Jordan Allyn got $4,000 for third in that same incentive. Hurst got another $6,000 on Metallic Remodel for second in the futurity incentive on the heel side in the #12.5.

The post Stevie Rey Von Takes Over Top-Earning Producer Spot After Day 2 of 2024 Riata Championships appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

When there is a purse of $144,444 up for grabs at the 2024 Governor’s Cup, the best team ropers in the PRCA will be riding their best horses, too.

• Coleman Proctor and Logan Medlin will return on the same team of horses they won the rodeo on in 2023—Lenas Spark Dunit and TRR Freckles Holiday.
• Clint Summers will again crack out WSR Hesa Alive, the 20-year-old gelding he rode to clinch his NFR trip at the last minute in Sioux Falls last year.
• Kaleb Driggers is borrowing Fin Bar Whiskey One, a horse of Marcus Theriot’s.
• Wyatt Bray will ride DMO Sand Drifter, the same mare Erich Rogers won the NFR average on when he headed for Paden Bray in 2020.

The post The 2024 Governor’s Cup Head and Heel Horses appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

UNOFFICIALLY, Bet Hesa Cat offspring earned $109,860 at the Riata Championships, leading the pack of Riata Stallions in a roping that paid $1 million on just Sept. 25 alone.

1. Bet Hesa Cat

Bet Hesa Cat, the Riata stallion owned by 6666s Ranch, leaned on the double-dipping earnings of Smartlookncat, the 2019 red roan ridden by Cord Forzano on the heel side to first with Reed Boos and third with JD Yates in the #14.5. Smartlookncat is out of Miss Plain Plain, a full sibling to Plain Catty, the 2017 NRCHA Snaffle Bit Futurity Champion.

The 2006 stallion Bet Hesa Cat is by High Brow Cat, out of Bet Yer Blue Boons by Freckles Playboy, and the horse won $272,151 in his performance career in the cutting. He was an NCHA Open World Champion who’s sired NCHA World Champions.

2. Hickory Holly Time

Hickory Holly Time’s offspring won $72,000, led by Douglas Rich’s Cee The Lights, a 5-year-old mare out of the CD Lights mare Bossie.

Hickory Holly Time, owned by DT Horses, is by One Time Pepto and out of Hickorys Holly Cee, by Docs Hickory. The horse won the World’s Greatest Horseman title and the NRCHA Derby, and he earned over $231,052 in his performance career.

Editor’s note: DT Horses provides a $50,000 bonus to ropers competing at the Riata. Plus, Dean Tuftin is offering a $500 discount to any purchaser that has a current World Series of Team Roping membership.

3. MR Sassy Frenchman

MR Sassy Frenchman sired the #14.5 winner Yes Im Sassy, the 6-year-old mare that’s dominated the rope horse futurity industry the last two years with the likes of Colby Lovell, Dakota Kirchenschlager and Kaleb Driggers.

The Myers Ranch’s MR Sassy Frenchman, by Frenchman Guy out of the Mr Jess Perry daughter Jess Sass Me, earned over $45,000 in his own performance career. His dam produced earners of $1,153,425, and she herself had a speed index of 107.

4/5. Metallic Gray and DD Docs Irish Badger

Metallic Gray and DD Docs Irish Badger sired the winners of the Open futurity—Metallic Katrina and DD Denvers Badger—tying them for fourth and fifth in the Riata Championships Day 1 earnings with $42,500. Metallic Gray, owned by the Cudd Ranch, is by Metallic Cat out of Smooth Sage by Over Osage.

DD Docs Irish Badger, a 2015 bay stallion owned by Eliason Performance Horses, is by Paddys Irish Whiskey out of My Little Sugar Babe by Sons Doc O Sugar.

The post Bet Hesa Cat is Top-Earning Sire on Million-Dollar Day 1 of 2024 Riata Championships appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Tauna Alcorn double-dipped on her 7-year-old mare SJR Diamond Metalica to win first and fourth in the Riata #12.5, banking $172,000 between herself and partners Mike Bacon and Miles Baker from first and 30th callback Sept. 26 at the Lazy E in Guthrie, Oklahoma.

New Mexico’s Alcorn was 33.65 on four with Oklahoma’s Bacon, who rode 5-year-old Play Like Boon to also win the futurity incentive for an extra $8,000. She was 36.68 on four from last call with Texas’s Baker, who rode the Kaleb Terlip/Relentless Remuda/Solo Select-owned stallion Pride And Joyy.

Perfect Strangers

Before arriving at the Lazy E in Guthrie, New Mexico’s Alcorn and Oklahoma’s Bacon had never met. 

“I had never met Mike before yesterday,” Alcorn said. “He came up and introduced himself, but we’ve known each other. We have a lot of mutual friends, so I called him up. It was more like, oh my gosh somebody can rope behind me?”

“That’s ridiculous, right? She makes it easy,” Bacon said. “It was easy to rope behind her. We’re going to do it more often now I bet.”

Marepower

Alcorn made eight runs on the 7-year-old mare SJR Diamond Metalica in the #12.5 earning $86,000 total for her share. 

“She’s not a stranger to pressure,” Alcorn said. “I’ve kind of put it (pressure) on her. My husband took her to the Snaffle Bit Futurity when she was three and then I ran barrels on her, her five year old futurity year. Then we went straight to the rope horse futurities. So, she’s solid.”

The setup at the Lazy E was perfect for the 7-year-old mare. 

“This is just her thing,” Alcorn said. “She likes the smaller cattle. She’s not a huge horse so if I get into the lower numbered ropings with her, she does struggle a little bit. In the higher numbered ropings, she’s quick footed. I’ve never had to worry about the start with her. She’s short, compact and quick footed. 

Bacon struck gold when he started Play Like Boon in 2023. 

“This is my first Once In A Blu Boon,” Bacon said. “My buddy, Brad Spann raises them and that’s his horse. I started her in February 2023 and went to heeling on her in March. Then I took her to Vegas that December. She was just easy to train, you know.”

“She was started as a cutter but they said she was just too big to cut,” Bacon said. “She’s been really easy. She went right to work, really. I mean I put her in the World Series roping, just threw her in there and she went to doing it.”

Related:

• Switchender: Colby Lovell’s and Kory Koontz’s Abby
• SJR Diamond Bond and Rhen Richard Win Second Consecutive Royal Crown 4-&-Under of 2022
• SJR Diamond Billy & Billie Jack Saebens Get 6-&-Under *Heading* Win for $39K at First Gold Buckle Futurity
• Richard and SJR Diamond Bond, Rice and First Class Vintage Claim Royal 4-Year-Old Titles in Buckeye
• NOPE, Different Buckskin: Cody Snow to Debut Southern Ranches’ Futurity Standout SJR Diamond Billy at Bob Feist Invitational

The Riata Buckle has been full of winning mare power this week. 

“Every good horse I can think of has been a mare,” Alcorn said. “I don’t know if it’s just ‘bad luck’ that I always end up with mares, but I’ve never had them turn their nose up at me. So I’ve put up with the little silly quirks. This mare, she acts like a gelding, so I’ve been lucky on that part.”

“I’ve had a couple of good ones (mares),” Bacon said. “They’re just gritty. You can ride them every day if you want to, there’s no quit. I mean, they’re mean, mines mean. She kicks stuff standing in a stall, kicking the stalls. They’re all good, though. I like that stuff, I guess, because all my horses are good.”

#12.5 All – Total Payoff – $792,000

The post Marepower: Tauna Alcorn and Mike Bacon Win $122K Riata #12.5 on SJR Diamond Metalica and Play Like Boon appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Jonathan Torres’ horse is named Paycheck and it’s completely fitting.

“He’s a winner,” Torres said.

Torres picked up the 16-year-old gelding at the start of the summer run and he has quickly become the No. 1 in what was already a stacked arsenal of horsepower for the Ocala, Florida, native.

“I rode Hannibal this winter and spring,” Torres noted. Ten-year-old Hannibal is registered Scotts Top Style by Lena Stylish Doc and carried Torres to good checks in Houston and Austin. “Then I have Roger, who I rode at the NFR last year and started the summer on. We won second at Reno.”

Nine-year-old Roger is registered Reysin Cats; he is by Dual Rey and out of a High Brow Cat mare. Torres also has Bayboy Boonsmal “Biggie” who carried most of the weight in Torres’ first NFR run in 2022. Biggie is a grandson of Peptoboonsmal with Doc Olena on the bottom side. At 18 years old, Biggie pulled duty at some of ProRodeo’s most prestigious events, like Pecos, Prescott and Pendleton.

Summer success

But Paycheck, the flashy, bald-faced sorrel, has been the constant of the long summer run.

“We won Tremonton and Coeur d’Alene in one week,” Torres said. “We placed good at Cody, Red Lodge, Livingston, St. Paul.

“I don’t know that we’ve won a lot of firsts, but for sure have gotten a bunch of checks.”

One of those placings came at the North Dakota Roughrider Cup in Mandan on Sept. 22, where Torres and header Nelson Wyatt picked up more than $8,000 for a fourth-place finish. The money helped solidify Torres’ position in the PRCA world standings, virtually ensuring a third straight trip to Las Vegas for the National Finals Rodeo.

In Torres’ mind, a lot of the credit goes to Paycheck.

“Honestly, he’s one of the better ones I’ve had,” Torres said. “I am grateful to have him; he makes my job a lot easier. So much so that if I don’t do great, I feel like I’m to blame because he gives me a great chance every time.”

Solid swap

Bred by Anderson Cattle Company in Victoria, Texas, Paycheck was trained by Tyler Schaffner and Lance Inderman. He is by Nitas Wood out of Yo Quiero Chula by Chula Dual. His dam also goes back to Freckles Playboy. Schaffner and Inderman sold the gelding to Whit Kitchens when Paycheck was about 6.

“He took him to the jackpots and some rodeos,” Torres said. “Then Caleb Green bought him and did the same, some amateur rodeos and ProRodeos too.”

Torres had seen the horse around Texas. He had a 6-year-old but knew he needed something more ready for a full summer of rodeoing; meanwhile, Green was looking for something younger.

“We kinda swapped up,” Torres noted, bringing the gelding into his stable at a crucial point of the season.

“I just started using him,” Torres said. “He’s solid, great in the box. He stays out of my way and does the same thing every time.”

Fair fears

Torres calls the gelding “pretty easy” but if he’s got an Achilles heel, it’s got to be carnivals.

“Paycheck doesn’t love carnivals,” Torres laughed. “He gets pretty antsy and silly acting. He doesn’t love Ferris wheels and just wants to high step.”

That might make places like Puyallup, Washington (where contestants walk through a big midway en route to the rodeo arena), a little tricky but it’s a small trade-off for what he brings to Torres’ roping game.

Plan A

After riding Biggie and Roger during his first two NFR trips, Torres is excited to see what Paycheck can get done in the Thomas & Mack.

“I feel like he’ll be good in that setup,” Torres said. He’ll probably have Biggie and Roger available as well. Roger took most of the summer off, resting up to be ready if needed.

But Paycheck is Plan A.

“Like I said, he’s one of the best rodeo horses I’ve ever had,” Torres said. “He wants to win every time.”

—TRJ—

The post The Paycheck That’s Paying Dividends for Jonathan Torres appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Lazy E Ranch in Guthrie, Oklahoma, is proud to announce bookings for 2025 foals by the winningest stallion in professional heeling—Patrick Smith’s former rodeo horse, WSR Hesa Dunofa Lena. 

WSR Hesa Dunofa Lena is a Riata stallion and also enrolled in Royal Crown, Gold Buckle and The Diamond Classic futurity incentives.

Book to WSR Hesa Dunofa Lena

“When it comes to rope-horse stallions, he’s at the top of the list,” said David Zito, who purchased “Rooster” this March. “When it comes to sheer legacy, this horse has been there and done that. No other stallion holds a candle to him, where he’s been to the NFR with several different heelers. And he’s 20 and qualified for the World Show this year. That’s just a different kind of horse, with this kind of longevity.”

Watch the 2024 Riata Championships

Bred by Western States Ranches and started in the cutting, Rooster was so good-minded that World Champion Heeler Randon Adams was heeling on him as a 3-year-old. Over the following years, the stud carried elite heelers Adams, Dakota Kirchenschlager, Cesar de la Cruz, Russell Cardoza and Smith to huge rodeo and jackpot wins and multiple NFR qualifications. Smith, a two-time world champion heeler, describes the stud as “one of the most amazing heel horses of all time.”

The 2004 dun by Hesa Sonofa Dun out of Paulena by Doc Olena has lifetime pro heeling earnings well over half a million dollars. de la Cruz, who rode Rooster in several go-rounds at two NFRs, said the stud’s honesty and ability to slide on his hind end sets him apart. Smith was still winning paychecks on Rooster last season before selling him to Zito’s Colorado-based 1957 Quarter Horses. Zito, who started roping two years ago and is entered in this weekend’s Riata Championships, said his family couldn’t wait to send Rooster to the Lazy E. 

“We went to the Riata last year and just couldn’t believe the atmosphere at the Lazy E Arena,” Zito said. “To be part of something as special as the legacy of the Lazy E and have Rooster in that barn alongside those other caliber stallions they have, it’s special.”

With a fee of $1,750, Rooster will join other Riata incentive stallions in Guthrie including A Streak Of Fling, Big Lew, Bucks Hancock Dude, Coronado Cartel, Dirty Fling, Fiestas Gotta Gun, Hez Our Secret, One Fabulous Time, Oz Ona Hot Streak and Show Me The Buckles. Offspring of Riata stallions are invited to compete annually at the $3.5 million Riata Championship team roping–one of the top-three richest ropings in the world.

“WSR Hesa Dunofa Lena is a legend in the roping industry, bringing an unmatched grit and bone and performance record to the Lazy E,” said Monty McNair, a manager at the Lazy E. “No stallion has ever won more in team roping, and his longevity as a performer is unbeatable. It’s an honor to add him to the E’s stallion lineup, bringing his career full circle and allowing us to introduce him to the thousands of visitors who tour our stallion barn annually.”

For more information, visit lazyeranch.com.

The post Lazy E Adds NFR Stallion WSR Hesa Dunofa Lena to Lineup appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

How many cowboys can relate to what Coleman Proctor went through when his horse Jesse James never took a lame step until he priced him for big money? This one was supposed to be a barrel horse, not a head horse. Then he was supposed to be someone else’s head horse. But fate was having none of that. 

Coleman’s wife, Stephanie, bought Mabee Jessy Can, who’d been started as a racehorse on the track, in 2016 as a 4-year-old barrel-horse prospect. 

“Here comes Bruce Bell pulling a stock trailer one cold day, and he unloads this sorrel with a huge head and a small body,” remembers Coleman, who’s on track to this year make his ninth Wrangler National Finals Rodeo. “He hands her the lead rope, and she hands him the check.”

When Coleman, who lives in Pryor, Oklahoma, with Steph and their three girls, called this horse common, he felt he was being generous. 

“Jesse James is a grandson of the racehorse Mr Jess Perry (who was a 2019 inductee into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame),” Coleman said. “Steph wanted to run barrels on him. I had no interest.”

Sadly for Steph, that’s sort of how Jesse James felt about barrel racing. But Team Proctor gave him his best shot at being good at something by taking the time and money to build a solid foundation. 

“I had a young kid cleaning stalls for me whose dad runs the stallion station at the Lazy E, and he’d started Jesse James on the track,” Coleman remembers. “He was gentle, but he was not broke beyond the track when we got him. All he knew how to do was run in a straight line.

“A good friend of mine’s wife started Jesse James for us to get a better handle on him. Then my buddy Ryan Gatewood rode him on the ranch. Then I sent him to Kollin VonAhn. Steph got him going on the barrels. But when Jesse got too strong on the barrel pattern, Steph said, ‘Why don’t you start heading on him?’ We had to make something out of him, he cost us $1,000.”

That was, of course, said with a smile on Coleman’s face, and the training tacked onto that blue-light special price tag was not cheap. Still, what a bargain Jesse James has become. 

“I started heading on him when he was 7,” said Coleman, who just turned 39 on August 30 about the now-12-year-old Jesse James. “I roped some extra steers at a jackpot early on, and he was outstanding. He’s short-strided, and can haul ass. I took him to a California round-robin roping that was all about catching over New Year’s in 2018, and won it on him. That horse has always been a winner.”

Before Jesse James became a rodeo horse, he was the one Coleman was most likely to put you on if you happened by his place and wanted to head or heel a few. 

“He was just easy,” Coleman said. “I had lessons guys heel on him. When Jesse James really got to coming on was when I was roping with Motesy (Ryan Motes) in 2019. We won The American, so I came home. I circuit rodeoed with my good friend Griffin Passmore at the Prairie Circuit rodeos instead of going to the Northwest in the fall. That’s when I started hauling Jesse. 

“Jesse’s first rodeo was Vinita, Oklahoma. There was a big mud hole, and he ran around it. But we placed in the second round and average. That fall, when I was prepping for the NFR, is when Jesse James became great. Mind you, I had Heisman and Admiral. But Jesse felt so sharp. He felt just a touch green when I took him to town for my NFR roping, so I left him home. But by then, I felt like I was on to something.”

Proctor joined forces with his current partner, Logan Medlin, in 2021.

“Admiral was hurt for the first time, and Heisman got sick,” Coleman remembers. “Logan had just made his first Finals on his 2020 Horse of the Year Drago. And I was down to Jesse James. I was like, ‘Alright, big boy, this is your time.’ 2021 is when I threw him to the wolves.

“We had a good winter, but Jesse got a little frazzled and needed a break. He had his first meltdown in the box after he banged his hocks on the butt bar that was a little low leaving the corner at a roping. I fought that all spring, then took him to the Northwest that fall after giving him a break, because I had Heisman back in the rig and was working Jesse through it.”

Tiffany Wagner goes with Coleman all the time, and is a cousin to 2019 World Champion Steer Wrestler Ty Erickson. Tiffany’s who suggested Coleman talk to Ty about those box problems. 

READ: 5 Headers on Keeping Horses Cool in the Box

“I was wondering how a bulldogger was going to help me with my horse in the box,” Proctor said. “Ty taught me a lot about how to make a horse comfortable in the corner. Anyway, we got through that, and that fall (2021) I had three rodeos left at the finish line—Amarillo (Texas) with Logan, Stephenville (Texas) with Thomas Smith and San Bernardino (California) with Kyle Lockett. 

“I rode Jesse James at Amarillo, and we won good. I rode Heisman at Stephenville, and airballed it. Tiffany drove Jesse to San Bernardino, because with my NFR life on the line I wanted to ride Jesse James.”

Jesse came through, albeit an unlikely hero.

“We had to win fifth or better in that last perf at San Bernardino for me to make the Finals,” Coleman said. “I looked at Jesse James and said, ‘You’re an amazing animal. Let’s go show ’em how special you are.’ I missed the barrier, but that horse tried to break his shoes in half getting to that steer. I dropped the hammer, and Jesse went next level to get me there. I had to reach, but I think we won third. We got the Finals made, and headed back home.

READ: 2023 NFR-Qualifying Head Horse Pedigrees

“Jesse James has always stepped up big when I need him. He can have an attitude, but he’s always on your team. If he was human, he’d be the friend who’s always one phone call away.”

Jesse’s fought back from some small injuries Coleman calls “silly.” 

“Coincidence or not, he only takes a lame step when I price him to somebody for big money,” Coleman grins. “I think I’m just meant to own this one.”

—TRJ—

The post Just Meant to Be: Coleman Proctor & Jesse James appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

The toughest ropers in the world, back when Michael Jackson was moonwalking and Apple was promoting its first computer, knew squat about bloodlines. But even then, according to Hall of Famer Tee Woolman, all somebody had to say was “Harrison horses” and they knew they were good ones. 

Quietly, for almost 90 years, the Harrison Ranch has produced some of the best rope horses in the world. Over the past few years, those include (to name just a few) the heel horse on which Steve Purcella split a $178,000 Finale check, the head horse turned 2023 AQHA/PRCA Steer Roping Horse of the Year, the defending Head Horse of the Mike Cervi Jr. Memorial Pro Classic and the champion heel horse of the #13.5 at the latest Cinch USTRC Finals. 

Most breeders whose babies grew up to chase NFR steers in the 1970s aren’t also responsible, presumably, for the maternal line of current greats like Time To Glo, the team roping stallion that earned $132,187 last year as a 4-year-old.  

So, how does a program that started in the 1930s still have such a major influence?

It has to do with Texas tycoons, the strategic cowboys that worked for them and some unbelievable mares. 

Oil and cattle

Daniel Harrison, according to a 2014 Forbes article, in 1903 started building the family’s oil and ranching empire across West and South Texas. With large spreads, including one near Catarina that grazed 30,000 head of cattle, he needed to supply plenty of ranch horses. 

Harrison started breeding them on his ranch near Sonora before the AQHA was even established. He was later joined by his son, Dan Harrison Jr., and in 1952, the Harrisons tapped Jesse Gonzales to run the overall horse program at their ranch in Fulshear, just west of Houston. 

The program was anchored by King and Old Sorrel blood, including a 1959 grandson of both called Les Glo. He was a big, strong stallion that hadn’t been broke to ride until he was at least 7 years old. Then Gonzales started cutting on him and he became the 1968 AQHA champion. Soon, the outfit began breeding Les Glo daughters to popular studs like Colonel Freckles and Docs Sug. 

“When you saw a rope horse with that TYT brand, you didn’t know if you could ride him, but you knew he’d be big and strong and fast,” said nine-time NFR heeler Tyler Magnus. 

Les Glo descendants could be a handful. To create that particular stallion, someone had crossed King (son of a Mexican racehorse) with a half-Thoroughbred King granddaughter (Hyglo) and bred the result, King Glo, to a granddaughter of Old Sorrel—a stallion with great cow sense. The Gonzales family, three generations strong, stuck to those attributes in their breeding decisions and put the reins in the hands of the right buyers. 

“Those were cowboy horses,” recalled Hall of Fame header John Miller, who showed horses in Texas in the 1970s. “And those Gonzales boys were cowboys.”

Putting out unicorns

Gonzales’ four sons Jesse Jr., Joe, Robert and Richard all helped their dad make horses starting in the 1970s, and they also had sons and daughters who roped. John Philipp, who’s been ensconced in the team roping universe for a lifetime, helped Jesse Jr. show the rope horses starting in the late ’70s. At one time, he said  Harrison horses were simply the best out there. He still recalls hearing the legend of how Gonzales Sr. only hauled Les Glo to three cuttings—the Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Houston stock shows—and the horse won all three before they kicked him out to breed.

One of the stud’s best daughters, Les Glos Sue, had King/Old Sorrel blood on both sides and was phenomenal in every event. There used to be a photo of her brother on a wall in the home of Barry Burk, the late Hall of Fame calf roper who also headed at the 1968 NFR. That horse could get back on the end of a rope as easily as he could clock a 19-second pole bending run or win a reining pattern. Horses with that kind of blood aren’t easy to find, Philipp said.

“They were real quick-footed,” he added. “That Les Glo had a big foot and big bone. But he was super athletic. Anything that had Les Glo in them at that time were a little watchy on the ground, but the colts were never real fractious about the box. I had one they’d roped a few calves on; I rode him two weeks and hauled him to a team roping jackpot. That’s how quickly they made. Probably the best head horse I ever rode was out of a Les Glo mare by a War Leo stud.”

Incidentally, today’s all-time leading dam of multiple futurity winners was also out of a Les Glo/War Leo granddaughter. Look At Her Glo’s breeder, Bobby Lewis, was impressed enough with her mother, Leo Night Glo, that he bought an entire herd of mares just to get her.  

Looks matter

For the Harrison Ranch, the Gonzales crew also raised a gray stud named Skipastarsky by halter horse Skipa Star out of a King/Old Sorrel mare that became the 1983 AQHA High Point Jr. Heel Horse. Gonzales Jr. won team roping jackpots on him as a 4-year-old. 

“My dad was a master at selecting the right mares,” said Jesse Gonzales III, who goes by “Jr.” He also helped ride Harrison horses in the 1980s, and his sister, Becky Gonzales Cook, worked for the Harrisons until 2013. “His cross with Skipa Star was just to refine their looks. He had a steadfast belief that those Harrison mares could be bred with any stud and still produce remarkable offspring.”

Philipp wasn’t as enamored of that line, but said he sold one to Marc Stureman that Gary Poythress won Salinas on. Skipastarsky threw big hips and pretty heads on his offspring; his dam, King Moores Dora, was said to be a tough ranch mare with a big heart. Two of Skipastarsky’s offspring were Bryan Fields’ Ima Star O Lena, the 2003 PRCA Steer Wrestling Horse of the Year, and One Black Starsky, the super-stout 2000 NIRA Steer Wrestling Horse of the Year that kick-started the career of Hall of Famer Luke Branquinho.

The Harrison Ranch’s goal for decades was to breed for versatility, and one of their most magic crosses resulted from a Les Glo mare on Colonel Freckles.

“I jackpotted around a lot of those Les Glos Colonel horses, and they were all massive and just so fast,” Magnus recalled. “Some of them were kind of hot, but they were just so athletic for as big as they were. And they were all pretty—real clean throatlatches and mostly bays and grays. They were big, fast and pretty.”

Bob McClelland rode the Harrison-raised Skipa Red Glo at the 1991–92 NFRs in team roping. George Strait reportedly bought a couple Harrison horses over the years. In fact, about 23 years ago at one George Strait Team Roping Classic, three horses off of the Harrison Ranch placed in the average, according to Jesse Jr.’s son-in-law Jeff Cook. They were so good-minded that 14-time NFR heeler Monty Joe Petska could visit Fulshear, climb on a colt with just days of riding and beat everybody in an informal donkey roping. 

“I remember hearing that the Harrisons never kept a broodmare unless she had AQHA points,” marveled Petska, who heeled at NFRs on two different Harrison horses. “When I first went there, I saw like 120 mares. It was like going to the candy store to look at all those awesome colts.”

He figures he rode about eight colts out of Fulshear over the years, all quality horses.

“I had a bay I called Rayman and so many people tried to buy him and wanted to know what he was,” he said. “You just don’t get that style horse anymore—big bones, big butts and big bodies but still quick-footed and athletic. Cory [Petska] rode Rayman twice and won like $35,000.”

Strategic decisions

When Jesse Sr. relocated to manage another Harrison spread in 1974, Jesse Jr. became the equine manager at Fulshear. 

“The first Jesse Gonzales kind of put it all together for the Harrisons,” Philipp said. “And his boys were raised in the middle of those horses. I couldn’t believe how good those horses were.”

Jesse Jr. ran the Harrison equine operation for more than 40 years and his brother Richard broke thousands of colts in the Fulshear round pen. When he returned from Vietnam, Richard joined the 15 or so cowboys clearing Harrison’s 127,000-acre ranch outside Catarina of maverick bulls. Gonzales was delighted to spot a black mare in the string that he’d started back at Fulshear. 

That ranch was adjacent to the famous Light Ranch where Phil Lyne was hanging out, since his wife was raised there. Lyne, one of the most decorated rodeo cowboys of all time, got Gonzales into steer roping. That’s when Richard—the biological father of Hall of Fame roper Cody Ohl—took that black Harrison mare to the NFSR as a PRCA rookie in 1980 and again in 1990 when she was 24. Lyne also rode a tough Harrison horse, and Slade Wood’s Son Ofa Doc (by Doc Acre Glo) was the 2023 Steer Roping Horse of the Year.

Clearly, Harrison horses were always in demand. But Jesse Jr. was very selective about who could show up at Fulshear and buy a colt. Not just anybody could walk in there and get one, said Philipp.

“Jesse had to call you,” he remembered. “If you didn’t go through him, nobody was doing any business. That’s the way it was. Jesse made sure he knew where those horses went.”

Many went was to other giant remudas in Texas. Guys like Buster Welch and the Bramans brought mares. The King Ranch sent several mares to Fulshear to be bred to Les Glos Colonel. Today, King Ranch’s stud Coronel Del Rancho—the 2021 World Champion All-Around Junior Horse at the Versatility Ranch Horse World Championships—is out of the Les Glos Colonel daughter San Gris Girl, whose 4-year-old son recently won the King Ranch’s entire colt competition. 

“Those horses could run,” Philipp said. “It was kind of a cutting horse that was the size of a head horse. You didn’t see those big mares even back then. Most cutters weren’t big enough or didn’t have enough foot or bone about them. But Les Glo, he produced so many horses standing 15.1 and weighing 1,250–1,300. Big, athletic horses.”

Today, the phenomenal mares that once grazed under the oak trees at Fulshear have been relocated. According to Forbes, the late Dan Harrison III sold the Sonora ranch to Meridian in 1990 for eight figures and leased much of the Catarina ranch to Shell in 2010 for 10 figures. But his wife, Rosemary Harrison, still raises cattle on her ranch near Cuero and still keeps the family horse legacy alive, 48 years and counting.  

After a 75-year run, the Gonzales family is out. The current manager of Harrison Horses, barrel racer Tyler Rivette, is phasing the program solely into the barrel racing industry. It’s lucky for team ropers, then, that sly breeders like Lewis and Philipp have held on to key mares with Harrison breeding. The Philipp Ranch still breeds a few mares wearing the TYT brand on the left hip, with a production sale Sept. 7, 2024, in Bryan. And the King Ranch will offer a 3-year-old out of San Gris Girl in its Return to the Remuda sale, also in September. 

Thus, some Harrison influence remains, more than 50 years after Les Glo gave team ropers size and speed to go with intelligence and cow.

—TRJ—

The post Cowboy Horses appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Douglas Rich has been to the Big Show before. He wore his first Wrangler National Finals Rodeo back number heeling behind Coy Rahlmann in 2021. Herrick, Illinois, native Rich, who now has a second home in Weatherford, Texas, has been having a record year in 2024 with Oklahoma’s Jake Smith. As with any team, it’s all about what’s in the trailer for this tandem. Surf’s up in the world standings, and Rich doesn’t know what he’d do without the trusty gray he calls Malibu. 

“It’s been going unbelievable, really,” said Rich, 29. “I’ve never had this much money won at this time (Smith and Rich had already won about $60,000 a man by the third week in June going into Reno). Hopefully, we can just keep doing our job and stay after ’em. But we’re in a great spot, and it’s been a blessing. Houston is where we won the most money, and I was riding Malibu there. That was great momentum for us early on.”

Rich also rode “Malibu”—Seven Sun is 14—to the team roping title at Kid Rock’s Rock N Rodeo at AT&T Stadium in May, which helped their World Champions Rodeo Alliance’s Free Riders win the team title there.  

“I bought Malibu five years ago, in 2019,” Rich said of the sturdy 15-hand, 1,100-pound gelding. “He was originally raised at the 6666 Ranch, but I bought him from Paul Eaves. He’d already been hauled quite a bit when I got him.” 

Rich was in the market for a heel horse, and liked what he saw.

“I needed one, and Malibu was a pretty physical horse,” he said. “He was a little weird, but he could run and was tough. He’s just quirky. He can be the gentlest horse in the world. But then you lead him up to a wash rack or get him in a tight spot, and he might pull back or go sideways on you.

“I like Malibu’s run. This horse is fairly fast. He’s not like Jake’s big sorrel (Guns) fast. But he’s above average speed. He usually rides the turn pretty easy, and he always gives me a good throw. I can ride him anywhere, you just need to pay attention on the ground.”

Rich bought a bay by the name of Cockys JR Shine in March to back Malibu up.

“Junior’s 11, and I got him right before the BFI this year, and rode him there,” he said. “I really like this bay, and rode him at every rodeo out in California this spring. He’s so good and easy to catch on at the longer setups, where it’s more of a jackpot-style run.”

So yes, ironically, Malibu sat out the California run. And at press time in late June, Rich planned to call on Junior over the longest scores in rodeo at Salinas and Cheyenne in July. 

“The horses are everything, and I’m blessed to have the two horses I’ve got,” Rich said. “If you can have a good horse that’s on your team and doesn’t mess you up, it makes your job so much easier. If you draw a steer that makes it hard, and your horse gets in your way, you’re taking a 50-50 shot. If your horse helps you, it’s just such an advantage. It’s nice to have two horses I feel like I can ride anywhere.”

Rich didn’t ride Malibu at the 2021 NFR. But he’s the horse he made it on. 

“I rode him a lot that year to make it,” he said. “Then I ended up riding Paul Eaves’ bay mare in Vegas—the horse Colter Todd rode at the Finals last year.

“Malibu was the only horse I rode in the Northwest in 2021. It took me a little bit to get used to him at first because it was a different style than what I was used to. But we’re a great fit now. And he takes the hauling good. He doesn’t get buddy sour, he’s an easy hauler and he eats and drinks good out on the road. In the middle of the summer is when Malibu is at his best. He does better when he’s tired, and is at his best when he’s being hauled and ridden quite a bit.”

The headers are the quarterbacks, and the head horses make more than half the headlines. But as times get tougher, and checks keep getting harder to come by, the heel-horse bar continues to rise. 

“You used to be able to get by on a heel horse with average speed,” Rich said. “Anymore, when the steers run and are strong, and with heel barriers at some events and more guys reaching everywhere, it’s hard to outrun the head rope when those guys reach and turn steers so fast. All the headers go at ’em about everywhere anymore, so a person has to have a fast heel horse nowadays.”

Winning is always fun. And when the horses and humans in a rig all get along, success rates also rise. 

“Jake and I are really good friends,” Rich said. “We get along great, travel easy together and talk a lot, so we can make a plan and talk about what we want to do. It makes it so much easier when you’re roping with someone you can laugh with, even when you don’t do good. Jake and I both know we get to run another one tomorrow, no matter the outcome today. What could be better than roping with a good friend and riding good horses?”

—TRJ—

The post Douglas Rich: Riding High on Malibu Wave appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

The October 2024 issue of The Team Roping Journal will feature a special preview of rope horse stallions for the 2024 breeding season, with extra distribution at both the Riata Sept. 25-29 and the American Rope Horse Futurity Association’s World Championship in Fort Worth Oct. 16-19.

The Breeding Season Preview Issue will mail to all 44,000 subscribers of TRJ by Oct. 1, and it will have extra distribution on site at the ARHFA and Riata for the thousands of spectators and participants to see at the John Justin Arena and Lazy E. It will mail to subscribers poly-bagged with the TRJ’s coveted Arizona Guide, too, making this one of the magazine’s premier issues of the year.

“We’ve made a commitment to helping expand the rope horse business through our annual Breeder’s Guide, and we’ve already seen spectacular growth in that sector,” TRJ Editor Chelsea Shaffer said. “Giving stallion owners, breeders and trainers a special showcase to promote their programs in October will put these horses in front of the most engaged audience in the entire industry, at a time when breeding and training great horses is at the top of everyone’s mind.”

The issue will also feature a special section highlighting rope horse trainers and help horses, showcasing all sides of the rope horse industry.

The Team Roping Journal is the official media partner of the American Rope Horse Futurity Association and the Riata Stallion Incentive.

For booking space at the Futurity Preview special rate, contact Nick Griggs at 806-622-2225 or email ngriggs@equinenetwork.com; or Kayla Lombardo at 704-242-2553 or email at klombardo@equinenetwork.com.

The post October 2024 TRJ to Feature Special Breeding Season Stallion Preview appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

After a successful winter and spring worth $50k by May, Jake Smith has secured his first top-10 spot in the world heading standings and has his best shot yet at hurdling the National Finals Rodeo-cut wall that’s kept this Broken Bow, Oklahoma, cowboy home in Decembers past. Being three deep in horses has everything to do with Smith’s 2024 success, and his No. 1, Guns, has been firing. 

More Guns Less Roses is a stout 9-year-old sorrel who stands 15.3 hands, and pushes the scales at a sturdy 1,200 pounds. 

“Guns is the horse I ride at the longer-score rodeos with averages,” Jake said. “We won good at Logandale, Red Bluff and Clovis this spring with me riding Guns, and I’ll ride him at rodeos like Reno, Casper, Sheridan, Salinas and Cheyenne this summer. Guns and Flinty—which is the horse my brother (and two-time champ of the world) Clay rides that belongs to his father-in-law, Jason Richey—have the same brands. 

“They were both raised by Reliance Ranches, then bought by Trevor Brazile, then Wyatt Imus, then Kaleb Driggers. I see all these brands on Guns, and think those guys must have thought something of these two horses to stick their brands on both of them.

You wonder why Guns has passed through so many hands, but it goes to show you that just because somebody else doesn’t get along with one doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying him. You need to get on one to see if it’s a fit.”

Guns and Flinty went separate ways when Driggers sold Flinty to Clint Summers, who then sold him to Richey. Driggers rode Guns awhile, then traded him to 2D Rope Horses. 

“I bought Guns from 2D, which is Cheyenne Dorris, in Stephenville in the spring in 2023,” Jake said. “I was headed to Clay’s house to practice one night after San Angelo, and he asked me to pick up a couple horses from 2D they were wanting to sell. We got them saddled, and Clay said, ‘You need this one more than I do, so you ride him and see if you want him.’ I ran five steers on Guns that night, and could instantly tell he was more head horse than I had. It was a few days before the BFI, and Cheyenne told me, ‘If you say you want him, consider him yours. I’ll bring you the papers at the BFI, and a handshake’s good with me. Pay him out however you can.’”

The horse upgrade helped Smith get Guns paid for pretty fast. 

“If there was one horse I couldn’t do without, it would have to be Guns,” Jake said. “And he’s my go-to horse at the jackpots, for sure. It’s pretty simple—he scores really good, and he’s really fast. Guns is a straight running-bred own son of Valiant Hero. But it’s crazy how cowy he is. 

“If a steer checks off or comes to me, he cows to him and sticks his head over to the cow. That was making me miss my slack sometimes. I knew they were going to laugh at me, and call me an Okie and a hillbilly, which I am. But at the WestStar Roping in Ellensburg last September, I found a hay string and tied it from the bit on the left side to the D-ring on my girth on the left side, just tight enough to where Guns couldn’t turn his nose to the right. Me and Paul (Eaves) won second at the roping that day, and I’ve never looked back or taken that hay string off since.”

Smith, 31, says Guns gets “juiced up” around big crowds, “but when he gets to the head box, he doesn’t move.” Smith and Illinois native Douglas Rich, who heeled for Coy Rahlmann at the 2021 NFR, joined forces in May 2023. Smith’s 28^th-place finish last year was his best before now. Jake and Doug are buddying with Clay and Coleby Payne in 2024, and both were top-10 teams at press time in May, with Jake handling the entering.  

“The ways Clay has helped me are too many to count, and this horse deal with Guns is just one example,” Jake said. “Since we were little, Dad (Mark) always told us, ‘If somebody’s got some kind of advice, put it in your bag. If it helps, use it. If it doesn’t, it never hurts to try.’ So we listen to what everyone has to say. But having Clay, who knows all the ins and outs, in my corner is amazing. 

“One of the things I’ve tried to do in the last year or so is always try my best, but always smile, whether I catch or miss. The first year we rodeoed, when I was heeling for Clay, we buddied with Dustin Bird and Paul Eaves. Bird was the guy you couldn’t tell if he caught or missed as he rode out of the arena. He was going to have a smile on his face and talk to you, no matter what. Learning that has really helped me, like when I warped the high-team steer for Doug at the World Series Finale last December. At the end of the day, there are way more important things than roping and rodeoing, and God lets us do what we love.”

This is the second year Jake’s rodeoed hard as a header. 

“I tried the heeling deal awhile, and just didn’t have the success I was looking for,” he said. “Clay told me, ‘You need to head,’ and that kind of sealed the deal for me. The good Lord put Guns in my hands when he’d passed through so many others, like it was meant to be. He’s just good.”

He might not be suited for the Thomas & Mack, but he’s sure helping Smith try to get there. 

“The rodeos aside, Guns has made a night-and-day difference in my jackpot heading,” Jake said. “He lets me catch up fast and rope on the gain. He’s not for little buildings in tight spaces. But Guns is great everywhere else.”

The other two horses Smith’s hauling these days include a 12-year-old sorrel grade gelding he raised and calls Reminic, because he’s by a Reminic clone. Smith considers him his third-stringer and is most likely to ride Reminic at fast setups. 

Friendly rounds out Smith’s remuda, and is an experienced veteran they think is 20 or 21 that Smith has a lot of faith in.

“Friendly’s the older chestnut horse I rode at Fort Worth, San Antonio and Houston, and won Corpus Christi and the Kid Rock rodeo on in May,” Jake said. “Chad rode a palomino at his last NFR when he roped with Joseph Harrison (in 2022), then got on Friendly there. Chad sold him to Luke (Brown), who rode him last summer, then I bought him from Luke in December. Friendly’s been there and done that. And let’s face it, our horses are almost everything at this level.”

—TRJ—

The post The Horses at the Heart of Jake Smith’s Career Year  appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Miles Baker and Lil Bit O Cash got the win in the 4-&-Under Heeling at the American Rope Horse Futurity Association’s Cowtown Classic, marking a 696.89 to win $6,459 for the Open win and another $2,320 for the Intermediate.

Lil Bit O Cash is by Lil Joe Cash and out of Quick Lil Texan by Sugar Bar Buckaroo, and the 2020 gelding is owned by Dasco Cattle Co.’s Atlee Snyder. Before the Cowtown Classic, Baker had won $29,369 on the horse he calls Ringo.

“I showed him there last October, so it’s been nine months since he won $15,000 in that same arena at his first show,” Baker said. “He was so green, I had a pattern I stuck to. Even when I won the futurity in Buckeye in February, I set him up like a greener horse. What’s changed about him is that I can ride him like a real heel horse now. The steers were super fresh and wild this weekend, and I wanted to be able to have a swing over their back and not lose momentum if I needed to. He let me ride good enough position that if they took a good jump on the first or second hop I could rope, but he let me come through there and keep forward momentum if I needed to, too. He’s gone from being a good patterned colt to being able to ride him like a real heel horse. That was about as full-contact as you can get. And there was nothing about those runs that were predictable. It was exciting for me leaving there knowing he’s progressed.”

Baker’s goal is to get Ringo ready for Snyder’s teenage son. Snyder bought the horse with the long-term goal of having a good one for his son to ride eventually, but that ‘eventually’ might come sooner rather than later given the horse’s user-friendly style.

“Atlee’s such a good client,” Baker said. “He’s super cool and knows the ups and downs. He’s been in the race horse industry, and he knows there’s more loses than there are wins, and he’s just excited when there are wins. His son is going to come stay and rope on him this next week, and he’ll ride him and show him in the non-pros the rest of the year.”

Watch all Baker’s training videos on Roping.com

Baker started Ringo tracking calves in the breakaway in the spring of 2023, and since then he’s used the Relentless Remuda’s training program to develop him slowly but surely into a top-level talent.

“I put him in game-type situations at home, and I see how he reads them, and I make adjustments,” Baker explained of the horse’s training program. “If I put him in an aggressive position and he doesn’t read the cow checking off, I pull him down and make sure he’s thinking on his own. At the futurities you don’t have time to help a horse and to win on them. You can’t do both. You can’t win if you’re having to help them through every run. I put them in game-type situations and make sure the fundamentals stay really good.”

—TRJ—

The post Lil Bit O Cash, Miles Baker Win Again at ’24 ARHFA Cowtown Classic appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Kaleb Driggers and Junior Nogueira are having another Fourth-of-July run to remember in 2024, on pace to break their 2022 Cowboy Christmas record thanks to a new mount—Hot Freckled Leo—that he found just weeks before leaving for the summer run.

In 2022—Driggers’ and Nogueira’s last world championship season that set nearly every earnings record in team roping—they earned $35,152 a man over Cowboy Christmas. With their Ponoka win included (on borrowed horses), Driggers and Nogueira are on pace to outdo themselves in the Cowboy Christmas team roping record books. They have won $29,972 before they rope at Prescott July 6 and before they collect their average and go-round checks at St. Paul and their one-header check in Eugene.

“We needed to do some good,” Driggers, 34 and a new dad to Ledger as of the end of May, said. “We hadn’t been going too much, though. We went and got our circuit rodeos in, and we went to the winter rodeos and did just average. Junior was out for a couple of them, and the summertime rodeos suit us better to kind of get the ball rolling and running steers everyday.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Team Roping Journal (@teamropingjourn)

The horse responsible for much of Driggers and Nogueira’s success on the head side is a 2009 gelding by NCHA Hall of Fame stallion Spots Hot out of the Freckles Playboy daughter Freckled Leo Girl, bred by Houston’s Falcon Seaboard Ranches and ridden the last two years by Texas switchend-hand Ty Arnold and owned by Justin Hammond.

On the horse Driggers calls “Cowboy”, he’s already won the second round in Greeley, Colorado, with a 3.6 worth $4,206 a man, and won second in Red Lodge, Montana, with a 4.0, worth another $4,230 each. As of July 5, Driggers and Nogueira were leading the first round at St. Paul, Oregon, with a 4.8-second run, were fifth Round 2 with a 5.4, and leading the average with a 10.2 on two head with one set to go.

Driggers and Nogueira, with Cowboy on the head side (and Nogueira’s trusty Timon and Lucky Bucky on the heels), won second at Basin City, Washington, with a 4.1 (the payout hasn’t posted yet), and they’re winning fifth at Eugene, Oregon, with a 4.4. They have Prescott, Arizona, left on Saturday, July 6, to end their Fourth-of-July run.

“Cory Kidd told me I needed to try this horse,” said Driggers, the 2021-2022 PRCA world champion. “I went down, ran five steers and spread the ink.”

That was June 11—just a week before Driggers pulled out of his Stephenville, Texas, driveway for Reno.

Driggers and Nogueira weren’t perfect with the new mount in Reno, but by the time they got to Greeley, Colorado, Driggers had it dialed in. They took a no-time on their first steer there, but when they made their viral 3.6-second run in Round 2, they’d gotten things figured out.

“I’ve got with him better,” Driggers said. “I talked to Ty Arnold a lot about how he rode him. We just talked about how he scored him mainly in different scenarios. He scores good, can run, has good foot speed and he handles cattle well, plus he’s like a kid’s horse to be around.”

—TRJ—

The post Driggers & Nogueira in Record-Setting Form Over ’24 Cowboy Christmas with Help of Last-Minute Head Horse Addition ‘Hot Freckled Leo’ appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

The jury is still out on the top earning team ropers over the Fourth-of-July run, but one heel horse is out front as one of the top-earning mounts as of July 3: Trey Yates‘ Marlboro Cat.

On Marlboro Cat, Yates won $14,390 for third at the Ponoka Stampede, and Nogueira jump-rode the horse in the final two rounds to get the win and pick up $8,000 of his $17,131 weekend. Yates, behind Jake Cooper Clay, is also winning Mandan, North Dakota, with a 4.4, and he was 4.9 at Red Lodge, Montana.

“He’s just a winner,” Yates said. “My dad saw something in him, and this winter I made my mind up that’s what I was going to ride, and I rode him pretty well everywhere. He takes the hauling well, and he’s just good.”

Marlboro Cat is a 10-year-old gelding raised by TCross Ranches, by Cowtowns Cat out of Charmin Melody by Charmin Jose. J.D. Yates showed Marlboro Cat to win the ARHFA Sun Circuit in the heeling back in 2020, worth $8,750, earlier this year Trey won the Heel Horse of the BFI Bronze on the gelding.

The chestnut gelding is an adjustment for Yates, though, who spent most of his career on his signature bay 2006 gelding, Romancing The Chics. “Dude” is the horse Yates won the 2018 NFR average title aboard, but he’s been recovering from an injury since halfway through 2023.

“Nobody will compare to Dude,” Yates said. “If I can make the Finals, I’ll ride him there and that will be it.”

It’s been on Marlboro Cat that Yates has placed along all of 2024, and as of July 4 inside the top 15 in the PRCA world standings with $43,254.75, not including the money he won in Ponoka or any rodeos yet to end over the Fourth.

—TRJ—

The post Yates’ New Superstar ‘Marlboro Cat’ Pulls Double Duty in Ponoka for Nogueira Win, Leads Mandan appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Kolton Schmidt is rodeoing on the Flag Ranch-bred futurity superstar mare Carters Won Time Out in 2024, just one year after the horse won $30,046 in Royal Crown heading earnings under A&C Racing and Roping‘s Rhen Richard.

On Carters Won Time Out, Schmidt won Vernal, Utah’s Dinosaur Roundup Rodeo, Stavely, Alberta’s ProRodeo and split the win at Grand Prairie, Alberta’s ProRodeo, and he’s picked up checks at Sisters, Oregon, and High River, Alberta. That brings her PRCA total to $13,590 in just her first month of competition outside the futurity pen.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Team Roping Journal (@teamropingjourn)

“Rhen’s a big brother and has been as long as I’ve ever known him,” Schmidt, a two-time NFR qualifier, said. “And we’ve always talked horses, and he’s always had his opinion on my horses, even when I didn’t want it, which I’m thankful for. He’s a true big brother, and this winter, they told me about her, that she would fit me.”

The Richards decided they’d part with the mare, and they priced her to Schmidt when he was driving home from the California run.

“I flew down there, and I ran three steers on her,” Schmidt said. “And it was just obvious that she fit me. She’s what I’m after.”

Both Kaden, who rode Rhianna most of her career, and Rhen, who’s made six NFRs, have slowed down their rodeo careers, and Rhianna’s skills are well-suited for PRCA competition.

“She lets you pull on her in the box,” Richard explained. “The way roping is today, roping softer-type cattle, the barriers aren’t as long, and she’s 14.3-15 hands, and she’d work great in today’s rodeos.” 

Her nature in the box and ability to score is one of Schmidt’s favorite things about her, and while she has a motor on her, he sees her being especially fit for setups like Calgary’s Rocky Mountain Cup.

“She kind of feels like that might be more her go-to,” Schmidt said. “She’s got run and stuff like that, but she’s just so easy across the mouth of the box that where I need to use my rope, she gets the steer’s head so fast and shapes him up so good that anything like that I think she’s going to be substantial at.”

The 6-year-old by One Time Honor and out of Carters Time is proof of the successful program the Richards have built, something Schmidt has believed in for a while.

“The whole program over there is cool,” Schmidt said. “From Trinity (Haggard) putting the feel in them, to Kaden’s slow work, to all the extra stuff that Rhen can do to them. As a whole, I’ve always been a fan and now getting to ride one and compete on one, I’m definitely a believer.”

In 2023, Schmidt lost his legendary gelding Tuffys Badger Chex, aka “Badger,” the horse that carried him to his 2013 Canadian ProRodeo title and first NFR qualification in 2016. While replacing the 2016 AQHA/PRCA Horse of the Year is impossible, Schmidt finds qualities in Rhianna that remind him of Badger while still acknowledging her traits he’s never had in his herd.

“If there’s any horse of mine that she compares to, it’s Badger,” Schmidt said. “The way she’s built, the way she scores—that’s the closest thing I’ve ever owned to him. But other than that, I’ve had run, but I haven’t had cow also. Her mixture is what I’m after.”

As for future breeding plans, Schmidt has them in the back of his mind. But for now, Rhianna will be hitting the road with Schmidt.

“I’m going to leave her be for just a little bit, but that was exciting that she was a mare and she fit me because, obviously, the end result is that I can have a program and have some horses to base it off of,” Schmidt said. “But for right now, I’m going to be selfish about it, and I’m going to worry about getting back to winning and win as much as I can.”

Schmidt and Rhianna head next to the 2024 Reno Rodeo short round Saturday, June 29, where Schmidt and Landen Glenn are tied for third, fourth and fifth.

The post ‘Carters Won Time Out’ Proves Futurity-to-ProRodeo Pipeline Works for Kolton Schmidt appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Riding a horse that suits you—your style and stage of riding and roping—has so much to do with both your success and how much fun you have. Horsepower is everything at every level of the game, but the right fit between horse and human can be even more important than having what might technically be considered the very best horse. And for ropers young and old at each end of the age spectrum, riding the right kind of horse is an important safety factor also. 

Affordability is a major factor when shopping for a horse. The good news is a horse doesn’t have to be fancy or super expensive to be of value to a kid or older roper. We all want the very best horse our money can buy. But I sometimes see parents pull the trigger too quickly on a horse that’s not what their son or daughter needs in the early going. 

While everyone wants their kid to have an edge, overmounting your young roper is one of the most common mistakes I see parents make. Most kids don’t have the riding skills to handle a high-powered horse in the beginning. If your first horse is too aggressive and strong, you’ll be pulling all the time and will learn to be heavy-handed, which is not the goal.

READ: What Makes a Good Team Roping Horse?

If your first horse is too old to want to move much, and a kid has to whip and spur to get him to even untrack, it can teach that kid to be too aggressive. I like to see kids get some riding experience and horsemanship skills before they ever rope horseback. It’s just a safer, more successful way to go about it.

My first horse was a Shetland pony. There are some good ones, but based on my childhood I’m not generally a big fan of those little outlaw suckers. They’re hard to get broke, a lot of them are runaways and it can be dangerous if a kid rides up behind a big horse and gets kicked. 

There’s nothing much more important than a kid’s first horse, and a basic model that teaches a kid how to turn and stop is a good place to start. A lot of kids want to run their horses everywhere, but without basic horsemanship skills they don’t know how to operate the brakes. Everyone wants their kid to be the next Trevor Brazile, and to ride the best, fastest horse. But I think if you look all the way back, Trevor rode some safe, basic models as a kid that taught him the things that took him to the top. 

READ: Top 10 Traits of a Horse for Lower-Numbered Headers
READ: Top 10 Traits in a Horse for Lower-Numbered Heelers

When the goal is a safe, suitable horse, it’s buyer beware on online bargains that really are too good to be true. Some horse traders are more reputable than others, and as parents, it’s our responsibility to weed through the lies that could be dangerous if you don’t see through them. 

A lot of the same traits apply to horses for older ropers. As we get a little longer in the tooth—I turned 65 this year—it’s not quite as cute if a horse crow-hops. If a horse grabs his butt at my age, I’m puckered up and reaching for the saddle horn. I don’t want any part of hitting that hard ground. 

Depending on riding and roping level, an older roper might want a little more run than a kid’s horse. But I’ve always been a fan of horses that are a little older, in that 12 to 20 range, and I’m no longer willing to spend hours loping one down to take some of the spunk out of him before we rope. I’ve had two knee replacements, and have aches and pains now, like everybody else. I want a horse I can just go run a few on without having to keep him saddled all day. 

READ: Do Not Disrespect Older Horses

A horse that isn’t chargy and is just nice and smooth to ride around makes it so much more fun. And if I don’t ride one today, he better not be fresh and humpy tomorrow. I have no interest in a horse that spooks at every trash bag that blows across the parking lot, or is scared by the sound system at the roping. So an older horse that’s been there, done that and seen all the sights makes sense. 

There were times in my career—like the early years I rode Bullwinkle, who acted more like a bulldogging horse than a head horse—when I made some sacrifices for a horse with quirks because I could win on him. There were times in my life when I tolerated trade-offs if a horse was talented. If I needed to spend all afternoon scoring, steer stopping and pulling a log, so be it. But conquering a renegade is of no interest to me now.

—TRJ—

The post The Many Advantages of Age-Appropriate Horses appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Canada’s Graham brothers—Dawson and Dillon—are making their move up the rodeo ranks. The 2022 Canadian champs finished 19th and 16th in the world last year, respectively, and are looking to close the deal on their first Wrangler National Finals Rodeo presented by Teton Ridge in 2024. As is the case with all world-class teams, their rise in the roping world has a whole lot to do with the horses in their trailer.

“It could always be better, but it could always be worse,” big brother Dawson says of their 2023 NFR near miss. “The day it happened, and we finished just short, a guy was pretty bummed out. But then at the same time, you think of all the screw-ups you had, and realize that maybe making it isn’t as hard as you think.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Team Roping Journal (@teamropingjourn)

“At the end of last year, I was like, ‘Man, I messed up some easy ones for money, and it would have made the difference.’ If a guy just does his job, it’s going to pay off in the end.”

These two have always been tight, and they’ve competed alongside each other since the beginning.

“From a young age, we’ve done everything together—baseball, hockey, everything,” said Dawson, who’s 25 now and less than two years older than Dillon. “We’ve been on the same team all our lives. Dillon’s always been super talented, so he always played up a league and was by far the youngest guy on the team. The nicest part about roping with your brother is having the same goals, and always having a partner to practice and enter with.”

A horse you can count on is equally important, and Team Graham is two deep at both ends.

“A good horse is one that doesn’t ever cost you any money,” Dawson said. “If I know what my horse is going to do every time I get on him, it eliminates the hardest part of roping. Having a good one just makes your job so much easier.”

Dawson is Team Graham’s quarterback, and his first stringer is Chex Yer Gun, a 12-year-old palomino he calls Outlaw for a reason.

“He’ll paw you, he might pull back, he’s kind of hard to saddle and he’s hard to shoe,” Dawson grinned. “He doesn’t like his back feet being picked up, so he goes barefoot in the back. I think I last trimmed his back feet about four years ago. Outlaw’s not the easiest horse to get along with on the ground—thus the name.

“Outlaw’s got some quirks. But he doesn’t ever take your throw away. He might not be the fastest horse, but he’s not going to duck on you and take you out of it. He might not score like a rock, but he’s going to give you an easy go every time. He’s the same horse every single day, and I’ve had him forever.”

Dawson bought Outlaw as a 5-year-old from one of his best friends, Tristin Woolsey.

“Outlaw’s pretty user friendly to head on, and I ride him in pretty much all conditions,” Graham said. “The only place I’ve not ridden him is Pendleton, and there was no reason not to ride him there, really. He was there, and I was going to ride him there this last year. But I had my other horse there that I can get back shoes on. So I decided to ride her there, with ice nails all around.”

Outlaw got the call from Dawson’s wife, Cora, last December, and she won $80,000 on him with a third-fourth split in the #10 roping heading for Jake Howe at the Ariat World Series of Team Roping Finale in Las Vegas.

DT CashNHannah, a 14-year-old sorrel mare Dawson calls Hannah, is who got the nod on the grass at Pendleton.

“I like Hannah at the longer scores, but I’ve been riding her about anywhere I don’t have the yellow, too,” Dawson said. “It’s nice to have a second set of horses, for times like when we need to leave horses in Canada. I’ve ridden Hannah at Pendleton, Cheyenne and Salinas, but both of my horses can go about anywhere.”

The same can be said for little brother’s heel horses. Dillon’s No. 1 is Coys Smokin Jet. Cruze is a 12-year-old bay he bought in June 2023.

“Cruze has been pretty special,” Dawson said. “He’s good everywhere, and he can run and stop. He’s one of the best heel horses going right now. Cruze came from one of our best friends up in Canada, Keely Bonnett. I think he’s won heel horse of the year up there four years in a row now.

“Dillon knew Cruze, and had ridden him a few times before he bought him. Keely and his brother, Logan Bonnett, were our buddy team in Canada before we started going to the PRCA rodeos.”

DT Sly Axel Dunnit is the second heel horse in Team Graham’s trailer. Axel’s a 14-year-old brown gelding that backs up Cruze when called upon.

“I really like this set of horses we have,” Dawson said. “There’s a saying that you’re one bad luck from only having one, so the name of the game is always staying on the lookout for the next one. If you run short on horsepower, you can only do so much with your rope.

“Both of our second stringers came from JD (Yates will be inducted into the ProRodeo and AQHA Hall of Fame this year), and he was nice enough to let us take them and ride them before we decided to buy them.”

It’s all systems go for Team Graham both North and South of the border, and the trailer’s as loaded with talent as the truck.

“Dillon and I have been trying to get where we make the same run every time,” Dawson said. “We’re good if we just need to catch, and pretty good at going fast. Our weakness we’ve been trying to work on is the middle game—where you can be 4.5 to a long 5 every time, consistently, no matter what happens.

“Dillon and I have both headed and heeled enough that we know each other’s jobs are hard. So there are never any death glares when something goes wrong. We feel good about our horses, and we feel good about our team.”

The post The Horses at the Heart of Team Graham appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

There are lessons to be learned about life all around us, if we listen. Golf and roping are hard games that teach you humility, patience and self-control. Both are about managing your thoughts, making a game plan and sticking to that plan. One of the things I love about golf is that it takes 18 battles to wage the war. One of my favorite parts of roping is the horses, and the rewards of what they teach me. 

READ: Applying Golf’s Positives to Roping 

When you start wanting to get good at your roping, you don’t think about the horse that much. It’s all about the roping. I went through a lot of horses early on in my career with that mentality. My plan back then was to rope 100 steers a day, and I expected my horses to take that and then be ready for all the jackpots every week, too. Treating horses as tools when I was young taught me a lot of things that were helpful as my career progressed, and I learned to be better than that.

I learned compassion, and that there is a stopping line. If you burn your horse up in the practice pen, he’s not going to be ready and reliable at the roping or rodeo.

I learned patience, especially when dealing with a younger, greener horse that doesn’t yet understand the pattern and what I’m wanting. Horses are going to self-preserve and protect themselves if we put them in bad positions. Patience gives a horse time to learn what we want from him, so sometimes we need to slow things down and evaluate what we’re asking a horse to do, and how. Don’t be quick to reprimand a horse when he doesn’t know what you want yet. 

I learned that repetition is the key to locking in consistency. If we’re repeatedly doing something in error, our horse will do it wrong. If we do it right repeatedly, he will learn to be right on the money. 

I learned that just like people, every horse has his own personality. I have several younger horses I love to ride every day, and have a different strategy for each one. Some horses are laid back, confident and trusting. Others are fearful and have anxiety issues if we mess with them too much. I evaluate each horse psychologically and deal with them as individuals. 

I learned that the traits bred into horses today are more specialized than ever before and that there will be things to deal with based on what a horse is bred to do. A cutting-bred horse is bred to be fearful and unsure of cattle. We need to help them get past that fear factor that’s bred into them. It will take time and patience to press through certain areas. 

I learned from studying horses the importance of conformation. If you’ve made a living on a horse for very long, you understand that a horse’s bone structure and feet all have a part to play. Some horses with a lot of heart will try to power through problems, but how a horse is made and built typically comes into play as a durability factor. So I learned to look at those things when buying young prospects, before putting in all the work on one that’s less likely to last. 

READ: Riding Is as Important as Roping at the Highest Level

I learned the importance of athletic ability in a horse. Some are smooth and catty with every foot in place. Others aren’t as blessed athletically. They can still be good—and often make great horses for lower-numbered ropers—but the special moves it takes to make it at the highest level are not as easy for them. 

I learned a lot about friendship from my horses. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten really attached to them. I don’t think of them as tools anymore. My horses become my friends now. They all have unique personalities, just like us, and I see them as gifts from God. 

I have horses that meet me at the gate when I have the halter. LB (the bay Clay bought from Kory Koontz) was like that. He wanted to go do something every day, and he wanted to go on the adventure and get it done with me. That connection with horses is one of the great rewards in my life that make me rich. Money in the bank doesn’t make me rich, but my connection with these horses that I enjoy every day does.

WATCH ON ROPING.COM: How To Build A Relationship with Your Horse

—TRJ—

The post Life Lessons Learned From Horses appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Cory Petska has earned a career-long reputation for riding good horses. The 2017 world champion heeler, who roped at 15 Wrangler National Finals Rodeos between 2003 and 2018, has a wife who shares his passion for raising, training and riding great horses in four-time World Champion Barrel Racer Sherry Cervi. They rope and run barrels on all their horses, and one of the current stars of their program is a 9-year-old grey stallion they call Potter. 

MP Dineros Woodpatch is Potter’s registered name, and his sire was PC Frenchmans Heyday. You’ll remember him best as Dinero, the big palomino Sherry rode at the NFR in 2005-06, who sired both Sherry’s superstar mare Stingray that she rode at the Finals every year from 2009 to 2015, and Hailey Kinsel’s sensational Sister. 

“Dinero was a good fit for the breeding program my dad (Hall of Fame timed-event cowboy Mel Potter) already had,” Sherry said. “Potter’s mom was MP Rosewood, who was by Lone Drifter, who’s the foundation of my dad’s whole breeding program and came from (1946 World Champion Team Roper) Chuck Sheppard. Potter’s mom goes back to Lay A Patch, which was Troubles’ (the grey Sherry won the world on) breeding, and Stingray’s mom was a three-quarter sister to Hawk (Sherry’s great bay she rode early on in her career).” 

Mel actually sold Potter as a yearling, and his second owners gave him his barn name. Australian-born horse trainer Lee Deacon showed Potter as a reined cow horse, before Cory and Sherry bought him back two years ago, when he was 7.

“Dinero (who was a full brother to Kristie Peterson’s great barrel horse Bozo) had passed away not long before Mel sent Sherry and I to Oklahoma to look at Potter as a possible replacement stud,” Cory explained. “This horse had never been heeled on. I heeled on him one time—three steers—and he already knew what to do. I told Sherry right then, ‘We need to buy this horse, he has something special.’”

Here’s a little-known fact for you: Cory also made the Finals on Dinero twice, but didn’t ride him there because of how ropers are stacked in tight, head to tail, in the lead-up lane behind the boxes at the Thomas & Mack Center in Vegas. 

“Dinero was a great stud to be around, but putting him in that position as a stud would not have been fair to him,” Cory said. “A lot of guys step off of their horses and leave them back there loose, and he’d have been so fired up by the time we got to the heel box that it just wouldn’t have been fair to ask him to focus on his job.”

Potter has his dad’s easygoing disposition, and carries this program’s trademark DMP brand on his right shoulder. I asked, and that brand stands for Wendy Potter (Mel’s wife, Sherry’s mom and Cory’s mom-in-law) if you turn it upside down. Potter took Best Heel Horse honors at the 2024 Mike Cervi Jr. Memorial Pro Classic Team Roping, which was held in honor of Sherry’s late first husband in Casa Grande, Arizona, in February. 

“Potter is my dad’s whole breeding program in one horse,” Sherry said. “All the horses I’ve ridden and been successful on show up in his papers, including Dinero and Troubles. He has the foundation of the Potter Ranch program on both sides. Cory and I bought him back to use, like we did Dinero, and I was entered on Potter in the barrels within a couple months.”

“Dinero was amazing, and Potter’s so much more broke than Dinero was,” added Cory, who’s won more than $2.5 million roping steers. “They’re both really fast, but because of his cow-horse training, Potter is up in his shoulders and uses his butt so much more. That’s a big advantage for him.”

Cory says Potter is absolutely rodeo-caliber, and he and Sherry do plan to rodeo this summer, as she’s been having success in the barrel race on a couple of Stingray babies.  

“It would be the coolest to get to ride Potter at the NFR,” Cory said. “I still to this day regret not getting to ride Dinero there. It would be awesome to ride his son there. But with the way that alley is, I don’t know if I’d ever be able to ride a stud there.”

There are five studs in the Potter Ranch program right now, including Potter, Alone Drifter, MP King George and two 2-year-olds out of Stingray by Epic Leader. Like Potter, most of the babies from these Marana, Arizona-based bloodlines are sold as yearlings. 

“Mel rode horses with bloodlines at the base of this program his whole career,” Cory said. “He stayed true to his beliefs in his foundation, and what those horses could do. We’re raising good-minded horses that are sound and make great rodeo horses that can do any event you want. Potter and his cow-horse training proved they can also be great beyond rodeo. 

“Sherry and I rope and run barrels on all of our horses, because we feel like it makes them better horses and keeps them better-minded. We ranch on all of them also, and doctor cattle on them in the pasture when they’re 3 and 4 before we put any pressure on them. Our goal is just to raise great horses that’ll do whatever you want to do.”

—TRJ—

The post ‘Potter’ Busy Doing Petska and Cervi Proud appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Trevor Brazile jumped into the rope horse breeding business in 2021 with both feet. Since then, he’s moved to the forefront of the industry, but along the way he’s learned a few lessons he can pass on to help newcomers to the game. 

1. Horses are like rabbits. They add up really fast. You’ll decide to start breeding a mare and, before you know it, you’ll have a weanling, a yearling, a 2-year-old and a 3-year-old out of her and have tens of thousands in expenses before you even know if the mare is a good producer. The first time we had a stallion, we couldn’t find enough broodmares or get enough flushes. But now, we know it’s almost better to have fewer horses and make sure they’re in the right hands to get quality time and training spent on them. 

2. Did I mention the bills can really add up? You get used to certain costs of doing business as far as roping and having horses, in general, and then that couple months during breeding season those costs go up exponentially. You almost don’t prepare—you assume you know, but there are a lot of extra fees other than the stud fee and recip mare. There are times they miss, times they abort. You don’t win, but you still win the bills. 

3. Don’t take babies on the ground for granted. It doesn’t always happen perfectly. There are certain crosses I want that sometimes end up being the hardest to get live foals. So much can go wrong that, when you do get a foal that works out, be thankful.

4. Seek counsel. I’ve learned that it is good to think outside the box in some areas. But it’s also good to seek wise counsel when it comes to breeding and crossing. There’s so much that goes into breeding that you don’t think about. Try to learn lessons from people who’ve been in the business and tried different crosses, different strategies. It will take three years to find out you made a mistake on a cross. Those years can stack up before you really feel like you have the crosses figured out. Some people don’t enjoy riding anymore at that point. It’s truly something that needs to have wisdom passed down. Your counsel might not have everything figured out, but they’ve figured out a lot about what not to do. 

5. Play the incentive game. Incentives are huge. You need to do your homework. There are some incentives that are so new, you don’t know if they’ll have staying power. And there’s only so many things studs can buy into right now. I love the opportunity that’s out there, but there’s only a few that will be able to sustain the ups and downs and growing pains of the market. Stallion owners can only do so much, and there will be two or three that really stay and stand the test of time. Finding good counsel on which incentives matter and which incentives are worth your investment is key.

6. Do your homework on colt-starters. There’s way more competition for 3-year-olds than I’ve ever seen. I think there’s demands in all of it, but part of the reason 3-year-olds are so tough to find is that there aren’t enough great 2-year-old guys. I don’t think that the industry knows where to go to find those guys who do a great job, who you can trust and count on their product annually. 

7. Weigh risk vs. reward when deciding to sell or keep. The only thing that’s better than selling a 2-year-old is selling a yearling, and the only thing better than selling a yearling is selling a weanling, and the only thing better than selling a weanling is selling an embryo. Every stage has a cost. Some risk is worth the reward of keeping one, but that’s what has to be weighed. If you don’t sell a horse because you’re holding out for an extra $5,000, did you the factor in the risk of keeping it, feeding it and then having something happen to it? 

8. Invest in a good reproduction facility. I feel like a lot of people get burnt spending the money on stud fees and recips and then they have sub-par veterinarians trying to catch this lightning in a bottle. Using an inexperienced vet will give a lot of people a bad taste in their mouths. Go to a reputable reproduction veterinarian that has all the means and equipment necessary to up the odds of having a live foal. As a stallion owner, I think a lot of the failed attempts were because you were going to people who don’t normally breed on a daily basis. There’s more to it than people realize, and it requires a good reproduction team. 

—TRJ—

The post 8 Hard-Learned Breeding Lessons appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Joseph Harrison might only be a part-time professional Open roper these days, but the six-time NFR heeler is using his reps when he does go to the biggest jackpots in the country to season his futurity horse—last weekend’s TX Best Derby Champion Doc Joe Frost.

Doc Joe Frost and Harrison, 36, won the TX Best Derby in Decatur, Texas, April 13, with a score of 329.69, worth $7,460—just two weeks after competing on the long score at the Lazy E Arena in Guthrie, Oklahoma, at The Feist. That brought the horse—who is by Joe Jacks O Lena out of CJ Doc Frost by Doc O Dual—to QData earnings of $12,960, with very limited showing.

Watch the entire BFI Week streaming ONLY on Roping.com

Where did Doc Joe Frost come from?

Just about a month before the 2024 BFI, Harrison, a 6-time NFR heeler, bought Doc Joe Frost—a 6-year-old red dun he calls “Newt”—from Kaden Lappe, who works for Harrison at his place in Marietta, Oklahoma.

“I liked him when he was a 4-year-old,” Harrison said of the horse raised by Clint Whipple of Saint Francis, South Dakota. “Kaden and his girlfriend owned him, and Kaden won good on him that year at the Futurity in Fort Worth in both the intermediate and limited.”

Newt and Lappe won the ARHFA’s Limited Heeling World Championship in 2022, and they placed seventh in the intermediate that year, too.

But the horse got into a wreck in 2023, slicing open his hip and his back on a broken gate. His recovery was long and arduous, so nobody saw the horse in town all last year. When Lappe was ready to sell him this winter, Harrison stepped in to try to help.

“I called around and tried to trade him off for Kaden, but nobody had seen him,” Harrison said. “The ones who had a chance to see him, it had been over a year, and they’d have to take my word he was good. Nobody even came to try, so I bought him off Kaden myself. It’s just a good little horse.”

Harrison is quick to credit Lappe for putting in all the work on the horse, making him one Harrison could essentially jump ride at the BFI.

“He’s got good timing, he’s real easy, and he’s a real forgiving little horse,” Harrison said. “I just thought man, Newt, is real naive, he’ll be real forgiving. If a steer hits funny and gives me a funny jump, he’s real easy to take another swing.”

Harrison rode Newt until he and Shane Philipp went out of he average on their fourth steer, with Newt exceeding Harrison’s expectations throughout the roping.

“I’m not sayin he’s a race horse, but I got to turn in on three steers on him at the BFI, and I didn’t draw one loper,” Harrison laughed. “I could hit the turn in a good place and be able to set it down the back side of the first jump into the second easy. He’s a gritty little horse.”

What’s next?

Harrison is focused on the futurities again in 2024, but he’ll head to some Prairie Circuit rodeos with fellow horse trainer Shane Philipp. And Newt will likely be on the trailer.

“I’m just going to keep him for something to help on, jackpot on and ride him where he fits,” Harrison said. “Every once in a while, I may take him to a show. If I’m going to take a bunch of customer horses, I won’t ride my own over my customer horses. We went to that deal to check it out and see how it was going to be, and it turns out, it was a good little deal. The steers were great, the setup was plenty good, and it was the best set of steers we’ve roped at a futurity so far on the year.”

—TRJ—

The post Joseph Harrison’s Futurity Horse is Doing Double-Time at the Biggest Open Jackpots in the Game. appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

You heard about the Kelton siblings banking $121,630 from turning steers in March. But did you know they did it all on the same horse? Or that the homegrown, grade, yellow mare was a straight-up accident? 

Of course, Chance and Tammy Kelton’s kids, 20-year-old Kenzie and Ketch, 18, make them proud—but that mare is special. Since before Chance headed steers at three NFRs and tied them at five NFSRs, his dad Willy Kelton had always kept a few mares around to breed horses for use on their ranch near Mayer, Arizona. But the babies quickly turned into arena horses once the Keltons decided to breed to Walter Bob Baxter’s stallion with its Driftwood blood.

READ: Déjà vu: Ketch Kelton Bags Second Jr. Ironman Championship and $21,750 

Fourteen years ago, Chance hauled their home-raised mare Buttermilk to a ranch rodeo for the team tying and, just days later, she surprised them with a foal. Kenzie, then 6, named the resulting “catch-colt” Peaches, and Chance got stuck with her. 

“The kids weren’t ready for horses, so I sold all her siblings as 4-year-olds, but nobody wanted to buy a mare,” recalled Chance, who put the first ride on Peaches and did all the training before seasoning her and turning her over to Kenzie. 

“She’s super smart,” he said. “You could lead her to an arena, and she could watch you practice and then be able to do it.”

Chance just went to using her. He hauled Peaches to ranch rodeos and team-tied, tripped, roped calves, headed and heeled on her. He figures she stands about 15.1 hands and weighs 1,100 pounds. 

Peaches is the one that put Kenzie in the second-callback position to clinch the same prestigious NHSFR title earned by both her dad and uncle: Chance was the national high-school champion header in 1993 with Brandon Wallace and his brother, Clay, won it two years later with Trey Miller. Kenzie and Ketch went 5.9 in that 2022 NHSFR short round but had to settle for second when another Arizona team went 5.8.

What’s even more remarkable is Kenzie also made the NHSFR in both the breakaway and goat tying on the mare. When Kenzie decided to go to cosmetology school this year, Ketch, who’s always heeled, decided he should borrow Peaches. 

Ketch headed on Peaches to win the Jr. Ironman on March 2. Then, he grabbed a few thousand bucks more on her for second in the Open at the NTR National Finals. On March 22, he hauled Peaches to Texas to cash in on $6,400 at the World Youth Team Roping Championships before banking $14,785 five days later at the Hooey Junior Patriot in Fort Worth. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Team Roping Journal (@teamropingjourn)

In Guthrie, Ketch and the mare earned $39,000 for first and second at the Hooey Jr. BFI and another $39,000 for third in The Feist. In the meantime, Kenzie showed up and got on Peaches to win the All-Girl for the second straight year, plus, she  placed at the Oil Capital All-Girl in Oklahoma City to earn $14,000.

So, the burning question: Did Ketch pay his sister mount-money? 

“Not really,” laughed Kenzie, who lives in Wickenburg. “He gives me calves to practice on, and he gave me like a thousand bucks. So he does, here and there.”

Not only is Peaches short-strided, which makes her easy to rope on, but she’s mortally fast and listens—she’ll respond no matter what you ask her to do. She will not, however, allow you to shoe her hind feet. The Keltons couldn’t even put boots on those hind legs for years. She keeps to herself, Kenzie says, and doesn’t show much personality or really like people. But she loves her job. And she’s good at it.

READ: Kelton and DeSalvo Claim the 2023 BFI All-Girl Team Roping

“The coolest thing about her is you can take her to a World Series roping where it’s nod-and-ride, and then take her to the BFI and she’ll score like that,” Chance said.

What’s also amazing, he said, is that he can hop on her after years and she feels like she did the day he got off her. Usually when a horse goes from, say, an elite header to a young woman, positioning is different.  

“I think she just knows it’s me,” said Kenzie, who had no problem jumping on Peaches in Guthrie without any practice. “When Ketch rides her, she rates farther back and stays a little wider, plus she’ll come up the arena harder. When I get on her, she’s the same with me as she’s always been. I rode her in the All-Girl right after he placed in the BFI on her, and she felt the same as the last time I’d ridden her two months earlier. I swear she just knows.”

Out of their barn full of outstanding mares, Peaches is absolutely the best according to Ketch, who convinced his high-school and BFI partner, Denton Dunning, to go to Cisco College with him this fall.

Peaches is 14, so Kenzie likes to save her for the big money and not, say, the hundred-dollar slides. Regardless, the mare has been 100% sound her whole life. Kenzie had opportunities to sell Peaches this winter but said she couldn’t do it.

“Dad asked me how I’d ever replace her,” she recalled. “And he said, ‘We can make more.’”

The idea of harvesting eggs from the phenomenal Peaches is tantalizing. In fact, just as the BFI short round started, Chance threatened to turn her out and only breed her the rest of her life if Ketch won the BFI.

The post Homegrown ‘Peaches’ Carries Kelton Siblings to $125K in 1 Month  appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

In a testament to the explosive growth of the rope-horse futurity and breeding industries, Colby Lovell and Dakota Kirchenschlager paired up at the 2024 Bob Feist Invitational on a team of standout, incentive-enrolled gray stallions—SEVS Judgement Day and Metallic Payday—to win fourth and $59,000 against 127 of the best teams in the world.

The 2020 PRCA World Champion Lovell was aboard the 2015 stallion SEVS Judgement Day, a son of Judge Cash out of Dancing Kaweah Jet by Gray Dancer. The horse, just purchased by NFR switchender and Reserve World Champion Clint Summers and partner Griffin Marshall, is a Royal Crown roping and barrel racing, Pink and Ruby Buckle Young Guns and Riata Buckle-enrolled stallion, now with over $50,000 in lifetime earnings.

Kirchenschlager, a three-time NFR heeler and ARHFA world champ header, rode Kaleb Driggers’ Metallic Payday—the 2023 ARHFA Reserve World Champion Heel Horse by Metallic Cat out of Another Playgirl by Freckles Playboy. Metallic Payday, a 2017 model, had won $63,294, per QData, before his BFI debut. Metallic Payday is Royal Crown roping, Riata Buckle and Gold Buckle Elite Stallions eligible.

“I think the BFI is the true testament of horsepower,” Driggers said. “The barrier is long and the cattle are strong, then mix in having to do that six times. Let the steer tail around the end of the gate then ask them for everything they have, and, while doing that, they have to be responsive to your hand and listen. Neither horse has been in that extreme a setup, and for them to back in there and take it time after time with no bobbles speaks volumes to me about their mindset. We already know they have the speed and athletic ability to do it, or we wouldn’t put them in that situation. But what they did Saturday was impressive.”

SEVS Judgement Day

The BFI was Lovell and SEVS Judgement Day’s big-stage debut. The horse had a great career with prior trainer Cody Hilzendeger, winning the Limited Open Heading at the Royal Crown in Buckeye in 2022. The stud also stood out in the barrel racing, placing at major futurities from coast to coast, including the BBR Finals and the BFA.

Previously owned by Hull Lantern Ranches, SEVS Judgement Day sold at the Barrel Futurities of American Sale in the fall of 2023 to Lovell—the same guy who, coincidentally started Metallic Payday in the heeling. Lovell took him back to the roping pen and was immediately impressed.

“I thought he was a real deal head horse from the first steer I ran on him,” Lovell said. “He can go anywhere, and I think he can be one of the best head horses at the highest level.”

Lovell took him to the Clay Logan Open, where he turned plenty of heads. Two days later, Summers tried the horse, and four days later, he and Marshall owned him.

“He looked like exactly the kind of horse I want to ride when my money is up,” Summers said. “He scores, he can really run, but he stays in control and handles the cow. He’s a freak facing. I’m ready to ride him, but I want Colby to continue to season him because it’s obvious he’s doing all the right things. I’ll just be patient, but our goal is to showcase him on all the biggest stages in the sport and offer him to select mares that will continue to elevate the rope horse game.”

Metallic Payday

Metallic Payday needs little introduction. The ARHFA Reserve World Champion has been grinding it out on the futurity trail, finishing his show career in 2023 with Kirchenschlager. He’s been doing double duty between the breeding barn at Outlaw Equine and the Open jackpots with Kirchenschlager.

“I have really enjoyed the journey with Payday, but the most exciting part is yet to come,” Driggers said. “His babies are short-backed, big-boned, clean-throat latched, good-footed colts, and 95% of them being grey doesn’t hurt anything either.”

Payday first showed as a 3-year-old at the ARHFA World Championship with Lovell, and then he went into the hands of Driggers. Driggers showed him, as did Junior Nogueira and Andy Holcomb before Kirchenschlager took the reins.

At the Feist, Kirchenschlager showcased the stud’s run and cow behind tougher draws than most, handily letting Kirchenschlager get to one that hooked left along the wall.

—TRJ—

The post Lovell and Kirchenschlager Ride Superstar Team of Jam-Up Gray Studs to $59K at 2024 BFI appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Brooke Wilson has established herself as the queen of riding one through the sale ring in the last five years just as the rope horse market has exploded.

Wilson, 36, of Canyon, Texas, is a wife, mother and 5.5 header who won more than anyone else at the first Riata Buckle in 2022. She and her husband Rodey have topped the Horse Sale at Rancho Rio the last three years, and they’re consistently ringing a bell at the major rope horse sales across the country.

In this episode, Wilson talks about how Wilson Cattle Co. came to be and how they became one of the industry’s premiere sellers of World Series of Team Roping horses. She also analyzes where the rope horse market is from her perspective, and she talks about the impact the Riata Buckle is having on their program.

—

This episode is presented by Genuine Billy Cook Saddles – the finest handmade saddles and tack, the fairest prices – world famous since 1953, Billy Cook saddles continue to be built in the USA by horsemen for horsemen. In 2020 Genuine Billy Cook was revitalized and has been operating under a new business model aimed at producing the highest quality to ensure maximum performance while keeping true to western horsemanship traditions. The finest handmade saddles and tack, the fairest prices. Genuinebillycook.com

The post Horse Market Report: Brooke Wilson’s Horse Sale Dominance appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

SJR Diamond Billy is the newest bad-to-the-bone buckskin in NFR average champion Cody Snow’s rig, and the standout son of CD Diamond will back into the box March 30 at the Lazy E for the 47th edition of the Bob Feist Invitational.

SJR Diamond Billy has won $75,083 per QData, all in judged earnings under NFR heeler and ARHFA Champ Billie Jack Saebens. Until this week, Shane and Jessica Boston’s Southern Ranches owned the 2018 gelding out of Billies Smooth Cat, a daughter of Smooth As A Cat. But after the horse stood out yet again in Houston at the American Rope Horse Futurity Association’s event mid-March, Shane was determined to get the 15.2-hand gelding on an even bigger stage.

“I called Cody, and I wanted to see him go to the BFI,” Shane said. “I asked him if he’d ride him, and he said he’d try him. He rode him at Clay Logan’s a few days, and he asked if he could take him to that Open of Tyler Wade and Wesley Thorp’s, and he fell in love with him.”

“Once I rode him at that roping, I had to have him,” Snow added. “I haven’t felt one that felt as good as him since Annie was young. She’s been a career horse for me, and this horse is bigger and stronger than she is. I think he’ll be perfect for the second half of my career. All I know is that horse wins all the time. I was always wanting him, but I never try to spoil myself buying the best ones. I tried to talk myself out of it, but I needed to do it.”

Snow, 27, from Los Olivos, California, won the NFR average title with Wesley Thorp in 2019 and qualified from every Finals from 2016 to 2022, missing it in 2023 after struggling with horsepower all year. His mare Annie—registered as Ima Fresnos Dee—was the AQHA/PRCA Head Horse of the Year in 2021, but after spending more than half her life on the road, she needed to spend less time on the road. Snow’s ridden her much of the winter 2024, however, putting him inside the top 15 with $32,384 won by the end of March with new partner Hunter Koch.

“It’s dang sure made a big difference seeing how much I win every time I get on her,” Snow explained. “That made me change my mind about spending more money on a good, reliable horse. This horse is only 6, and I can ride him for 10 years. This is his last year for showing, but with the Gold Buckle and everything else you can show him in, he can make a lot winning just this year. All I have to do is get out and turn them and he’ll score good. He wants to score good and run hard, and Billie Jack did a good job training him. He’s had a lot of pressure put on him, and that gave me the confidence to buy him and trust that he’ll work in the situations I put him in.”

Saebens is excited about other young head horses he’s got in the hopper, complementing his string of elite heel horses headlined by stallion The Notorious BIG. Plus, he’ll get to see SJR Diamond Billy with Snow at the rodeos, as Saeben will head out for the summer with Coy Rahlmann.

Check the Entire 2024 Futurity Calendar, presented by The Notorious BIG

“Whether I trained him or somebody else did, or whether Snow bought him or somebody else did, he’d go on and be good. He has so much control. He’s young still, but he never loses control. He might think about getting quick on one, but you just pick him up, put him where you want and tell him what you want him to do and he pretty much does it. He’s going to score good, and he’s fast enough and he rates the cow well enough, and he’ll look really good there for sure. It will be neat to see how good he is in all the other situations because I think he will be good in any situation. I’ve roped on him at BFI-type stuff at home, where I see the steers out a long ways and make him get up there and slow down. He should be fairly prepared.”

RELATED:

• SJR Diamond Bond and Rhen Richard Win Second Consecutive Royal Crown 4-&-Under of 2022
• Richard and SJR Diamond Bond, Rice and First Class Vintage Claim Royal 4-Year-Old Titles in Buckeye
• San Juan Ranch
• SJR Diamond Billy & Billie Jack Saebens Get 6-&-Under *Heading* Win for $39K at First Gold Buckle Futurity
• ARHFA Intermediate Heeling World Champion: Custom Diamonds Whiz and Gabriel Salgado

—TRJ—

The post NOPE, Different Buckskin: Cody Snow to Debut Southern Ranches’ Futurity Standout SJR Diamond Billy at Bob Feist Invitational appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Early in the 2024 edition of The Horse Sale at Rancho Rio, presented by Tito’s, auctioneer Steve Friskup dropped the gavel to the ring of $180,000 on Saturday, March 16, 2024, at Lot 8 with a 6-year-old red roan gelding Rusty Peptoboosmal riding through the sale ring.

That horse just so happened to be consigned by Brooke and Rodey Wilson, of Canyon, Texas, making this their third consecutive high seller of this prestigious sale. Their first-ever high seller was in 2022 when they sold Sportin Roscoe (“South Point”) for $200,000, and in 2023 when they sold TRR Kadabra Kat (“Honkey Tonk”) for $160,000.

Wilson sells good horses to good buyers

“I can’t believe it,” Brooke Wilson said. “It’s nerve-racking because you don’t really know what’s going to happen, or who is going to show up or if there’s something better that they’re waiting on. You just have to bring a good horse and see what happens.

“Twizzler is probably the most different of the other ones,” she continued. “He was the easiest of the three to ride, I think. ‘South Point’ was a lot more horse in every way. ‘Honkey Tonk’ was in the middle. He was easy. It’s kind of crazy how they all are. I ride every horse the same and I want them to have the same feel, but they are different. It’s hard to explain. I just kind of let the horse do the talking I guess.”

Rusty Peptoboosmal, known as Twizzler, was sold online to Javier Rodriguez, who purchased Honkey Tonk in the 2023 sale. In the same fashion, Rodriguez jumped online and bid through the Superior Livestock Auction.

“I didn’t try to do it again, I promise,” Rodriguez joked about purchasing the high seller two years in a row. “Twizzler is something else. When I had seen him, I was blown away.”

Roping on Rusty Peptoboonsmal

Unlike Rodriguez’s 2023 purchase which was made site unseen, he made the call to Brooke to come meet her in person and try Twizzler.

“He actually came out to ride him,” Brooke said. “I went back and watched his videos of him riding him over and over and that horse was unbelievable for him. He’s a #3 [roper] and that horse made him look like a #6. It was unreal. I’m just so glad he’s going to someone that’s going to enjoy him.”

Rodriguez also appreciated how well the horse worked for him.

“She told me, ‘You can run 10 steers or 100 steers, it’s not a problem,’” Rodriguez added. “So I went and roped just a few steers on him and he was perfect. I just couldn’t believe how good he was. I was kicking him and pushing buttons that I probably shouldn’t have, and he made it work. That’s way I was sold.”

Rusty Peptoboonsmal’s roots

Unlike the conventional Wilson Cattle Co. trained horses, Twizzler had a different training program. The Wilson’s acquired Twizzler a few years prior to the sale after seeing him at a jackpot being roped on by Levi Parker, who initially started him in the team roping.

“When you see a horse that looks like Twizzler, you go ask about him and see if you can take him home,” Brooke said. “He was still pretty green on the head side. They just heeled on him.”

Having purchased a horse that had already been started is a little out of the norm for the Wilson clan, as they typically purchase horses to start themselves.

“We just got to go on and enjoy him,” Brooke said. “We don’t buy very many horses at all that have already been started, but I had seen that kid rope on him, and he was cool. His looks alone are so amazing. Then to go win on him—that’s hard to find.”

Winning with Wilson

And win they did. Brooke won the #10.5 on the head side at the Riata Buckle on Twizzler in 2022. Twizzler then was on the winning team of the exact roping in 2023, this time on the heel side.

“Even at the Riata Buckle the first year, I was pregnant. We had Rio (Brooke and Rodey’s now 10-month-old son) and then Rio got to hang out on him and ride him,” Brooke said of Twizzler. “I’m not saying he’s the most talented horse that we’ve ever had, but he’s the winningest horse. It doesn’t matter who rides him.”

Wilson Cattle Co. wisdoms

After enjoying the gelding herself and watching close friends and family find success on him, Twizzler’s new owner Rodriguez hopes to find the same success after taking his time to bond with the horse.

“I’m going to get to know him and ride him at my house and maybe take him to a jackpot,” Rodriguez said. “These horses just have to get used to the way I ride and the way I rope. Honkey Tonk knows how bad I screw up and he makes up for where I lack. I think Twizzler is built the same way.”

With the confidence knowing they sold the horse to a good home, Brooke has time to reflect what makes the Wilson Cattle Co. so successful and the is having a strong team being them.

“We have True Lacina that works for us full time, and he’s been awesome this year. I can depend on him. He’ll heel steers for me all day,” Brooke said. “He’s never one time asked me, ‘How many more are you going to ride today.’ That means a lot.

“The Lacinas have been a huge blessing to us. They are great friends of ours and Westin is 14. He helps us ride the horses and helps show them for me when I want to do videos. Then I have Sami Mcguire; she does a lot for us with videoing. And my mom, Tracey Hughes, she has been here the last month helping with Rio, and I couldn’t have done this without her.”

Along with having a team of people in your corner, if you ask what the makes the Wilson Cattle Co. training work so well, Brooke will say, “A good horse, I guess. Something you can win on. I swear every year the competition gets harder and harder. If you don’t have a good horse, you aren’t going to win. We bring our best here that way we can actually enjoy being out here all winter. And then we sell them when we’re done. I hope I get to own another one like Twizzler. They’re hard to find, and it’s fun having a great one.”

— TRJ —

The Riata Buckle Ropings are available on Roping.com

• 2022 Riata Buckle on Roping.com
• 2023 Riata Buckle on Roping.com

The post Riata Buckle Champ Rusty Peptoboonsmal Tops Rancho Rio Horse Sale, Nets $180K in Wilson’s 3-Year High Seller Spree appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

There’s been a familiar four-legged face out on the professional rodeo trail in the early going of 2024. His name is Bartender, and he’s the blue-roan badass Colby Lovell won the world on in 2020. Two-time Champ of the World Kaleb Driggers has been at the wheel since cracking Bartender back out at Odessa in January. Why would Lovell, who’s home ranching and raising a family, let a buddy borrow his heart horse? Easy answer if you know anything about the heart that beats in this cowboy’s chest.  

“Bartender gave me what everybody chases.” — Colby Lovell

“I’m not rodeoing, and I know how much that horse loves it,” said Lovell, 36, who’s been busy building a beautiful place on old family land on the Trinity River near Midway, Texas, which is about 20 miles from Madisonville. “Bartender’s just been turned out in my pasture, and my little girl (Colby and Kassidy’s Jewel is 10 now) has been loping him around the barrels. Driggers got ahold of me and asked about him, and Kaleb’s one of the guys who’s a businessman and really takes cares of his stuff. 

“Driggers knows what that horse means to me, my wife and my little girl. I trust Kaleb, and he’s going to do whatever it takes to try and win the world. Some guys want to beat a dead drum. Not Kaleb. He’s always looking for the next advantage, and Bartender’s one of the few turnkey head horses out there. He’s been there and done that, and doing the best job requires the best tools. Seeing Kaleb ride Bartender gives me that feeling that I’ve still got a dog in the fight—like I’m still competing in a way.”

Bartender’s 15 now. The only thing that’s ever stood between him and the Head Horse of the Year conversation is his lack of papers. 

“I got Bartender about five years ago, when he was 9 or 10, from Roper Goodson, who lives around Antlers, Oklahoma,” Lovell said. “Wyatt Muggli (Lane Frost’s nephew) told me about the horse, and got me in touch with Roper. The Goodsons were kind enough to bring him down for me to try. I ran a couple steers on him, and wasn’t crazy about him. We went to lunch, and Roper’s dad, John, told me to run a couple more on him.

“I put my bridle on Bartender after lunch, and ran four or five more steers. It started shaping to a different feel. They let me ride him at a couple ropings and a rodeo that weekend, and after the first two steers at the first roping, I told them I wanted him.”

Why?

“Bartender just tries so hard,” Lovell said. “He’s one of those horses that can be a little rude in the practice pen. He’s a colder-blooded type horse, but that makes him tougher. It makes him to where he can take that highway, and be the only horse in the trailer.”

He’s not registered, but Lovell says it’s his understanding that Bartender’s bloodlines trace back to Jim Brinkman’s world-famous Pitzer Ranch in Nebraska. Bartender stands a stout 15 hands and 1,250 pounds. 

“There are so many things that make Bartender great, like how strong he is from the back of the box,” Lovell said. “He can really run, and he’s strong doing it. He’s got a great stride. It’s one of those that hits the ground great, and carries your head loop. It’s natural on that horse that you feel like you can throw at any moment. Bartender’s great on the bigger M-brand steers out on the road—bigger-framed steers that have bigger strides and bigger jerks. He can handle it. 

“Bartender’s a big old stout, pretty horse. The more you run on him, the better he gets. And he tries so damn hard. Bartender loves his job, and he has so much expression and eye contact running to the cow. You can just see how much focus and determination he’s got to give everything he’s got for you. When Bartender leaves the box, you can tell he’s only thinking about one thing, and that’s catching up to that cow as fast as he can.”

The way Lovell sees it, the gold buckle on his belt belongs to Bartender. And he hopes his unicorn helps Driggers win his third one. 

“I rode Bartender the two years I roped with Paul (Eaves), in 2020 and 2021,” Lovell said. “When I won the world on him, Bartender was the only horse I rode on all but maybe three or four steers. There’s not very much that horse hasn’t won at the big rodeos and ropings. When Cade Rice won the Futurity the last two years, Bartender’s the horse I was helping him on. Bartender is just a winning son of a gun. He’s done great for me, and I hope he does just as great for Driggers.

“It does not matter where you ride Bartender. You can ride him in a round robin, at the NFR or go run 110 steers on a day you just need to outlast every horse there. Whether you’re at Salinas or the NFR, he’s just going to catch up faster and make your job easier.”

Lovell has no intentions of selling Bartender. Make no mistake what this horse means to this cowboy. 

“Bartender gave me what everybody chases,” Lovell said. “Without Bartender, I would not have won the world. I’ve spent a lot of time with that horse. He’s docile and gentle, but to watch how much he brightens and perks up when he gets to the rodeo made letting Driggers ride him an easy decision. Bartender wants to get closer to everything that happens at a rodeo—the fireworks; all of it. He’s older and wiser now, but he’s stayed as true as one can after going this long. It’s because he loves it so much.

“Bartender is a badass horse. I’ve raised my own dogs for 24 years, and I’ve had three good ones. My oldest dog, Blue, got to where he could barely go. It could be a blizzard, snow or a tornado, and he would go until he couldn’t go any further. There were times I had to carry him out of the woods. 

“I buried Blue right under the gate where I drive the cows over him. That way, he can be barking at them for the rest of time. Bartender will be buried down there by the cow lot someday, too. And that’s probably where they’ll bury me.” 

We’ll get to see Lovell at some of the big ropings this year. But he won’t be riding Bartender, because he’s all-in on his commitment to Team Driggers.

“I hope Driggers rides him all year, and wins the world on him,” Lovell said. “I won’t be riding Bartender this year. I just want to support what Kaleb’s out there to do. I think Bartender’s been one of the best horses in recent times, and I know Driggers is the best header of my generation. I hope I’m sitting there watching the 10^th round at the Finals in December with a cigar in my mouth.” 

—TRJ—

The post Hey, Bartender! How About Another Round? appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Can a good futurity horse make a good rodeo horse?

At this early point in the year, there are some 7-year-olds that are fresh out of the futurity programs starting to trickle out into jackpot and rodeo competition. 

The American Rope Horse Futurity Association started having its World Championship in Fort Worth in 2017, so we’re seven years into this “modern era” of futurity horses. With that, I’ve heard people say that a good futurity horse won’t make a good rodeo horse, and that great rodeo horses wouldn’t have been great futurity horses. There are cases where that’s been the case, but mostly, you can find the best up-and-coming rodeo horses at the futurities, and some of the best rodeo horses I ever rode would have made great futurity horses. 

2024 Rope Horse Futurity Calendar

Sic ’Em would have been a great futurity horse. Boogie would have been a great futurity horse. Wishbone would have been a good futurity horse. Banker even would have been a great futurity horse, even though he turned his head a little. 

There’s not a doubt in my mind our coming 5-year-old Bugatti—Bama Fury—barring any injury, will be a great rodeo horse. And people talk about “great rodeo horses” like that’s one thing. Really, there are summer rodeo horses, there are winter rodeo horses. There are great rodeo head horses that never excelled at the Finals. There have been super NFR horses that were marginal everywhere else. When they score and they move their feet good, if they’re not big-time runners, they’d be good NFR horses or winter horses if they’re strong enough to pull up a wall. On the racehorse side, there are horses that would be great summer rodeo horses or jackpot horses.

The horses that are great in the winter, great outdoors, great at the Finals, those are the unicorns, and making any generalizations about where those ones come from is nearly impossible. 

When you’re watching a futurity, you have to keep in mind that those horses are still learning so much at that stage. So when you instill those fundamentals correctly when they’re in their futurity careers and as they’re coming out of them, you’re letting these horses go be solid in the interim to where they have a great foundation. And then they have the repetition going to the cow, and they’re comfortable in their skin where they’re not doing everything off cues. The foundation is still key, and we put that into the futurity horses too.

Conversely, if you go to teaching them the bad stuff, their career is shortened. If you take one straight from the futurities to tough setups and ask them for their lives, you’re going to struggle and those are the ones that you’ll hear people say won’t make it. But if you’re putting the right foundation into them, there’s no reason you can’t see great futurity horses go on to be great rodeo horses.  

—TRJ—

Want more from Trevor Brazile? 
There’s only one place to find it, and that’s on Roping.com. The Relentless Remuda’s entire training library—including the evolution of some of their best-ever futurity horses that became ProRodeo mounts—is documented from start to finish on Roping.com.   

The post Futurity Horse to Rodeo Horse? appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Back in my day, your best horse was your practice, jackpot and rodeo horse. That might be hard for today’s young ropers to comprehend, but it’s true. There are more team ropers in the world than ever before, and both the caliber of horses and level of horsemanship is at an all-time high. 

I was at a roping in Buckeye, Arizona, today, and visiting with a friend while watching a roping. We couldn’t get over the quality and quantity of good horses in every roping, open guys and recreational ropers included. 

Everything about roping has advanced so much, also including the opportunity to win big money. That, in turn, has made making and investing in high-end horses make sense. Naturally, this is all being reflected in horse prices.

What’s a good horse worth? I bought a horse from a guy by the name of Al Gomes in Chowchilla, California, back in the early 80s. He had navicular, but he was a nice horse and Al didn’t really want to sell him. But there’s always a price. I’ll never forget Al telling me that if he was going to sell his best horse, he had to get enough money to buy a new truck. 

I paid him $10,000 for that horse, and at that time, that’s what a new truck cost. Since Al told me that, I’ve always used the price of a new truck as my Kelley Blue Book on horses. Just like a used vehicle, there are always factors like soundness and age to consider with horses. But that’s a pretty fair rule of thumb as a baseline. 

Today’s rope-horse futurities are playing a part in this also. People now specifically breed horses for roping, and the way even the young horses look and ride these days is just so impressive. The rope-horse economy is making it worth the time and effort to make all of these nice horses. 

Paying a fair price for a good horse goes hand-in-hand with people now having a chance to go to Vegas and win $150,000 to $200,000. It makes sense, because riding a nice horse is one of the most obvious advantages a roper can give himself. And more ropers than ever before at every level keeps demand for good horses high. It’s a wise investment. 

One size does not fit all when it comes to rope horses. A horse that might not fit me and my style might be a great fit for you. But you can only go so far with your talent with a rope, I don’t care who you are, and you can’t win if you’re afoot. 

The great ropers and great horses in every era are just that. But there are so many more today than ever before. And in my heyday, there were a lot of guys with one horse that defined their career, whereas a guy like Kaleb Driggers has several really nice ones at all times. 

I see people riding lower-quality horses at roping schools all the time. They might not have the budget to buy a good one, or the skills to keep a nice horse working. But regardless of the reasons, riding a lesser horse handicaps them and makes improving their roping an uphill battle. 

It’s important to keep developing your horsemanship skills along the way, so you can keep upgrading your horses. And so when you do get your hands on a good one, you can help him last. I see most people taking better care of their horses now than ever before. They’re keeping them fit, and taking advantage of modern veterinary technology and maintenance programs. 

There are better bits and saddles now, too. People used to always ride saddles they won, no matter what brand or size of seat. A lot of people are riding good-fitting custom saddles now, and there are a lot more good saddle companies today. It’s again a matter of supply and demand. 

Leg protection for horses has evolved over time also. We used to use some splint boots and bell boots, maybe, but team roping horses never had boots on all four legs, like they do now. 

Never stop trying to rope better, and never stop trying to upgrade your horse herd, whether it’s improving the ones you have or getting a better one every chance you get. And don’t let foolish pride get in your way. I’ve never taken a horse from start to finish. I’ve ridden young, green horses, but have never started a colt and taken him all the way. With all the futurities, I’m seeing some phenomenal 4- and 5-year-olds. They’re nice horses to start with, they’re being exposed to more at an early age and it shows.

—TRJ—

The post Today’s Rope Horse Talent Pool Runs Deep appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

This year’s American Rodeo heel horses are stacked with the predictable cow horse blood you’d expect from any team roping, with one grade horse in the mix, too.

Kaden Profili—who gets the honor of roping last in the Round of 10 as the highest-placing contender—will be riding the only mare in the pack as well as the youngest horse in the Gunnatrashya daughter, Gunnabeanangel.

Of note: of the 10 horses, only two share a grandsire, either maternal or paternal. Those two horses are Travis Graves’ JJ Little Christicat and Billie Jack Saebens’ Metallic Twist, who both have the paternal sire, High Brow Cat.

1. Hunter Koch: Smart Little Cab

2. Nicky Northcott: Undecided

3. Colter Todd: TRR Big Hustler

4. Travis Graves: JJ Little Christicat

5. Buddy Hawkins: X

6. Logan Moore: Twist On Line

7. Jake Long: JC Bar Diamond

8. Billie Jack Saebens: Metallic Twist

9. Wesley Thorp: Little Hickory Boon

10. Kaden Profili: Gunnabeanangel

The post The Heel Horses of the 2024 American Rodeo appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

The American Rodeo won’t just feature the best headers in the world in 2024—each roper is also bringing one of the best head horses with them, too, to compete for the massive payday in Globe Life Field March 9, 2024.

The only returning American Rodeo champion horse in the line up is Clint Summers’ WSR Hesa Alive, who won the title in 2023 with Kaleb Driggers. WSR Hesa Alive is also the oldest in the bunch as a 2004 model. If Clay Smith rides GCH Jet To The Sun, the gray gelding he rode at the National Western earlier this year, he’ll be the youngest horse on the head side as a 2017 model.

Here are the pedigrees of The American Rodeo’s head horses, in draw order:

1. Luke Brown: DM Jet Off

2. Clay Smith: Flinty

or GCH Jet To The Sun

3. Derrick Begay: Caseys Glory

4. Dustin Egusquiza: King Sabre Bar

5. Andrew Ward: Cole E Man

6. Shay Dixon Carroll: Sparks In The Bud

7. Clint Summers: WSR Hesa Alive

8. Coy Rahlmann: Blue

9. Tyler Wade: Espuela Bro

10. Brenten Hall: UNKNOWN

The post The Head Horses of the 2024 American Rodeo (And Yes, We Have Their Pedigrees, Too) appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Team roping futurities have gone nuts, which has us spotlighting breeding with a focus on stallions. But the new all-time leading dam of futurity money-winners by more than one sire? She’s a bad “Betty!” 

The mama of the winningest futurity horses by multiple sires is owned now by Jose Garcia. Her name is Look At Her Glo but her breeder, NCHA Hall-of-Famer Bobby Lewis, called her Betty. 

The bay 2003 mare by CD O Cody (by CD Olena out of a Docs Hickory/War Leo mare), is out of Leo Night Glo by War Leo Jr. Not many of today’s standouts are double-bred War Leo, a stud that earned money in both cutting and racing. But that combination has been magical at roping futurities. 

LOOK AT HER GLO b. M, QUARTER HORSE, 2003

A full handful of Betty’s get by three different sires—and their offspring—have set the world on fire, including Time To Glo, CSR Dual Glo, Dual Patron and J Lows Glo. But she was plenty bad, herself, at the earliest futurities.

Seventeen years ago, before anyone was paying attention, Betty placed fourth in heading at the timed-and-judged National Team Roping Horse Association futurity in 2007. She won the 2008 Jr. Heading at the World Show. She earned more than $15,000 roping cattle at the 2009 World Show and continued to place at ARHFA futurities in 2011 and 2012.

“Honestly, anybody in America could have taken her to the NFR in heading, heeling or tie-down roping,” Lewis said. “She was not just a show horse, she was a good one. She was as good a calf horse as you ever swung a leg over.”

Betty earned some $63,000 in roping, working cow horse and ranch sorting. Lewis chose to ride her in the World’s Greatest Horseman contest twice.

“She was very versatile,” he recalled. “She could really run and she stopped on a dime. She quite literally has been a good one since she was a bronc. My son knew when she was 2 that she was a superstar.”

Lewis raised “that whole outfit” that led to Betty. CD O Cody—the nation’s high-point cutting horse two or three years in a row—was sired by the same stallion that sired Ryan Motes’ great horses Starbucks and Rockstar. And he was out of a mare Lewis bought as a 2-year-old that won $150,000. On the bottom, Betty’s dam was a granddaughter of the Harrison Ranch’s legendary Les Glo. Lewis had to buy quite a package of horses just to get Leo Night Glo, but it paid off. Betty’s mother had 23 colts in a row and never missed. 

As for Betty herself, “I could have just turned her out on the section line and honestly, she’d have had a good colt at the end of the year,” he marveled.

That phenomenon has actually been proven, by the way: poor dams bred to elite sires tend to produce poor offspring, but elite dams bred to poor sires can still produce excellent offspring. Researchers in 2015 analyzed performance stats and found that 14% of the variation in a racehorse could be attributed to the genetic influence of the dam, and only 3.5% to the sire.

As for Betty, she crossed with Hickory Holly Time to produce Lewis’ great 5-year-old Time To Glo, an earner already of $132,187 at team roping futurities. And she crossed with Dual Spark to produce the standout cutting mare CSR Lay Down Sally and J Lows Glo (that earned $84,753 at early roping futurities), plus, of course, the great stallion Dual Patron, an AQHA Superhorse that banked $84,555 roping steers. She was also crossed with Spooks Gotta Whiz to produce money-winning reiner Spooks Gotta Glo.

“Lady Down Sally was a superstar in roping, no more than we roped on her,” recalled Lewis. “And she was phenomenal in cow horse. One of the all-time greats, starting with the Snaffle Bit Futurity.”

Lewis himself has a 3-year-old son of Betty by Shining Spark that he’s excited about. And Marshall Weir owns Betty’s son, the 14-year-old stallion CSR Dual Glo that not only earned money in cutting and heading, but also sired 7-year-old Sevens Star Glo, one of the winningest futurity horses of all time, and Sevens Hank 2, the 5-year-old on which Miles Baker won February’s Royal Crown in Arizona.

“Look At Her Glo never had anything but a good one, to be honest with you,” Lewis said. “I bred her to several different horses, and she had a good one by all of them. Kind of like the old Blue Hen scenario, you know?”

If a Hall-of-Famer like Lewis uses a term like “blue hen” to describe Betty’s multigenerational influence in both the roping boxes and the breeding shed, then we know she’s a winner.

—TRJ—

The post Look At Her Glo Is the All-Time Leading Dam of Futurity Money-Winners by More Than One Sire appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

When our team saw Cade Rice’s name on the list for the 2024 Cinch Timed Event Championship, our very first question was ‘Does that mean Sevens Star Glo will be there, too!?’.

Safe to say, Rice kept us guessing—but not anymore.

Watch the Full Cinch Timed Event Championship for FREE on Roping.com

Monday, Feb. 26, Rice announced he’d be bringing two-time ARHFA World Champion Heel Horse “Hank” to the Lazy E to heel on at the CTEC, bringing the stud’s show-stopping big brakes to the red dirt of Guthrie.

@teamropingjournal Cade. Freakin. Rice. And of course, the incomparable Sevens Star Glo. 2022 AND 2023 @American Rope Horse Futurity Heeling World Champions. #HEELSHOT #smoke #burningrubber #teamroping #heeling ♬ Gasolina – Daddy Yankee

“I’ve won more on this horse than I’ve won on anything,” Rice, 34, of Lipan, Texas, said. “And he deserves this spotlight. The horse is a winner. So he got the call.”

Sevens Star Glo, a 2017 buckskin stallion, is by CSR Dual Glo out of Sevens Tootsie Time by Hes Dun His Time, and he stands at Brazos Valley Stallion Station. He’s owned by Marshall and Lezlie Wier, and Sevens Star Glo has earned some $144,834 in his show career, in which he also ended the AQHA World Show the Senior Heading World Champion and Reserve Superhorse.

Rice will also be on another AQHA World Champion horse in 2006 gelding Kit Brooks, owned by Gary Wells. Kit Brooks is by Kit Dual out of Amandas Starlight by Grays Starlight.

The post Yes, You WILL See Cade Rice Heel on Sevens Star Glo at the Cinch Timed Event Championship appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Utah heeler Jared Fillmore bought AQHA World Champion stallion Pound Sign in the Feb. 11, 2024, Select Online Sale, with big plans to jump into the rope horse futurity business.

Pound Sign is a 2016 Riata Buckle and Ruby Buckle stallion by Metallic Cat out of the blue hen mare Dual Rey Tag by Dual Rey, and he won his 2021 AQHA Open Cutting world title with Austin Johnson and made the semifinals of the NCHA Futurity in 2019. He’s been in breakaway training with NFR tie-down roper Clint Robinson, and now he’ll transition to the heel side under Fillmore, a #9.5 heeler.

“Whenever they started doing these futurities with the Riata, I really thought it would be big for team roping,” Fillmore said. “There’s a whole new world of opportunity as far as team roping goes. We haven’t even tapped into how big it’s going to be if we get into the breeding side of things. That’s what it’s all moving toward. When I found out about the Riata, I told (Riata co-founder) Lance Robinson, ‘I’ve got to find a way to get into this.’ If you don’t have something to do with the Riata,  you’re going to be left behind as far as opportunity with rope horses. That’s what got me into it with Pound Sign. He’s proven himself. I did some research and thought, ‘Man this would be fun to make this little horse cool.’”

Fillmore will stand Pound Sign—a full brother to the $1 million producer Hashtags—at South Valley Equine for the remainder of the 2024 season, hauling him back and forth so he can stay hooked on his training as a heel horse.

“This horse is so talented with the kind of pedigree that’s really hard to get a hold of,” Solo Select CEO Ty Smith said. “He has the bone and structure we need in today’s stallion lineup. He’s ready to be promoted and do big things in the industry.”

Fillmore has daughters of One Time Pepto and some Gallo de Cielo mares that he plans to cross on the 15-hand stud, and he’s planning to buy some race-bred mares, too, to cross on Pound Sign.

The post Fillmore Buys World Champ Stallion Pound Sign to Ramp Up Rope Horse Breeding Business appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Here comes 17-year-old roping phenom Nicky Northcott, and you can’t miss him on that spotted horse of his. We’re about to watch this kid take on the big dogs in opposite conditions, first at the February 29 through March 2 Cinch Timed Event Championship—where he’ll be heeling help for 2020 Timed Event Titlist Taylor Santos and Tyler Waters—on strong steers over a long scoreline at the massive Lazy E Arena in Guthrie, Oklahoma. A week later, we’ll get to see the son of 1996 World Champion Heeler Steve Northcott go fast behind two-time Champ of the World Clay Smith at The American, where as contenders they have a shot at $1 million at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. Young gun Nicky will be riding a leopard Appaloosa he calls Apache at both.  

“Apache’s really easy to catch on,” Nicky noted. “He’s a horse you can win on in any set-up, whether you need to be 3 or 10. The spots don’t make him any better or worse in my eyes. If he was sorrel, I’d like him just the same.”

Hey, this horse’s last owner, 14-time Wrangler National Finals Rodeo presented by Teton Ridge heeler Travis Graves, once said it wouldn’t have mattered to him if he was purple. TG, who bought the horse he called Appy from his second cousin Layne Bryson, put his money where his mouth was when he rode him at the 2019 NFR. 

“I bought this horse from Travis in the spring of 2020,” Nicky said. “I was really young (13), and my dad saw him and liked how he worked. Dad’s pretty good buddies with Travis, and he thought I needed to try him. We drove over to Travis’s house one morning, and I liked Apache from the first steer. I took him to a couple jackpots, and won good on him. So I bought him.”

Now here’s Nicky—a 9+ heeler who’s not even old enough to get his Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association permit until he hits 18 next November—stepping out onto some of the cowboy sport’s biggest stages on a horse registered with the Appaloosa Horse Club as SBARL Navajo Hawk. Waters also plans to heel on the colorful 15-year-old at the Timed Event.

Nicky’s mom, Celeste, calls him Applesauce. Her son just can’t make himself do that.

“Applesauce is too overused,” he smiled. “Apache is more original.”

The Northcotts live in the current Cowboy Capital of the World in Stephenville, Texas. For now, young Nicky ropes at United Professional Rodeo Association and Cowboys Professional Rodeo Association events with Cody McCluskey. 

“I rope with Clay Smith and Tyler Tryan (eldest son of three-time World Champion Header Clay) quite a bit at the jackpots around Stephenville,” he said. “I practice with whoever I can get to come over. I call everyone on my phone list until I find someone to come rope.”

This kid can hardly wait to come of age to rodeo hard. 

“My main goal is to try and make the Finals my first year,” he said.

He’s meanwhile making great use of this time before he turns 18. 

“The Timed Event is about getting them all caught in that big arena, and The American is about going really fast,” he said. “At The American, it starts with 10 teams, then the final four is where we get to rope for the million. 

“All I’m thinking about for both events is that I want to win. Catching the steers as fast as I can is what it’s all about, and that doesn’t have anything to do with how old I am. The whole point of roping is to win at any age. This is an exciting time for me.”

The post Might This Be ‘The Year of the Happy Appy’ for Nicky Northcott? appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Kaleb Driggers announced February 13 the retirement of Remis Gays On Ofadoc, the bay gelding he calls Cuervo that carried him to his first gold buckle in 2021 and second in 2022.

Cuervo, the 2007 gelding by Reminic N Dunit out of FLS Oaks Classy Lady by Flynns Gayson Ofadoc, has battled a deep flexor injury on and off since before Driggers bought him from Jeff Flenniken, but the maintenance was worth the cost, because the horse let Driggers win where it counted.

“He was an instant match,” Driggers said. “I loved everything about him and was very excited to buy him. Then came the dreaded vet check that didn’t go in my favor. So I sent him back and started trying more horses, but nothing fit like he did. I’d try horses for five times as much money as Cuervo was, and nothing came close to the way he felt. Finally, my wife said, ‘Why don’t you just buy him? You love everything about him, if something happens, it just does, but all you can talk about is that bay horse.'”

That was 2021, since then Driggers saved Cuervo for the big jackpots and high-money rodeos. Mostly on Cuervo, Driggers set the regular season earnings record and year-end earnings record in 2022 with Junior Nogueira.

Danita Walker, long a cowboy horse caretaker, kept Cuervo at her house when he wasn’t on the road with Driggers, caring for him through three NFRs to give Driggers his best shot every night. Fittingly, Driggers will allow Cuervo to retire with Walker at her Texas home, where he’ll receive full-time care.

Related Stories:

• All Business: Driggers’ Remis Gays On Ofadoc Was the Horse He Needed to Win Gold
• Score Masters with Kaleb Driggers
• LeMond Comes Out of Retirement for the CINCH Timed Event Championship
• Thumper, Cait and Switchblade’s Retirement Paradise
• When the Rodeo Road Ends: Life After Rodeo with Jake Barnes

The post Kaleb Driggers Announces Retirement of Cuervo, 2021-2022 World Champion Head Horse appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Two-time PRCA World Champion Kaleb Driggers and NFR header Jake Cooper have bought the 2016 mare Fine Vintage Cash, the winningest mare in rope horse futurity competition. 

Bred by Robertson Ranches and owned throughout her performance career by California’s Monty and Chris Avery, Fine Vintage Cash amassed $114,461 in horse show competition under the guidance of Andy Holcomb and Fallon Avery. In the two weeks since Driggers and Cooper purchased the mare—who’s out of Miss Catty Cash by Nu Cash—Driggers has already raked in $5,265 heeling on her at the jackpots, with plans to continue her competition career in between stays at Outlaw Equine for embryo flushes under the care of Dr. Bia Casa. 

“If the timing allows, Marcus Theriot and I will ride her at the Timed Event,” Driggers said. “But we want to get some babies on the ground out of her as soon as possible. Jake and I both have studs that we both really believe in, and the future of their success also lies within the marepower that we breed them to. So we went and found the best mare that we could find for sale in our industry and got her.”

Driggers owns the 2017 stallion Metallic Payday, a son of Metallic Cat out of the Freckles Playboy daughter Another Playgirl. Driggers campaigned ‘Payday’ at the futurities with the help of Dakota Kirchenschlager, Colby Lovell, Andy Holcomb, Kollin VonAhn and Junior Nogueira, winning over $60,000—including the 2023 ARHFA Reserve Heeling World Championship.

Cooper owns Reys Of Pep, the 2017 son of Dual Rey out of Peppys Stylish Lena by Docs Stylish Oak. ‘Pepper’ won $114,599 in futurity competition with the likes of Lovell and Driggers on his back, and he won the 2022 ARHFA Reserve Heeling World Championship with Lovell. 

“That mare speaks for herself,” Cooper said. “She’s got more black type on her pedigree than about any horse in the business. But she’s an exceptional individual, with great bone and a great mind. She’s the kind of mare we need a lot more of in the performance industry. It was an easy decision to get involved with Kaleb on this great mare that came from Andy and Fallon.” 

For Driggers, riding after his friend and ARHFA World Champion Holcomb is a no-brainer. With Holcomb, she won three straight Royal Crown All-Ages heeling events in 2023, picking up checks at World Series Qualifiers and nearly every futurity she entered since 2021. 

“For her to come through Andy and Fallon’s program, she had all the proper tools to succeed,” Driggers said. “She has been won on at every level and with multiple different riders. Just to lope her around is a pleasure, she moves across the ground like you are gliding on water she is so smooth.”

 While the mare they call ‘Crystal’ might be sorrel, she’s been a judges’ favorite for the presence she carries in the show pen, like so many of her fellow One Fine Vintage offspring. One Fine Vintage, owned by Robertson Ranches, showed under Corey Cushing to win the 2016 AQHA Senior Working Cow Horse World Championship. A cow horse himself, One Fine Vintage’s offspring have done most of their winning in the roping. Fine Vintage Cash is his top earner, but Holcomb’s 6-year-old gelding One Vintage Merada has won $60,814 under Holcomb and Driggers. 

Driggers and Cooper know that with her standout genetics and black-type on her papers, Fine Vintage Cash is a prime candidate for selling embryos. But they aren’t concerned with that just yet. 

“It’s something we’d consider, but right now, we’re ready to get babies on the ground for ourselves to ride and promote,” Driggers said. 

The post Driggers, Cooper Partner on Winningest Rope Horse Mare Fine Vintage Cash appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

The Henry’s 88 Ranch is a six-generation operation in Douglas, Wyoming, where the family raises and trains performance horses that are bred to compete in the richest incentives in the country and work for a living on the ranches of the American West.

In its third year, the 88 Ranch’s Remuda Sale runs Feb. 2 to Feb 4 online, offering the ranch’s finest prospects and a ranch-raised stallion, Roller And A Shaker. In this episode, 88 Ranch owner Garrett Henry sits down with Chelsea Shaffer and discusses the ranch’s history, 88 Remuda Sale, their new stallion Sheik Jean Fly HHT and the future of the rope horse and barrel horse industries.

88 Ranch-Raised Summer Colada and Kaden Richard

—

This episode is presented by 88 Ranch. The 88 Remuda Sale goes live Friday, February 2, 2024 at 8 a.m. MST and closes Feb. 4, 2024, at 3 p.m. MST. Join 88 Ranch live on the 88 REMUDA SALE Facebook Page at 5 p.m. MT February 2 for a virtual preview of all of the sale horses. You are more than welcome to come to the ranch at this time to watch the preview in person. The Henrys will talk about each horse, take a look at them and watch them ride! They will also be able to answer any questions.

The post Ranch-Raised: The 88 Remuda Sale and Wyoming’s Henry Family’s Hidden Gem of Elite Rope-Horse Prospects appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.