At the conclusion of the 2024 PAFRA World Championship Rodeo in Clovis, New Mexico, Sept. 21, Adam Pollard and Tarrant Stewart—who have each supported the Professional Armed Forces Rodeo Association in varying capacities for many years—got to take home World Champion buckles after splitting the win in the team roping.

2024 PAFRA World Champion Header: Adam Pollard

Throughout his life, 53-year-old USMC veteran Adam Pollard has won plenty of awards from his time in the arena—enough to earn him a 2021 induction into the Military Rodeo Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City’s National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum—but the PAFRA World Champion Header buckle he won in September was a first for the Midland, Texas, native who served as PAFRA’s president in 2013. 

“I was on a heel horse,” Pollard said, explaining that he’s been focused on improving his heeling and was hoping to put a run together on that end. “My header missed in the first round, and I had entered on the head side. I thought, ‘Well, here we go. Let’s see what we can do.’”

Pollard, who is currently serving as president of the Military Rodeo Cowboys Association, drew a partner in 28-year-old Army veteran Dakota Smitherman, who won the World Championship title in the tie-down this year.

“He’s a very talented young man,” Pollard said of his heeler. “He rides the right kind of horses. He practices the right way. Things that, as somebody who’s been roping for 30 years, I watched that kid rope and I go, ‘He’s figuring it out the right way.’ His technique is right. His horses ride the right way; he’s very relaxed. It’s an awesome thing to watch.”

2024 PAFRA World Champion Heeler: Tarrant Stewart

Pollard shared the winner’s circle with Tarrant Stewart, whose dad, Charlie Stewart, is a Vietnam veteran and a 20-year PAFRA member who’s still competing. 

“My twin brother [Newell] and I got grandfathered into that organization,” Stewart explained, hinting toward PAFRA’s family-friendly membership setup. “I’m a big sponsor of it, and my dad was a Vietnam vet. He was there. So my brother and I, we got to go and rope with our dad. That’s how we got into that about 10 years ago.”

In that time, Stewart has secured himself a few World Championship buckles, including in 2019 and in 2018, when he shared the title with his brother. This year, he headed for active-duty Airman Dakota Lindboe.

“I live in Floresville, Texas, and Dakota actually moved to Floresville about a mile down from my house,” Stewart said. “We met at a jackpot, and I invited him to start roping with us. He and I have become friends and now we practice together.”

Lindboe, originally from Florida, grew up pulling steers for guys like Kaleb Driggers and Clint Summers, but he put the rope down in 2009 to join the military. By the time he got back to it, Super Looper and Spin to Win had become The Team Roping Journal. This is the first time he and his wife, Mandy, who is also active-duty Air Force and a barrel racer, entered up at the PAFRA event.

“We had an awesome time and thought it was a really good event,” said Lindboe, who was riding a horse he’d acquired in the last six months. “He’s a 16-year-old gelding I got from Matt Schieck. I think Cash Duty was riding him. He’s everything I need. He’s fast. He’s good and levelheaded. I was really lucky to find him.”

For the World Championship, Stewart was putting in the practice hours on one of his Riata horses, Hez Short On Time. 

“I’ve got a 5-year-old that we futuritied on, and we’ve been using him at the Riata,” Stewart said, explaining that he missed last year’s PAFRA due to a scheduling conflict with the Riata Championships. “I’ll tell you this: I’ve heeled about three ropings (I’m predominantly a header), and I was able to catch three for Mr. Dakota. So that was good.”

Pollard and Stewart both offered a nod to PAFRA’s leadership, noting that entries in the team roping may have doubled since last year. The organization also just announced a new March 1, 2025, rodeo to be held at the Cowtown Coliseum in the Fort Worth Stockyards.

—TRJ—

Thank you to Equinety for helping us share stories of military members, veterans and first responders in the team roping community.

The post Adam Pollard & Tarrant Stewart Crowned 2024 PAFRA World Champions appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Tonight’s the night Reg Camarillo will be inducted at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City with the Rodeo Historical Society’s Class of 2024.

Rodeo will always remember the roar of The Lion. Leo Camarillo was a four-time world champion team roper who in 1975 also won the coveted world all-around crown, and still holds the record for the most National Finals Rodeo team roping average wins with six. Leo’s little brother, Jerold, is also a world champion team roper and ProRodeo Hall of Famer. Cousin Reg was the quiet one, and best known as the consummate consistency king. But make no mistake, Reg was a steady wind beneath Leo and Jerold’s wings, and a pivotal player in their revolutionary roping careers.

Everyone who witnessed that legendary era of team roping will be thrilled to see Reg celebrated with the National Rodeo Hall of Fame’s Class of 2024 at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum’s November 9, induction ceremonies in Oklahoma City. True to form, Reg is honored and humbled by the unexpected recognition.

“I didn’t see this coming,” said Reg, who’s 79 now and lives in Fresno, California, with his wife, Kimberly. “Hall of fame induction just wasn’t something I was looking for or expecting. It’s a big deal, and a huge honor. But what the hell did I do?”

The Glory Days

Let’s see now…Leo and Jerold were Rodeo Cowboys Association rookies in 1968, which was the year Reg finished up his two-year stint in the Army during the Vietnam War.

“I always say I was drafted twice—into the Army, and by Leo and Jerold,” Reg grins. “And I say I served in two wars—Vietnam, and the team roping wars.

“I heeled a lot early on and was considered a heeler at one time, but Leo and Jerold wanted to heel. I couldn’t heel like they could. I went and stayed with Leo and Jerold one winter before I went into the Army, then I went to visit them at the Cow Palace (rodeo in San Francisco) right after I got out. It was the fall of 1968, the end of their rookie year, and Leo said, ‘It’s time. You’re coming with us.’ I joined the RCA in 1969.”

Reg was Leo’s first partner, and at the go-twice rodeos Reg also roped with Jerold. Reg and Leo won the National Finals Rodeo average three years in a row from 1969-71. Reg also won the NFR average with Jerold in 1975.

Reg roped at 11 NFRs, eight of them with Leo. Reg and Jerold roped at two NFRs in 1975 and ’79, and Reg headed for young Allen Bach his rookie year at the Finals in 1978, before Bach won his first world title in 1979. The Lion is still king, with a record six NFR average titles (Leo won his first NFR average as a rookie heeling for fellow Californian Billy Wilson in 1968). But Reg’s four says it all about his consistency, and how he was counted on by his famous cousins.

Cowboy Calculator

The finances at the Finals must be mentioned here. And remember, folks, most of the major rodeos didn’t even include team roping in the Camarillos’ heyday. At Reg’s first NFR in 1969, he and Leo placed in three of that year’s nine rounds and won the average, for a total of $1,039 a man. Allow me to run the inflation calculator for you on that, which in 2024 would still only be $8,912.

“The first year we made the NFR, I didn’t really even want to go,” Reg remembers. “They said the go-rounds were going to pay $300 a man to win them. But then, a lot of rodeos didn’t pay that at that time.”

Reg and Leo won two rounds, placed in three others and won the 10-head average at that next NFR in 1970, and each won $1,732. They won their thirdstraight NFR average in 1971 by placing in four of 10 rounds, and got out of town (Oklahoma City) with $1,145 apiece.

Back then, a turtle could have outrun the pace of NFR-payoff progress. When Reg and Jerold won the 1975 NFR a few years later, they placed in two rounds along the way and with the big average check still only left town with a less-than-grand total of $1,491 a man.

“I was very blessed to have two of the best partners in the world in my cousins,” Reg said. “They could really rope, and rodeoing was Leo and Jerold’s passion. I was mostly interested in winning money. Winning championships wasn’t my passion, like it was theirs.”

You’ll never hear it from Reg, but his cowboy contemporaries haven’t forgotten that he, too, should have a gold buckle. There were three years, 1976-78, when the PRCA-predecessor RCA ran a failed experiment that crowned the world champions based on sudden-death NFR earnings after wiping the regular-season earnings slate clean.

Leo won $30,761 and Reg $26,723 in 1976, which that year made Leo the lone PRCA champion (that was before headers and heelers were crowned separately). Bucky Bradford and Ronnie Rasco were the high-money winners at the Finals with $2,256 a man, and were named the world champions.

Reg and Leo were the reserve world champions with $2,180—so Reg missed out on a world championship and Leo lost out on a fifth gold team roping buckle by $152. Leo always regretted having to two-loop their last steer, which kept Reg from winning the world that year.

Same thing happened to Jerold when he won the 1977 regular season, and the Motes brothers won the world based on NFR earnings. Ditto on 1978 regular-season champs Doyle Gellerman and Walt Woodard, when George Richards and Brad Smith won the most at the NFR and were crowned the world champs.

Familia

Reg was the fourth of Rudy and Pearl Camarillo’s six kids, who also included late brother Sonny and four sisters, Ruth, Carolyn, Sylvia and Virginia. They grew up in Southern California, and would venture north to Santa Ynez for weekends, holidays and summers with Rudy’s brother, Ralph, and his wife, Pilar, who were Leo, Jerold and little sister Christie’s parents.

“My dad was a welder who roped a little when he was younger,” Reg remembers. “We always had a roping dummy and a bucking barrel around, and he was more instrumental than anyone in teaching me my roping fundamentals. My dad got into cutting horses, but Uncle Ralph was serious about roping. And when I went to stay with them, it was always a roping match on the swinging steer with Leo and Jerold and Sonny to see who had to do the dishes after dinner or clean the corrals.

“We were like the four stooges. We laughed, we fought and we challenged each other every which way, like four brothers. Whoever got their jeans on last in the morning had to go do chores. Everything was a competition.

“It was Leo and Jerold’s passion to be champions. I wasn’t as worried about it. When we got to rodeoing, Leo and Jerold paid attention to (world championship) points, but if a roping paid more than a rodeo, I’d just as soon go to the roping.”

Roping Revolutionaries

The Camarillos will go down in history as team roping game changers, Reg included.

“We opened the eyes of a lot of people,” Reg said. “People started practicing more, because it was evident how good Leo and Jerold were, and that working harder was the only way to stand a chance against them.

“I have a lot of fond memories from our rodeo days, though a lot of the big rodeos didn’t even have team roping, much less equal money. It was always a fight to try for equal money, because the other directors thought it was taking money away from their event.

“During that time, things started getting more rapid when people started watching Leo and Jerold rope steers around the corner, like they did. Guys started picking up on how they timed steers, and it changed everything. I was a little more conservative. I was always going for the win in the average. When we went out of the average, we had good luck in the rounds. But my consistency was pretty fair, and I wasn’t reaching like HP (Evetts).”

These Days

Reg trained horses when he left the rodeo trail. He now works for Kovak Ranch Equipment, and he and Kimberly just became first-time grandparents. Their daughter, Lacey, followed in her father’s military footsteps.

“Lacey’s a combat medic who’s been to Afghanistan three times,” Reg said proudly. “Her husband, Travis Womer, flies Black Hawks (helicopters). His day job is as a U.S. Marshal, and they both serve in the National Guard. Lacey and Travis live in Oklahoma, and had a baby girl, Remington Pearl, on August 9. They call her Remi.”

Reg Camarillo Fan Club

Reg has always been a man of many admirers. His family, friends, teammates, contemporaries, friendly rivals and cowboys who came behind him have all looked up to him.

Cousin Jerold

“Reg and Sonny were around a lot when we were kids,” Jerold remembers. “We were family, and everybody thought we were four brothers. Reg was one of the most consistent headers of all time. He didn’t take big chances to win first, but he roped every steer and always gave Leo and I a chance. We relied on Reg. We loved roping with HP (Evetts), too, but he threw a lot of line and took a lot of chances. Reg was a sure thing.

“At the go-twice rodeos, Leo and I roped with Reg and HP. They were opposites as ropers. We might win first or nothing with HP, and win second or third with Reg all day long. HP went for the gusto every time. Reg took that sure shot and made sure we won something.

“Outside of the arena, Reg didn’t like to party. He liked good food, but was pretty frugal. When you needed something done, you could count on Reg. He’s always been a very dependable person. Reg never cared about the spotlight. When people wanted interviews, Reg and I were most likely going to go take care of the horses and let Leo handle the media. He loved it, and that was good by us.”

HP Evetts

“Reg ran to the hip, and he always had a good horse,” said 1974 World Champ Evetts. “You never knew with me, but you were going to get a good throw with Reg. Reg was cool. Him and Jim Wheatley were big buddies, and when they rented an apartment in Mesa, Arizona for the winter a few years, I stayed with them. Reg was funny.”

Tee Woolman

“I came along right after Reg quit rodeoing, but Reg flagged the Finals a few times (seven) when I roped there, and did a great job,” remembers three-time World Titlist Woolman. “I thought it was outstanding to bring somebody in there who knew what team roping was all about. Reg was a team roper, so he knew the rules and how the game was played.

Read: Rare Cowboy Company: Tee Woolman

“When I was roping with Leo and all my horses were hurt, he said, ‘Let’s go see what Reg has.’ He had old Wildfire, his big bay he won so much on. Leo loved roping behind him. He was a huge monster of a horse (16 hands and 1,250-1,300 pounds, according to Reg) with a long mane and tail. Wildfire was really a pretty horse. I rode him, and I bought him.

“Leo and I were headed to rope at the Forum in Inglewood (California), and when we were leaving, Reg said, ‘OK, son, don’t let him get your rope.’ I was used to little quick horses, and he caught me off guard and ducked so hard on our first one that I lost my rope. But we won the second round.”

Jimmy Rodriguez

“Reg was a very good, consistent header,” said Rodriguez, who was an original 1979 inductee at the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs, but just last year inducted in Oklahoma City. “He never got all the praise he should have roping with Leo and Jerold, but he was very important to those teams. He scored good, and very seldom made a mistake.

“I always admired Reg. He was always a very good person. He was very quiet, but if he told you something, you could believe it. When he gave you his word, you could go by it. Reg flagged the Finals the year Leo and I roped together there in Oklahoma City (1981), and did a great job. I never thought Reg got the credit he deserved. I’m glad to see him being recognized now.”

Dick Yates

“We got acquainted with Reg the last year he was in the Army and stationed at Fort Carson (between Colorado Springs and Pueblo, Colorado),” recalls 13-time NFR header Yates. “JD was pretty small, but Reg stayed with us some and went to a lot of jackpots with me, and rode my horses (including one he called Smokey). Reg was a great header, but he heeled a lot when he was here in Colorado, because he out-heeled most people in this country back then.

“Reg is a really nice, kind-hearted guy, and he became one of the family. JD and Kelly were pretty little when Reg was around here a lot, but they just loved him. When he left, they both cried.”

Jake Barnes

“Reg is a legend in my mind,” Barnes said. “When I was growing up, if you mentioned one Camarillo, you mentioned them all. They were the godfathers of team roping, and you can’t say the Camarillo name without mentioning all three of them. Growing up in a small town in New Mexico, all our news came from the Ropers Sports News. And it was all about the Camarillos.

Learn from Jake Barnes on Roping.com

“Reg was about done rodeoing when I came in in 1980. But I grew up hearing and reading how great he roped. And I know he always rode great horses. The cattle were big and the scores were long back then, and Reg ran in there and roped so many steers. No roper had a better batting average than Reg.”

Clay Cooper

“I thought Reg was one of the absolute greats,” Cooper said. “No. 1, he headed for The King. And if The King roped with Reg, that meant he trusted that Reg was going to do his job— which he did. Reg rode good horses. I loved his swing, his loop and his handles. He set runs up really nice.

Learn from Clay Cooper on Roping.com

“I watched Reg rope primarily at the big ropings—Oakdale, Chowchilla and Riverside (California)—and he was just an artist. He rode the barrier good, and his run with Leo was great looking start to finish. Reg turned every steer, and won a lot. He was also a nice person who always had a smile on his face. Reg was just a great guy in and out of the arena, and it was great for a young guy like me to see that.”

The Lion

Leo, Jerold and Reg were pioneers in roping and rodeo arenas, and also when it came to team roping schools. I was there for some of those schools, and took ropes off at the back end with my brothers while staying at Leo’s house. Leo was always so proud of Reg.

“I started amateur rodeoing with my cousin Reg in 1965, and we clicked,” Leo once said. “Reg was the epitome of a team-style roper. He was enthusiastic about winning, understood the game, and had a consistency about heading and handling steers extremely well. Reg went to Vietnam for two years, but when he made it back from the war in the fall of ’68, I immediately recruited him to fight the rest of his battles with me in professional rodeo.

“As part of the Camarillo Trio, Reg played a significant role in changing the game and introducing dally-style team roping to the world of rodeo. It wasn’t long before influential rodeo figures noticed our style, and Reg, Jerold and I became summoned ambassadors of the sport. In 1969, we put on the first dally-style team roping school in Sturgis, South Dakota. We had 60 students.

“Reg played smart, and he played to win. In both the team roping arena and the arena of life, Reg had it figured out. And in both arenas, he’s been the best partner I’ve ever had. The best friend I’ve ever had. And the best example of champion character I’ve ever known. Reg was both a revolutionary competitor and a leader. He was one of the founding fathers of team roping, but his heart and integrity were bigger than any award.”

The post The Other Camarillo appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

After the regular season’s over, you take your hat off and wipe the sweat off of your forehead. It’s a relief. You get to go home, and regroup mentally and physically. Hopefully, you made the NFR and it’s time to get ready for the biggest 10 nights of the year. Deciding what to ride at the Finals was always the biggest decision for me. 

In my prime, the regular season ended the first week of November, so there was a pretty tight turnaround before Vegas. With it ending September 30 now, guys have two months—this year, from October 1 until opening night at the NFR on December 5—to get ready. 

I lived in Arizona most of my career, but most of the NFR guys live in Texas now, where there are a jillion jackpots to go to. They say iron sharpens iron, and those guys butt heads 365 days a year. That’s a great way to stay sharp. 

I was always chasing horses throughout my career, and it takes such a unique horse at the NFR. I rode so many different horses there, and rarely rode one at the Finals that I rode all season. By the end of the year, they were either worn out or didn’t fit that little (Thomas & Mack Center) building, especially 10 nights in a row. It takes a special horse to succeed there, and it felt like I was always in search of him. 

Speed Williams had an NFR weapon in Viper. That horse was deadly in that building. He wasn’t the biggest horse in the world, but he scored, came across there flat and gave Speedy a layup right there close. Then they pulled those steers off easy, Rich (Skelton) roped them and Viper faced. It’s hard to put a number on what percentage of their success has to be attributed to Viper. 

Ropers have learned how hard it is there at the Finals on a horse. Because of that, most people don’t practice much on their NFR horse anymore. Even I didn’t do it back in the day, but got on a practice horse instead. You need to make sure your good one is in shape and dialed in before you get to town, but you don’t want him worn out and anticipating when you get there.

One of the horses I did best on at the Finals was one I hadn’t ridden much. The year Clay and I set the NFR record (59.1 on 10, in 1994) that held all those years, I sat around the USTRC Finals that fall and watched a ton of runs. One horse caught my eye, and he belonged to a jackpot roper by the name of Carlos Ortiz. I asked if he would consider selling him, and he met me at a little building in Albuquerque. 

That horse had never been in the bright lights before, and actually worked kind of green there at the Finals. But the start was so short, so you could basically just nod and go. I could get a downtown start, and he broke across there flat. The steers were pretty big that year. I would just stick it on ’em, and rein him off, and those steers hopped off and gave Clay an easy shot. 

That bay horse I called Sonny had never been reached and ducked on. He ran right there to the hip, and gave me jackpot throws. I was having to rein him off to get away from the steer, but I wasn’t having to fight for a dally. It was just easy on Clay and I. 

The NFR is a unique rodeo, and it’s ironic to take one that’s never been to the big city before and have so much success on him. The crowd is so loud, and it feels like there are 17,000 people sitting right on top of you. Horses that have never heard or seen that can get their skirts blown up and get lost in that building, because that atmosphere packs a lot of pressure.  

My bottom line was always wanting to make sure my horse was in really good physical shape going into that 10-day battle. And not getting too quick. I only roped one or two on my good one the day we broke in the steers in the Thomas & Mack. 

I always enjoyed going out every morning during the Finals to feed and clean my own pens. And I had a place set up around town where I could go rope a handful of steers in the morning during the week, if my horse or I needed it. Like Joe Beaver said, “If things aren’t going right, I’m going to try something different and change my hat, my rope, my horse or whatever it takes to win.”

—TRJ—

The post Picking a Four-Legged Partner for the NFR appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

As of Oct. 28, 2024, Florida’s Lexi Andrews has continued to lead the USTRC Cinch Ladies headers with a total of 58 points. In the heeling, Colorado’s Jimmi Jo Montera’s 56 points also keep her in first, but Whitney DeSalvo is continuing to chip away at the gap between them.

The Leaders

Lexi Andrews

Lexi Andrews, who turns 17 before the New Year, keeps her position at No. 1 in the Cinch Ladies headers standings with 58 points and a 20-point lead over Shawnee Murphy in the No. 2 spot.

Jimmi Jo Montera 

Greeley, Colorado’s Jimmi Jo Montera, 56, maintains her 56 points since the last report, but her lead has decreased by 9 points because of an October check won by Whitney DeSalvo.

The Top 5

Headers

This month’s Top 5 standings for the Cinch Ladies header remains unchanged. 

Heelers

Whitney DeSalvo of Springfield, Arkansas, arrived in the No. 2 position behind Montera after heeling at July’s mega-jackpot, The Daddy, in Cheyenne, Wyoming. In October, DeSalvo, 29, added to her points earnings when she entered up in the #14.5 USTRC at the Integrity Team Roping Finals in Fort Smith, Arkansas, produced by Integrity Team Roping. There, she took second place to add 9 points to the 15 she’d earned in July, for a net of 24 points, again worth the No. 2 position for the month.

Behind DeSalvo is Tillie Winters, who hails from Stephenville, Texas, and earned her 17 points for the No. 3 position at July’s Stephenville Qualifier when she took fourth place for 7 points in the #9.5 USTRC and followed that up by winning #7.5 USTRC for a full 10 points.

Winters is staying ahead of a four-way tie for the No. 4 spot by 7 points. While Alma, Nebraska’s Sage Dieter and Westminster, South Carolina’s Maddie Smith maintain that tie from last reporting, newcomers Shelly Holliday of Choteau, Oklahoma, and Nicole Juaregui from Seminole, Texas, join the 10-point party after scoring first-place wins.

2024-2025 USTRC Cinch Ladies Leaderboard 

(as of 10/28/24. Go to USTRC.com for current standings.)

USTRC Cinch Ladies Standings: Headers

USTRC Cinch Ladies Standings: Heelers

Current USTRC or Key Card/Key Card Max membership is required to participate in the Cinch Ladies Year-End Award program. Earned points begin counting at time of membership purchase thru the NFTR’s last shootout event. The season begins the Monday after the last USTRC Cinch NFTR event and ends the last day of the next USTRC Cinch NFTR event.

Ropers must enter at least one Shootout division in the USTRC NFTR to be eligible. The award will be announced at the end of the USTRC Cinch National Finals of Team Roping event.

The points breakdown is as follows: Starting with At Home Challenge Events, ropers will earn 10 points if they win the Challenge. No other points will be awarded. At Signature Events, points will be awarded to those winning an aggregate check. It starts at First Place with 10 points, Second = 9 points, and so on as far down as the roping is paid. During the Cinch NFTR, the placing points are simply doubled. First Place is worth 20 points, second = 18, and so on. For complete rules, please visit USTRC.com. 

—TRJ—

The post Cinch Ladies Heelers Hosts Top 5 Fall Season Shakeup appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

As of Oct. 28, 2024, Alabama’s Tanner Banks has jumped into the driver’s seat on the head side with 63 points. Alabama is also on the move in the heeling as Brit Smith, now at No. 2 with 86 points, inches in on leader Houston Childers. 

The Leaders

No. 1 Header: Tanner Banks 

Tanner Banks has been steadily climbing the heading ranks, now boasting 63 points atop the leaderboard. The 18-year-old has just a 5-point lead over Lexi Andrews at No. 2.

When Banks hit up the Southern Alabama Championship, produced by Allen’s Roping Productions, in October, he started closing the gap on Andrews after finishing third in the #13.5 USTRC for 8 points. But his third-place finish in the #12.5 USTRC, also for 8 points, was enough to push him past Andrews to the top of the leaderboard.

No. 1 Heeler: Houston Childers

The 2023 Resistol Jr. Champion Heeler Houston Childers remains strong at the top of the heeling standings. The 16-year-old from Fairmount, Georgia, leads the pack with no change to his 98 points this month. 

No. 2 Heeler: Brit Smith

Brit Smith continues to climb in the heeling standings, now sitting second with 86 points. Smith, who turned 18 on Halloween, is just 12 points behind standings leader Childers after earning 17 points to jump from third to second.

Like header Tanner Banks, Smith cashed in at the Allen’s Roping Productions’ Southern Alabama Championship to make his standings moves. Smith won second in the #13.5 USTRC for 9 points and third in the #12.5 USTRC for 8 points to keep on climbing toward No. 1.

The Top 5

Headers

Hayden Hines jumped from sixth to third in the heading standings, now sitting just three points behind Andrews with 55 points. The Monroe, Georgia, header won fourth for 7 points in both the #8.5 USTRC and #7.5 USTRC at the Southern Alabama Championship to move inside the Top 5.

Heelers

This month, Brit Smith made the only moves in the Top 5 of the Resistol Jr. Champion heeling standings, pushing Cole Shook down to third with 74 points, Jaytin Harrell to fourth with 44 points and Kale Roark to fifth with 43 points.

2024-2025 USTRC Resistol Jr. Champion Standings

(as of 10/28/24. Go to USTRC.com for current standings.)

USTRC Resistol Jr. Standings: Headers

USTRC Resistol Jr. Standings: Heelers

Current USTRC or Key Card/Key Card Max membership is required to participate in the Resistol Jr. Champion Program. Earned points begin counting at time of membership purchase thru the NFTR’s last shootout event. The season begins the Monday after the last USTRC Cinch NFTR event and ends the last day of the next USTRC Cinch NFTR event.

Ropers must enter at least one Shootout division in the USTRC NFTR to be eligible. The award will be announced at the end of the USTRC Cinch National Finals of Team Roping event.

The points breakdown is as follows: Starting with At Home Challenge Events, ropers will earn 10 points if they win the Challenge. No other points will be awarded. At Signature Events, points will be awarded to those winning an aggregate check. It starts at First Place with 10 points, Second = 9 points, and so on as far down as the roping is paid. During the Cinch NFTR, the placing points are simply doubled. First Place is worth 20 points, second = 18, and so on. For complete rules, please visit USTRC.com. 

—TRJ—

The post Tanner Banks Takes Over Resistol Jr. Heading as Brit Smith Gains on Houston Childers on the Heel Side appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

After a tremendous day of roping at an event he’d helped produce for the past six years, Randal “Randy” Crump of Clarendon, Texas, died suddenly in the company of some of his favorite people at the age of 56.

Though the community around Randy is still navigating the incredible loss, accounts of his passing suggest he left in the same manner he lived: without fanfare and with joy in his heart.

“I’m at one of my favorite places doing my favorite thing with some of my favorite people,” Randy reportedly told his dear friend, Tricia O’Gorman Stroope, in their final conversation that day. “This is the best day ever.”

On Sept. 1, Randy was in Erick, Oklahoma, producing the annual Dalton O’Gorman Memorial Roping with fellow roper and lifelong friend Ike Hanes. Though Hanes had to work this year and left the onsite duties to Randy, the two men had been partnering on the production since the untimely death of Michael Dalton O’Gorman, who passed away at the age of 20 in 2019.

“Randy was with him when he passed away,” Hanes said of O’Gorman. “We’ve given away about $90,000 so far in scholarships since we’ve been doing it.”

Randy had a few years on Hanes, but the two began roping together pretty much as soon as Hanes was able to join the ranks. 

“He grew up cowboy and pretty rough and poor, to be honest with you,” Hanes said of the man he also describes with humor as a hillbilly. “When you say someone would give you the shirt off their back, he was that kind of guy. But he did it his own way. I mean, he would come to an Open and he would put on his T-shirt, and he’d have on his weird boots and his Wranglers that were too tight. You’d see him over there and, if you didn’t know him, you’re like, I’m not roping with that guy. I mean, he just looked like a hillbilly. He’d have on a hat that looked like he’d been in a dryer—a flat cowboy hat that he’s had for 15 years—and just whip your butt.”

Ironically, in numerous Facebook tributes to Randy, ropers far and wide remember him as the guy who partnered with them first when no one else would, making sure to introduce them to more ropers to add to their partner pool, too. It seems that no matter what Randy was dealt, he was often able to do the greatest amount of good with it.

“One year at the Coors Finals, I was in college, but I was roping with him,” Hanes said of entering up with Randy some 17 years ago. “I remember him making it to the Coors Finals in a two-horse trailer, and he had an old Ford gasoline pickup. He was by himself and, when he showed up there, he had jugs of water in the back of that truck because that pickup was overheating. So, he’d had to pull over. He’d drive 50, 60 miles and it was hot—the Coors Finals was in July—and he would have to fill his radio up with the water and then that pickup would get hot and he’d have to fill his radiator up with the water. 

“He made it all the way to the Coors Finals like that, and then he won a bunch of money,” Hanes continued. “And that’s just kind of how he rolled forever. He didn’t care what you thought or how he was dressed. It’s just one of those deals; you just have to tell the truth. You don’t have to lie about guys like him.”

From the outside looking in, it’d be fair to question if any of the stories were made up, especially listening to his wife of 10 years, Buckie, describe the unicorn of a man she married. Not only was Randy an avid and talented team roper and a seven-time WRCA World Champion Ranch Rodeo qualifier, he was also an incredibly caring husband.

“I absolutely loved watching him rope,” Buckie offered. “I loved going with him, and he took such good care of me. We would get to roping early and especially if it was outdoors so he could get me a good place to sit so I could sit in the pickup. In fact, it’s been about three months now, and we went to Levelland and he roped. And anyway, we rode with a gentleman and the man parked way out in the parking lot and, in his defense, there were quite a few team ropers that day, but Randy, he went and got me something to eat for breakfast. 

“I looked at him and I said, ‘Baby, if all these men in here took care of their wives like you do me, these stands would be full.’ He said, ‘Well, if all these women took care of men like you do me.’ And he just was larger than life.”

In short, the two were good for each other. 

“When he met Buckie, things changed for him,” Hanes explained. “She brought him a different kind of peace.”

Another place Randy found his peace was in the roping arena. 

“I’m a nervous Nelly,” Buckie admitted. “He would back in the box, and I would just be up in the stand rocking, saying, ‘Father God, Father God, Father God;’ just a nervous Nelly. It never bothered him. He’d be laughing backing in the box; no biggie.”

“I mean, no situation was too big for him,” Hanes added. “And it didn’t matter if he was up for $10 or $10,000, he didn’t get nervous and he would just do anything for anyone.”

Randy did win plenty of checks over the years. He also won a truck just in time to have a good backup when his favorite ’06 Ford began showing signs of wear. And yet, he didn’t have many buckles.

“I said, ‘You don’t have any buckles,’” Buckie recalled. “He said, ‘Why do I need buckles?’ I said, ‘Well we go to so-and-so’s, and they’ve got all these buckles.’ He said, ‘I can only wear one at a time. Some kid at a roping worked hard running the chutes and pushing the cattle. If he hadn’t been doing what he was doing, then I couldn’t have won,’ and he’d just give him the buckle.”

One buckle that had eluded Randy, though, was from the Dalton O’Gorman Memorial Roping he and Hanes put on. 

“He called me the night before and asked me, ‘Do you think I should rope?’” Hanes recalled. “I said, ‘Yea, rope. Screw it. It’s a roping. If you win, you win. Who cares?’ He didn’t want to torch everybody in our own roping, but he’s had troubles at that roping. Me too. Me and him were high call one time and I slipped a leg, and we just had terrible troubles at that roping.” 

Buckie was shopping for a mother-of-the-bride dress for her daughter’s wedding, so she couldn’t make the event either, but she and Randy were in close contact throughout the day.

“I said, ‘If you can rope, you need to enter up and you need to rope, because since when do you not rope?’” Buckie told Randy. “Then he called back, and he said, ‘I won second and fourth and I won the fast time. I got you a buckle.’”

When Randy called Buckie next, he was getting ready to go swimming, proud to have fit into a borrowed pair of shorts belonging to Brice Bennett.

“I don’t know if you know Brice, but he’s a tall, skinny thing,” Buckie revealed, painting a humorous picture of a stout Randy modeling a perhaps not-quite-his-size pair of trunks to the pool. “They had sent me some videos and he had just been doing cannonballs off the diving board, trying to splash [the kids] and he was just cutting up. And they said he went off the last time, and that was it.”

The passing of Randy Crump is a loss the roping community will feel for a long time. He was employed by honest and unglamorous work at the feedyards and for TXDOT and he’d not had much success in his marriages before meeting Buckie, but Randy never burdened anyone around him with anything other than the good.

“He was always happy,” Hanes said. “He always had a smile on his face. And every time you saw him, he was never in a bad mood at a roping. I don’t think I ever met hardly anyone that truly loved to rope more than him.”

Loved to rope and loved his people, according to Buckie.

“I never heard him complain about getting up and going to work,” Buckie said. “Ever. He got up, he went to work, and he came in, ‘I’ve got to do so-and-so and so-and-so. You want to go? You want to get? Let’s go and do.’

“It was about us being together, about being with his family, his grandkids and his kids. That’s what life was about. And he said, ‘It’s about the person.’ I struggle with that because I like new shoes and I like purses. But stuff just wasn’t important to him. It was about being together with the ones you love and being happy.

—TRJ—

The post Randy Crump (1968-2024) Left a Legacy of Good appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Dear Roper, 

I’m sitting at the Title Fights in Abilene, Texas, as we’re finishing up this November issue. This magazine is a tricky one—it goes to the printer before the ProRodeo season officially closes, and before the Riata Championships and before the American Rope Horse Futurity Association awards its world championships. 

This cover, then, is always a gamble. Unless there’s an insurmountable lead in the PRCA world standings, deciding who to give the cover to is sort of a crapshoot. But late-season standings leaders Dustin Egusquiza and Levi Lord made this call a little easier by pulling off a come-from-behind win at the Pendleton Round-Up that gave us the chance to put Levi on the cover for the first time in his career. And for the second year in a row, PRCA Photographer Clay Guardipee nailed the shot on the grass to make this win come to life in print. 

In that vein, I remind you all to purchase your roping photos from the photographers who spend their days camped out in the cold and the heat at arenas across the country, just to snap an image that brings you all joy when you think fondly on the memory. From Shelby Lynn Photography, who spends so much time at the Ariat World Series of Team Ropings, to Andersen CBarC, who again photographed the Riata Championships, they provide a priceless service to you all that requires skill and stamina. 

Time flies when you’re having fun, and the next issue that drops into your mailbox will be the December 2024 issue—our last of the year, the issue that previews all of the glory of team roping in Las Vegas. 

We’ll see you between now and then, so make sure to say hi somewhere down the road. 

Chelsea

The post Cover Shot: An Inside Look at the November 2024 Issue appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

It’s hard to say which aspect of J.D. Yates’ career is most Hall-of-Fame worthy. There’s the staggering fact he made the first of his 21 NFR appearances as a 15-year-old kid. There’s also his horsemanship. Yates has won somewhere north of 47—yes, 47—AQHA world championships, plus multiple futurities. 

That means he’s hired someone to rope the other end countless times and depended on the other guy to finish off the winning run. Nobody got better at choosing good help. Yates relied heavily on his cousin, Jay Wadhams, over the years and, more recently, on his son Trey.

Today, good helpers are becoming more and more in demand. We thought it’s worth highlighting a few of the best helpers—and help horses—in history.

A good horse

Two horses raised by the Yates family probably took more runs and got more wins than any other help horses over the years. 

“Mailbox could really take a jerk and had a lot of suck-back and could get those head horses to come around,” Wadhams recalled. “I took him everywhere and used him to help J.D. And they had a gray head horse I rode called Taxi that J.D. later tripped on.”

Dick and Jan Yates raised Mailbox, registered as Mighty Pokey To, by Bar Flits Pokey and out of Mighty Mindy, the same dam as Kelly Yates’ great Firewater Fiesta. Mighty Pokey To was a full brother to Flits Friend—the horse Yates won the first-ever PRCA/AQHA Horse of the Year title aboard in 1989. Taxi’s name was Fortune In Taxes—also bred by the Yates family—by Zan Gold Jack and out of the same mare, Mighty Mindy, by Mighty Wild.

Yates remembers those as the two go-to horses, plus a little bay called Spock (registered as Are Mac San, by Are D San out of Shilohs Danae by Jericho Lark) that carried him to at least two AQHA world titles. That was also the horse Wadhams rode inside the Thomas & Mack Center in ’96 when he heeled for Yates (not a bad help horse). In true Yates fashion, Mailbox was also heeled on at the NFR and Yates roped calves on him, plus his sister Kelly ran barrels on him quite a bit.

“A good horse is one you can win on,” Yates said simply. “That doesn’t mean everybody thinks it’s a good horse. It’s one that you personally can ride to win on. Jay mainly rode Mailbox and Taxi to help me, and they were two solid citizens who gave you the same look every time and never took a throw away.”

Older, veteran horses on both ends have been Brock Hanson’s ace in the hole as a helper, too. The Western Colorado native headed for Ryan Motes at the 2012 NFR before switching to heeling. His prowess on both ends has made him one of the most desired helpers in the game. Truth is, he makes his sole living doing that now—and on a better string of horses than he ever had rodeoing.

“A lot of my help horses have been to the big rodeos and big jackpots,” Hanson said. “They’re super seasoned and finished; mostly over 12 years old. I try to take horses that aren’t going to make very many mistakes. I’m proud of the horses I’ve put together.”

Of the six head Hanson hauls to each futurity, he has his favorites. But when it’s short-round time, he steps on the gray named Ranger ID Coon—his own “safety net” he bought from Jeff Hilton last year by Ranger Cookie out of Blanton ID JoAnn, by Docs Leo Poco Pine. Another of today’s highly sought-after helpers, Tate Kirchenschlager, has turned a fair number of steers for big wins on the other side aboard two of the best. One is Lady The Star, the bay mare he calls Mystery that his father raised, by Star The Boss out of Fly Sally Fly by the Easy Jet son Freedom Flyer.

“She scores good and can run, plus take a lot of runs,” he said. “We call her Mystery, the bay mare who ropes the horns for you. The other was a sorrel gelding owned by Cole and Whitney Davison, called Lucky, (named BR Frenchmans Effort by Frenchmans Specialty out of the superstar barrel horse Rods Last Ladybug), that I rode for a few years. Kaleb Driggers owns him and rodeos on him now.”

The main criterion? You’d better be able to run 20 steers a day on the horse and get the same trip every time, said Kirchenschlager.

“It’s a different kind of horsepower,” said Hanson. “I’ve tried a lot of good head horses that won’t make good help horses. Most high-end horses don’t ever make more than eight to 10 runs at a time. It takes a special horse to run 24 steers in a day and maintain good behavior in the box. They have to stay in my hand and leave off my hand. Because if the futurity horse is over there staring down the barrel and ready, I don’t want him waiting on me. That’s a good way to get fired.”

Hanson rotates his head horses every two to three runs, unless a certain heeler likes a steer handled a specific way. He never runs more than five steers on a horse per go-round. 

“If you get a horse gassed, by the time the short round comes around, his juice is missing,” Hanson explained. “He can’t keep his feet moving light enough to load the steer correctly, so you end up hitting the steer and doing a bad job heading.”

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Mad skills

It’s the help horses that allow a staggering catch percentage for today’s best helpers. At last fall’s ARHFA World Championships, Driggers helped on five different horses to chase 130 steers—headlined by his BFI-champion jackpot horse, Oliver, the now 10-year-old gelding Chics Like Hickey (by Hick Chickaroo out of Dee Bars Lust by Dee Bar Rock). He missed one, and got the buzzer once. Then there’s Hanson, who rode six horses on the head side and three to heel. Of his 93 sets of horns, he missed twice and got two buzzers. Of the 78 he heeled, he only missed one leg, one time.

“It’s kind of like the first steer at a 6-header like the BFI,” explained Hanson. “Take a low-risk shot and make a run that can be repeated all day. Get tapped off. A run that’s repeatable looks really good at futurities. Four identical runs will tell the judges it’s no accident.”

Back when Wadhams was helping at Quarter Horse shows, he was simply paid to catch. So he never took chances. Now, time is factored into the score. Helpers have to be closer to the barrier, take more chances and be more correct, he said. 

 Hanson’s goal is to catch up to the super-fresh steer, match pace with it and gain control of it going down the arena to provide the perfect handle. Then he sets up the futurity horse to be shown with an aggressive heel shot or to come around and get set up for a big stop.

“I try not to trick ’em,” he said. “It doesn’t go well every time.”

And although time is a factor, Hanson said it doesn’t count for as much as you might think.

“Time does matter—you can’t lay off,” he said. “But in the middle of the arena, you can get that steer shaped so that heeler can get plugged in and set up for the turn. The difference between being 6.5 or 8.0 seconds means you’re flirting with a point and a half. Whereas, you can make up 3 or 4 points if your heeler isn’t rushed.”

Futurity heelers want you to hit them a little so they can post up and hold the steer, and that can smoke a header’s coils in three runs. Hanson counts on his Fast Back Ropes, and Kirchenschlager likes the longevity of his Heat head ropes by Classic. On the heel side, Hanson said helping on the back end is simple: get in there and catch two feet.

“If it sets up good, you can heel fast,” he said. “But what works best is if that header sees you about to throw, he still has a stride or two to get that young horse stood back up and set up for the big face.”

Mental game

For Kirchenschlager, helping is far more nerve-wracking than showing a horse.

“They chose you out of everybody there,” he said. “And they already have so much money invested. They’re counting on you to rope at a very high level. Messing up for those people ruins your day. It really does.”

When Kirchenschlager is showing, he likes to choose a helper he’s had previous success with, such as his old Colorado buddy Shay Carroll, or Davison or Hanson. The latter also knows the excessive time, energy and money invested by owners and trainers. So, he’s determined to be absolutely mistake-free.

“If I mess up, they miss the opportunity to make all their blood, sweat and tears pay off,” Hanson said. “I hate it. It kills me.”

Wadhams recalls helping Yates in the heading one year on one of the Lazy E’s greatest mares. But he’d also been paid to help the last horse out, that really needed a win to become the year’s Superhorse. All eyes were on that last run—on the helper. 

“J.D. was winning it, but I never let that play into anything,” Wadhams recalled. “It didn’t matter who I was helping, I tried to catch every steer. I’d still rather miss while showing my own horse than for someone I was helping. That’s just the way I was.”

Hanson, too, said he’s completely changed his practice methodology to provide the exact same look for everybody in every round. 

“To be a good helper is pretty hard, and it’s mentally grueling,” Motes said. “There are only a handful of people with the mental grit and ability to stay hooked and focused.”

And, at times, it resembles a bulldogger and hazer helping and trying to beat each other all in the same go-round. Less than two months before they roped together at the 1996 NFR, Yates and Wadhams were each showing Junior heel horses at the World Show and happened to tie for the world title. They had a rope-off.

“I was showing a 6-year-old heel horse of Ed Gaylord’s called Top Hat Jack and J.D. was showing a 5-year-old called Poco Bar Tivio from the Cross Bell Ranch,” Wadhams recalled. “We roped, and then actually switched horses right there in the arena and headed for each other. He beat me.”

With rodeoing, you know your partner has the same costs as you do and that he doesn’t win unless you win. But there’s more pressure at futurities. The best helpers have been part of several big wins, but they tend only to remember the rare flubs.

“I almost melted down right in the arena once,” Hanson recalled. “I was helping Bob Mote at the 2023 Royal Crown in Rock Springs. I’d seen his horse progress, so I knew he’d been working his butt off. We were high call. He gets a great start and sticks it on him. It’s just a layup for me. And I completely miss the steer. I wanted to just crawl out of the arena and have him rope-whip me at the back end. Bob deserved that win. He earned that win.”

Roping for hire

Hanson said he’s about the most expensive helper going, but if he happens to miss a steer, he discounts his rate by 80%. Compensation has definitely changed over the years. When Wadhams was helping at Quarter Horse shows, he’d earn $100 a day to rope four, plus get half the jackpot money. 

“I helped so many that I might make $1,000 or $1,500 a day, which was a hell of a job,” Wadhams recalled. “Staying at the Hilton and eating at the steakhouse was better than staying with J.D. in the Capri camper.” 

Today, some guys split a paycheck into straight thirds between the owner, trainer and helper. Hanson doesn’t feel a helper deserves that proportion, plus he likes to know that if he does a good job, he’ll make an exact amount. 

“I’m a flat-fee guy, for the most part,” Hanson said. “It made sense to me because I’ve invested in my own horses and pay for my own fuel, stalls and more. I’m liable to have up to $2,500 in expenses just for me to go. And I feel like someone would rather pay an extra couple hundred to me and know I’m not going to show up on a colt or a horse that wasn’t good enough to enter so it gets helped on.”

Kirchenschlager, too, is a flat-rate guy. And he’s big on tipping if a lucrative win comes together. 

“Helping is the most unnoticed job in team roping,” he said. “I don’t do it to get credit, but because I just like to compete and to be a part of people winning.”

While this story is about the competitors at shows getting the flag, everyone is clear: without the owners of these horses, this world wouldn’t go ’round.

“If my guy wins, I don’t want credit,” Hanson said. “He just hired me to catch. I don’t deserve an ‘attaboy.’ Owners are the ones sticking their necks out to make this all work.”

—TRJ—

The post The Most Unnoticed Job in Team Roping: Celebrating the Best Helpers in the Game appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Kelsey Willis of Wagener, South Carolina, first ran across the pages of this magazine in the spring of 2022.

In that story about retired police officer Greg Ziel, Ziel had discovered Willis Performance Horses and was learning to rope and to ride—a daring combination that Willis, 37, specializes in. In the beginning, though, Willis was Texas-bound with big plans. 

Switching gears

“I [roped and] rode cutting horses, and I moved out to Texas after a year of college,” Willis said. “I was always into colt starting, and I had done a little bit of teaching.”

Willis then met and married his wife, Brittney, now a professional photographer who’s cutting her teeth shooting rodeo at Little Britches Rodeos, and became a father to daughter Riley, 11, and son Reese, 9.

“I became a paramedic,” Willis explained. “That is something that people in my family had done. So the fire service and EMS background, it was something that I kind of fell into because I needed insurance when I was training horses, and I grew to love that, so I got out of roping for a few years.”

Making connections

With a bit of family life under their belts, the Willises built a home facility and began training and offering lessons for a whole range of riders and rodeo up-and-comers, including Ziel, who was readying to rope at Charly Crawford’s American Hero Celebration in Decatur, Texas, in 2022. After, Willis submitted his own application for entry into the Horns N’ Heroes Clinic with Crawford and Trey Johnson and was accepted into the 2023 program as a heeler.

“From a coaching aspect, Trey helped me so much with my heeling,” Willis said. “He’s probably one of the coolest teachers that I’ve ever been around because he simplifies things. For my own teaching, it was really cool to see the drills they used and kind of the way they broke things down.

“Especially with some of my younger students, I get so technical,” Willis admitted. “That’s probably the single biggest thing—how they were able to take all the technical jargon and really slow it down and make it something that people could understand. That’s what I hope to have accomplished with my teaching.”

But sometimes it also just takes a real-world experience to really light a fire.

Future champions

“We had six of the students that I coach, including my two kids, qualify for the National Little Britches Finals in Oklahoma in July,” Willis reported. “Pretty much all my kids got the pants beat off ’em, but it was their first time out and it was really good. 

“I told them, ‘This is the pinnacle of junior rodeo between this and the high school finals. So when you’re here, you need to take something from it.’ Just like I decided when I was at Charly’s and Trey’s I was going to get everything I could from it. So that’s what we focused on instead of them getting discouraged because they were getting beat by kids who had been there and done that. What they ended up doing is they let it burn a fire in them.”

Since that inaugural finals experience, Willis’ kids have anteed up. His own two were saddling up twice a day, every day to prep for their next rodeo,

“They went to our first Little Britches Rodeo, and they won every single event, and each of them won the all-around,” Willis stated proudly. “Riley won the junior girls all-around for the weekend, and Reese won the junior boys all-around. And they’ve kept it up. They’ve had four rodeos so far, and Reese in one of his events is ranked seventh in the country right now and Riley’s 14^th.”

Back at it

For his own roping, Willis has found a practice buddy in the BFI’s first onsite veterinarian, Andy Clark, DVM, who, according to Willis, paid his way through veterinary school in California as a PRCA header who roped with the likes of Walt Woodard and the Camarillos and company. In the spring, Clark and Willis entered up for an IPRA rodeo in the area.

“I entered him and he said, ‘This is the first rodeo I’ve entered since Salinas in 1980,’” Willis said. 

Willis is tentatively eyeing up a run at the 2025 International Finals Rodeo (IFR55), but he won’t be mad about it if the timing isn’t right for him because his kids and clients are making their own goes.

“We’re going,” Kelsey stated. “And I was really thinking that I was going to regret that and be like, ‘Oh man, what if this or that?’ But I have so much fun going to these junior rodeos and hauling these kids around. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

Attn: South Carolina Ropers: Join the Ziels and Willis Performance Horses to support a great cause

—TRJ—

Thank you to Equinety for helping us share stories of military members, veterans and first responders in the team roping community.

The post Unanswered Prayers appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

After a slow start to 2024, it took Tyler Tryan until early summer to take the lead in the 2024 Resistol Rookie Header of the Year race. Armed with lessons learned this first year out on the hot and dusty, the son of three-time World Champion Header Clay Tryan, who’s 18 and calls Lipan, Texas, home, is ready to take on his sophomore season as a professional header. 

Q: Take us through the first three seasons of your freshman pro rodeo year, with fall yet to play out at press time at the end of August.

A: I didn’t get to buy my card until my birthday on February 28, so I just jackpotted this winter. I won the first (pro) rodeo I entered (he and Logan Moore were 4.4) in Bryan, Texas, to fill my permit, then took off for the spring rodeos in California, which didn’t go very good. The summer went good, but it could always be better. I just want to get better out here, realize what I’m doing wrong and try to fix it.

Q: Who all have you roped with this year? 

A: I started with Logan Moore, then roped with Denton Dunning for two weeks in June. I started roping with Denton again at Caldwell in August.

Q: How many different horses have you had out there this year, and do you share head horses with your dad? 

A: I’ve had three horses out there with me. The main two (Johnson’s the 19-year-old sorrel and Butters is the 8-year-old palomino) are my dad’s, and I have a red roan of my own, Roan, who’s 10. 

Q: What’s been your favorite rodeo so far?

A: I thought Reno and St. Paul were really cool. Reno was my first really big crowd. Same with St Paul. Packed house, loud, and those trees in the arena and the shape of it are just unique. 

Q: For those who haven’t gotten close enough to notice, when did you lose your right thumb, and how has that impacted your roping style? 

A: I cut off my thumb on February 28, 2022, which was my 16^th birthday, at the Patriot Finals at the John Justin Arena in Fort Worth. I was roping with Denton Dunning, and we were no good on our first steer. Then I reached a pretty good ways for our second one. I remember my hand going numb and looking down. That’s about all I can remember. I don’t feel like I’ve changed anything. I could have, but I was out for such a long time that once I started roping again, I just learned to grab my rope like I do now and started roping.

READ: Rodeo Thumb – Research on Whether to Save or Amputate

Q: Was it a bigger physical or mental challenge to rebound from that? 

A: I’d probably say more mental. I was out a year and a half. I didn’t get to swing a rope, and had 10 major surgeries on my right hand. The hardest part was just sitting there watching the ropings. There was a lot of waiting. It sucked, but waiting for the best possible outcome was the best option for me. 

Q: How long have you known you wanted to rope for a living?

A: Since I was a little kid. I’ve always been the kid in the way at the ropings, who roped the dummy all day. It’s about all I’ve wanted to do, and that hasn’t changed.

Q: What are the advantages of coming from such a famous roping family?

A: You grow up in it, so you’ve already lived it. There are advantages, but you still have to work to get it done on your own.

Q: Are there any downsides, pressure from extra expectations included?

A: I don’t see any. I don’t see it that way. 

Q: On the Tryan side, there’s your dad, NFR header Uncle Travis, NFR header Uncle Brady, NFR heeler Grandpa Dennis, NFR barrel racer Grandma Terri Kaye Kirkland and NFR heeler cousin Chase Tryan. Have they all impacted your young career?

A: Yes, they’ve all given me advice at some point. I spent a lot of time in Montana with my grandpa as a kid. He watches me rope and points out things he thinks I need to work on. But he doesn’t say much. He likes to let me figure it out on my own as much as possible. 

Q: Your mom, Bobbie, is from another well-known roping family from Montana, the Robertsons, which include her NFR heeler brother, Matt Robertson, and sister, Arena de la Cruz, married to NFR heeler Cesar. Does your mom still rope?

A: Her whole family ropes. When my mom was younger, she got in a bad horse wreck and hurt her hip. It hurts when she tries to rope, so she doesn’t rope much anymore. 

Q: Do your little brothers rope, too?

A: Braylon heels, and he’s already a 9 at 16. He’s going to be legit. Dash ropes, but he’s more into golf and baseball right now. 

Q: What else do you like to do besides rope?

A: I play a little basketball at the house, and play a little golf. It’s a little bit disappointing when your 10-year-old brother (Dash) is five times better than you at golf. My fun is spending hours in the goat arena, roping the Shorty, and anything that involves a rope. The best way to stay sharp out here rodeoing when you don’t get to practice much is roping the dummy.

WATCH ON ROPING.COM: Full Heading Dummy Roping Lesson
WATCH ON ROPING.COM: Full Heeling Dummy Roping Lesson

Q: Is rodeoing full time what you expected? 

A: Yeah, pretty much. You’ve got to get good enough to do it full-time and as a career, but that’s the plan. The entering and trading never end. Getting to compete is the best part by far. All the driving is the worst part, but I’m getting more used to it.

Q: Who do you get the most advice from?

A: My dad, by far. He doesn’t say too much. He mostly talks to me about how to keep my horses working good, and helps me with little things like my swing when I’m struggling or which horse to ride where. 

Q: What were your goals for 2024 going into this season?

A: To get better. The NFR was a long shot, because I didn’t have anything won to start the summer with. So the goal was to get out here, see where I was at and try to get better. I also wanted to make sure I got into next year’s winter rodeos to give myself a better chance. 

Q: What do your biggest roping hopes and dreams look like now?

A: I want to make the NFR. I need to get a lot better pretty fast to do that. These guys are awesome out here. They head so good, it’s unbelievable. You have to keep evolving with the game to make it out here.

—TRJ—

The post Tyler Tryan Talks Rookie Year Reflections, Rodeo Family and Dash’s Golf Game appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

I’ve had a lot of help along the way, and I’ll never forget the special people who changed my life and career. I give Popeye and Jan Boultinghouse so much credit. I was just a little country hick college kid from Bloomfield, New Mexico, who didn’t have two nickels to rub together when they took me in. We lost Popeye to cancer in August. Jan asked me to speak at his service, and I couldn’t stop crying. Popeye was like a father and a brother to me all in one. We were family. 

When I was graduating from Bloomfield High School in 1977, I was like, “Now what do I do?” I ended up getting a rodeo scholarship to go to Eastern New Mexico University in Portales. I was 17 years old and had no idea where my life was going. I just loved to team rope, and it was starting to catch on in Texas and New Mexico, especially on the jackpotting side. None of the major rodeos had team roping back then. 

I hooked up with a group of guys, and we became the kings down there. Dan Fisher took me under his wing, and showed me some things about heading. Don Beasley was one of the great heelers in South Texas. Tee Woolman was down there. Clay (Cooper) and Bret (Beach) would come. Back in the day, those ropings were enter up. That’s when Clay and I started roping, and we clicked and won pretty good right off the bat. 

At the end of my third year of college, Don Beasley set it up for me to go stay with Popeye and Jan in Cherokee, Texas, while we were amateur rodeoing. It was go twice at the rodeos, and I was roping with Dan Fisher as my first partner and Don Beasley second. Don was Tee’s first partner, and Dan was his second partner.  

Tee and I were competitors climbing the ranks. He joined the PRCA in 1980, and he and Leo (Camarillo) caught fire. One day in June that year, I was at the barn and Jan whistled, then yelled, “Jake, you have a phone call.” It was Allen Bach. I’d never met him, but he was the reigning world champ from 1979 and was asking me to rope. I thought it was a prank. I’d never traveled or rodeoed. 

Allen finally convinced me it was really him. I told him I needed to think about it. I didn’t have any money. I was comfortable down there at the amateur rodeos, but I was a mad bomber back then and my horses ducked so bad. I told Popeye and Jan at dinner that night that I wasn’t sure I was ready. They told me I might regret saying no later in life, and convinced me to go try it. I called Allen back, and told him I’d do it. 

At that time, all it took was three people to sign for your card, basically vouching that you were good enough. I went and got on the first airplane of my life in Austin, got to Colorado Springs, took my first cab to the PRCA office and bought my card. 

Then I went back to Cherokee to load up my stuff. I had an old worn-out truck. So Jan got a new truck and gave me the one she’d been driving. In those days, a dually crew cab 454 gas engine that got five miles a gallon was where it was at. My first rodeo with Allen was North Platte, Nebraska, in June 1980. I made my first NFR that year. 

Popeye always had a lot of steers and good horses. My first experience riding a good horse was on one of Popeye’s, and I rode a couple of his horses at the NFR. Popeye Boultinghouse was the ultimate coach, and he used to tell me, “Jake, if you ever want to be a good roper, you’ve got to develop a good left hand. You can’t just be reaching and ducking all the time.” Popeye taught me about riding better horses, and how to keep them working. 

Popeye Boultinghouse was the one-swing king, whether it was a one-header or a 10-steer average. But his greatest contribution was how he always harped on and helped guys like me and Tee, Speed (Williams) and Rich (Skelton), Bobby Harris and Clay. The door was always open, and he expected nothing in return.

—TRJ—

The post Remembering Popeye: The Mentor Who Changed My Life and Roping Career appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

There really haven’t been many days when Eric “Rook” Rawls couldn’t be found in the roping arena—except for the four years he volunteered to be a United States Marine. In that time, Rawls, then stationed just 35 miles south of the Pentagon, witnessed both the worst assault on American soil in modern history and, then, our country’s greatest day as a united nation.

Roping roots

A native of Earlsboro, Oklahoma, Rawls grew up roping with his dad and his younger siblings.

“When I was a kid, everybody was calf roping and team roping had just kind of gotten popular,” Rawls said. “My dad thought, ‘Man, if I don’t have to get off and get dirty, I’ll be clean when we go to the bar, so I’m going to start team roping.’”

Rawls swears that’s the true story of how he became a roper. Though a header these days, as the oldest of three and the son of a longtime calf roper, he paid his penance as a heeler to start, even qualifying for the National High School Finals Rodeo. Then he joined the Marines.

“I didn’t join until I was 21, and the only reason I joined is I was doing the same thing that I was doing when I was 18, and I needed some structure and discipline,” Rawls said. “I’d won two trailers roping and thought I was going to be the next thing. And that never happened. So I decided that I needed to make a change.”

Pushed to the limit

Change was delivered in spades. Rawls left home in September of 1998 weighing in at 217 pounds. When he graduated boot camp 13 weeks later, he weighed 150. In the pre-smart-phone era when hand-written letters were still a widely accepted form of communication, Rawls’ physical appearance between his departure and his visit home was so radical his family and friends thought he was ill. In reality, though, Rawls was discovering strengths he didn’t know he possessed. 

“Things I didn’t know I could do mentally or physically,” Rawls remembered. “They teach you how to push yourself to limits that you’ve never dreamt of or wanted to think of. … It’s a lot like the slack for a bulldogging: People cheer you; they help you. They want you to succeed because all you’ve got is each other.”

Having survived harsh drill sergeants and sucking down toothpaste in the middle of the night just to put something more in his stomach, Rawls was then stationed in Quantico, Virginia. 

“I was selected to drive for the battalion commander of the largest battalion in the Marines. They based that off my age because they knew that if I needed to make a decision, if the colonel had a meeting or needed to do something, it wouldn’t bother me to interrupt or, ‘Hey, we’ve got a schedule to keep,’ and not be intimidated, because Quantico is an officer heavy duty station.”

He also had a gunnery sergeant who made sure Rawls was set up for success.

“Gunnery Sgt. Anthony. By far one of the top three greatest men I’ve ever met in my life. He taught me what it was to be a leader, to be a man, to be a Marine. And I mean, I loved it. I was actually good at being a Marine.”

That success and confidence served Rawls well when the whole world changed on Sept. 11, 2001.

“When 9/11 hits, they send me down to Armory to get an M16A2 service rifle machine gun and all my gear, and I’m standing at the battalion and when someone walks in, I point a gun at them. It’s [someone] I know and, ‘Halt. Show me your ID.’ Then, if you don’t have your ID, ‘I have orders to shoot or you have to turn around and leave.’ Because no one knew what to expect.”

Rawls describes the next three weeks the fleet spent on lockdown like a bizarre fever dream—“something you only see in the movies anymore.” But the day after 9/11 is the one he’ll never forget.

“In my lifetime, Sept. 12, 2001, was one of the most patriotic, proud to be an American type of day ever because we came together.”

“In my lifetime, Sept. 12, 2001, was one of the most patriotic, proud to be an American type of day ever because we came together.”

Father and son

With the end of his enlistment coming due, Rawls was offered opportunities most Marines only dream of, especially in the face of an imminent war: Spain, Germany or serving the President of the United States.

Employing the same gumption that allowed him to tell a colonel to hurry it up, Rawls countered with a request for something in Oklahoma, near his family. But as fate would have it, none of those decisions would need made.

“I got sick in March of ’02,” Rawls stated. “I found out I had a stomach disease and was medically retired.”

Arriving home, Rawls was showered with patriotic praise and gestures from the community. It was a stark difference from the welcome home his father Troy—also a Marine—received coming home from Vietnam. But that didn’t stand in the way of the father and son discovering a bond that still holds them close today.

“When I came home on leave from boot camp, we went to have a beer and he was asking me stuff,” Rawls remembered. “And I was like, ‘We’ve never talked about this.’ He said, ‘What were you going to know about it? You didn’t know anything about the Marine Corps.’ And I never dreamt that I could have a tighter bond with him.”

In 2006, Rawls spent a lot of the year helping his best friend Nick Sartain cover pavement throughout the rodeo season. When Sartain made his first NFR with heeler Shannon Frascht, they won rounds 5 and 7 and called Rawls to the stage at the Gold Coast that second night.

“Nick said, ‘If you don’t wear this buckle, I’m not going to give it to you. People are going to talk about us if you wear another dude’s buckle, but I wouldn’t have made it here if it wasn’t for you helping me.’ To this day, I wear that buckle.”

But it’s the 2016 jackpot buckle Rawls won with his dad that he reveres.

“I was heeling for my dad, and I think we were high back and just needed to catch,” Rawls said. “And I don’t know how far Daniel Boon tracked things, but I know I went around that arena a lot, swinging my lasso, scared to throw because I was worried I was going to hit him in the ass and miss for my dad. I think I covered him up maybe on the third corner, and then I just hang this big old floater out there and he jumps in it.

“It was damn near 20 years ago, and I still wear the Montana Silversmith 7^th Go Round NFR buckle,” Rawls continued. “And yet, the one with my dad is in a case in our house, and I won’t put it on. Our daughter wears one of my World Series buckles. My wife wears a World Series buckle. I don’t know if I’ll ever take that NFR buckle off. I know I’ll never wear the one of my dad’s.”

Done with purpose

From driving high-ranking USMC commanders to driving NFR ropers, Rawls and JR, his “red-haired, blue-eyed smoke show” wife of 22 years, continue to play integral roles in the community. He’s the stall manager at the Spicer Gripp; he chaperones the judges at some of Amarillo’s cutting events; and he’s been an all-in supporter of Charly Crawford’s American Hero Celebration since his introduction to the program in 2021. 

Rawls has twice taken second place in the AHC’s Pro-Military roping—he headed for Jake Long in 2021 and for Jonathon Torres in 2023—but he has yet to attend the clinic Crawford hosts for veterans and first responders.

“I don’t want to take a spot from a veteran when I can call you and come to your house,” Rawls told Crawford. “I would rather just come down and help. If I need to work chutes or push steers or drive the dummy around, I want to help.”

Rawls’ desire to lead a purposeful life is an inarguable holdout from his time in the Corps, and it’s the reasons the roping community cherishes him as it does—though his fun factor sure counts, too.

“I’ve gone through more jobs that people would love to have because I didn’t have a sense of purpose,” Rawls said. “So I’d just quit, go do something else just because I longed for that feeling of knowing I was making a difference. There’s order and regulation in the Marine Corps. The structure and discipline part, I know that it doesn’t appear that way, but that’s how I function. I’m very regimented. 

“Don’t get wrong: I’m the wildest and most fun-having person in this world, but when there’s something that we’ve got to do, we do,” Rawls asserted. “What I learned [in the Marine Corps], there is no money that can touch it.”

—TRJ—

Thank you to Equinety for helping us share stories of military members, veterans and first responders in the team roping community.

The post USMC Veteran Rook Rawls Remembers 9/11 From Quantico appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

As of Sept. 20, 2024, Florida’s Lexi Andrews maintains her position as the leading USTRC Resistol Jr. Champion header with 58 points, but Alabama’s Tanner Banks upset the proverbial apple cart when he launched himself from last month’s No. 9 spot in the standings to this month’s No. 2 position with 47 points, decreasing Andrews’ comfortable lead and bumping the rest of the Top 5 field out of their previous positions. 

On the heels, Georgia’s Houston Childers also keeps his lead in the standings with 98 points—a new total for the month.

Leading headers

No. 1 Header: Lexi Andrews 

Even though there’s been no change to her 58 points this month, it’s worth noting that Live Oak, Florida’s Lexi Andrews, 16, maintains her lead over both the USTRC Resistol Jr. Champion race and the USTRC Cinch Ladies Standings.

No. 2 Header: Tanner Banks 

At last reporting, Tanner Banks of Opelika, Alabama, boasted 37 points, then worth the No. 9 position in the heading standings. Banks, who turned 18 in September, was new to the Top 10 that month, but his journey to the Top 5 began in June.

Banks kicked off his Resistol Jr. season with a bang when he won first place and 10 points at the North Alabama Championship #12.5 USTRC, produced by Allen’s Roping Productions. In July, he put a notable shine on his efforts at another Allen’s Roping Productions event, the Alabama Championship. There, Banks won second in the #13.5 USTRC for 9 points and took the champion title in the #12.5 USTRC for another 10 points.

When Banks hit up August’s North Alabama Championship to finish third in the #12.5 USTRC for 8 points, that gave him the leverage he needed to enter last month’s Top 10. But he earned his Top 5 stripes at the end of the month when he entered up in the #12.5 USTRC at JX2 Productions’ Tennessee Special and earned the championship title for 10 points, giving him the 47 points that now puts him in the Resistol Jr. header No. 2 spot.

Leading Heeler

No. 1 Heeler: Houston Childers

Houston Childers of Fairmount, Georgia, the champion heeler of the 2023 Resistol Jr. Champion race who also celebrated a birthday—16—in September, dark horsed the heeling standings last month when he came out of nowhere to claim the No. 1 spot with 89 points. And, now that he has the lead, it seems the Jr. veteran has no intentions of letting it go.

Childers’ point-earning path began in June when he first roped in the #12.5 USTRC at JX2 Productions’ Florida Panhandle Championships and took third for 8 points. That same month, he earned another 8 points for a third-place finish in the #10.5 USTRC at the North Alabama Championships. 

At the late July Alabama Championships, Childers scored a whopping 37 points when he took first in the #13.5 and #11.5 USTRC ropings, followed by finishing second and third in the #10.5 USTRC. In August, he finished in second place in the #13.5 USTRC at the Tunica Super Qualifier for 9 points, plus another 8 points for taking third in the #11.5 USTRC. 

Childers then roped at the North Alabama Championships, where he won the #13.5 for 10 points and took second in the #12.5 for 9 points. His 89-point coup put him at the top of the standings where he remains after roping in the #11.5 USTRC at the Tennessee Special and taking second place for 9 points. Now with his 98 points, Childers holds a 24-point lead over the No. 2 heeler.

The Top 5

Resistol Jr. Headers

This month, Tanner Banks made the only moves in the Top 5 Resistol Jr. Champion heading standings, the fallout of which is that last month’s No. 5 header, Hayden Hines, is now pushed out of the Top 5.

Otherwise, Andrews keeps her lead with 58 points, Texas’ Walker Guy falls to No. 3 with 43 points, and Texan Rance Winters and Arkansas’ Hayes Hartwick maintain their tie of 42 points, worth a battle for fourth this month.

Resistol Jr. Heelers

Behind Childers, North Carolina’s Cole Shook reclaimed a lead he once had over Alabama’s Brit Smith when he earned 7 points to bring his total to 74, worth the No. 2 position this month. Smith maintained his 69 points, falling to No. 3. 

Oklahoma’s Jaytin Harrell also maintains his 44 points to claim this month’s No. 4 spot in the standings, while fellow Okie Kale Roark, who was reported at the No. 10 spot two months ago but was bumped off the standings last month, came out swinging with 43 points to round out the Top 5 heelers this month.

2024-2025 USTRC Resistol Jr. Champion Standings

(as of 10/03/24. Go to USTRC.com for current standings.)

USTRC Resistol Jr. Leaderboard: Headers

USTRC Resistol Jr. Leaderboard: Heelers

—TRJ—

The post Tanner Banks Disrupts Resistol Jr. Heading Top 5 as Houston Childers Defends His Lead with More Heeling Points  appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Dear Roper,

Our magazine is entering its eighth year—a milestone that feels hard to believe considering most team ropers still have me in their phones as “Chelsea: Spin To Win” from our magazine of yesteryear. 

Crazy how far things have come since we combined Spin To Win Rodeo and Super Looper to create The Team Roping Journal in 2017. We had a vision to tell the stories that inspire the sport, and I don’t think we could have imagined where that would lead. 

This is our Breeding Season and Futurity Preview Issue (not to be confused with our full Breeder’s Guide you get in January). The stallion ads in these pages represent the largest opportunity for growth in the team roping business since the creation of the handicap system. Stallion stations have seen ropers flocking to breed mares, and the Riata stallion incentive continues to see increases in nominations on horses of all ages. There’s record money in the futurities, and millions and millions of dollars paid out at the Riata. 

To be clear—the rope horse industry is fueled by two vitally intertwined but very different forces. On the futurity and judged side of things, trainers ride for the public, like Joseph Harrison, who you see on this cover. They are an entire subculture of competitors, with their own challenges and opportunities.

On the Riata side, recreational ropers are getting access to new added money, fueled by some of the same stallion owners whose horses excel with the pros in the futurity world, but also by small breeders, large ranches and everyone in between. Those recreational ropers number in the tens or hundreds of thousands, cracking open a brand-new market for the breeding business.

These two worlds are interconnected, both growing on a sharp upward trajectory, crisscrossing one another’s paths, never in opposition. All ships rise with a high tide, and that is what we’re seeing in the team roping industry today.

Stop me and say hello at the ARHFA World Championship!

Chelsea

The post Riding High on the Rope Horse Wave: An Inside Look at the October 2024 Issue appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Joseph Harrison has proven the king of the rope horse business in 2024, entering the American Rope Horse Futurity Association World Championships having won $199,000 at the Old West Futurity in Utah and helping other ropers to another $225,000. 

Harrison has won $706,042 in ARHFA competition, and he’s ridden horses that have sold for hundreds of thousands to the industry’s hottest talents, Brazilian investors and everyday ropers. He’s set the standard for how people can make money in the new era of the rope horse business, and he’s shown a profitable path to success training horses and making a living with a rope—a path that didn’t really exist a decade ago. 

Harrison’s template for success isn’t the norm, though. But perhaps it’s the guiding light that horse trainers, and those who want to be trainers someday, model their programs after. 

At the same time, horse trainers who never had gold buckle dreams—like those who cashed big checks on homemade horses at the Riata—are realizing bigger payouts than ever before. They’re the guy or girl down the road who makes good horses easily accessible for the masses, selling affordable, safe, World Series-ready horses, too. Jim Bob Fritz, a 5.5 switchender from Nocona, Texas, has banked $250,514 in handicap ropings since 2021 on his Riata horse, Cat Man San, by Cat Man Do—providing yet another, more attainable model for ropers to aspire to.

So—is now the time to quit your day job and jump into training horses with all the opportunities the futurities and stallion incentives present? 

Growing Need for Trainers

Plenty of top talents made early moves into the futurity business. Trevor Brazile retired from ProRodeo just as the futurity industry took off, so he was poised to jump into it with the same work ethic he applied to winning 26 gold buckles. 

Harrison, for his part, had spent years honing his craft under Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Lewis in the AQHA show pen. He was sharpening up his roping to throw fast, making his first NFR the same year (2017) that Jay Wadhams hosted the first ARHFA World Championship in Fort Worth. Harrison accomplished what few others have, balancing ProRodeo with winning at the futurities, and he made six NFRs before stepping away from the rodeo trail in favor of full-time horse training after the 2022 Finals. 

But Brazile doesn’t ride for outside customers, and Harrison’s string isn’t always the easiest to get a spot in, with his barn full of longtime partners and a lengthy waiting list. With dozens of futurities now filling the schedule and millions in payouts, the demand for quality trainers is growing. 

“Seeing guys like JohnRyon Foster, who used to have three or four [horses in training] now having 10 or 12 in his barn, they’re all honing their craft,” Harrison said. “He could have 20 horses in training. Him, Luke Atchison, they’re all doing better and better and learning how to win. And the more they win, the better they get. They’ve been training and learning how to train their whole lives. I’m not saying the rodeo guys haven’t, but they’re the kind of good talent who can make money at this game.”

Foster, who recently won the ARHFA’s Cowtown Classic Intermediate Heeling title on Wood You Know, didn’t grow up in the roping or rodeo world, but his dad, Rob, trained Western pleasure horses in the AQHA, so he had spent two decades working on his horsemanship before moving into the rope horse world. 

“A lot of people I knew growing up through the AQHA gave me an opportunity,” Foster said. “At first I was just riding 2-year-olds for my dad. Then I’d get some more people wanting me to ride rope horses and I’d take a few less 2-year-olds. Then I had a lot of people who wanted a nice jackpot horse. People don’t realize I ride horses I don’t show, whether it’s for people who just enjoy having a horse in training or want one ready for roping in lower-numbered ropings. And now, I have a couple horses for Travis Graves, Coleby Payne and JC Flake. They can’t ride their young horses while they’re gone rodeoing over the summer.”

Horsemanship First 

It’s guys like Foster who’ve made it their mission to study the finer points of horsemanship—and then stepped up their roping game to match—that the Relentless Remuda’s Miles Baker says are the future of the industry. He was one of those guys himself, who spent most of his life learning the horse training art before the roping part of the game. When he and Brazile began their partnership in 2021, Baker carried a 5.5 heel card—the same number he’d been since 2014. Three years later, Baker is a full partner in the Remuda, now with an 8 heel card to complement his 7 head card. 

“Good roping makes good horses, so you need to expose a horse to good roping,” Baker explained. “I can make them better now because I’ve worked hard enough on my roping. The sport is growing enough, like any other industry, that it’s getting to where guys can make a good living doing it. There’s guys who can train horses well who can get to roping better to be competitive, and there’s guys who rope good who need to work on their horsemanship more. 

“I told Junior (Nogueira) the other day, I wish I had worked on the roping more when I was younger. I had to work on it so hard in my late 20s, I was behind. But he said I am making more money to make a good living than guys who can just catch two feet, so I did something right. You can improve your roping a lot faster than you can learn how to feel a horse.”

Riata founder Denny Gentry sees the need for deeper understanding of horsemanship expanding into every corner of the rope horse industry. 

“Clay (Cooper) just said it in this magazine: ‘Horsemanship is equally if not more important than the roping,’” Gentry said. “That is going to be the case with the numbered ropers as more emphasis is placed on the horses. This movement will no doubt have an impact on the sport at some point.”

Opportunity

While there are more and more competitors opting to become rope horse trainers, fewer and fewer are wanting to train 2-year-olds, creating a bottleneck at the colt-starting stage of the training game. 

Baker used to start all the Relentless Remuda colts, but with rising numbers of show horses in the barn and increased money to be won, he found himself starting his days riding year-round at 4 a.m. and still not having time for the 2-year-olds.

“There’s a big calling for guys who are good 2-year-old guys for rope horses, specifically,” Baker said. “We were letting reiners ride our 2-year-old rope horses, and I had to check myself because I had a reiner telling me which ones were good and which ones weren’t. I went to ride through them after 90 days, and the main one they wanted to cull was the best one, for me. I’m listening to a guy who doesn’t rope tell me which ones were good head horse prospects. There’s a disconnect there. 

“If somebody could call me and Trevor and say, ‘This 2-year-old feels like a head horse,’ and be right about it, we’d send that somebody all the 2-year-olds we could ride. To this day, we’ve only found a guy or two who understand what we’re looking for and can put that feel on them.”

ProRodeo Hall of Famer and AQHA Hall of Famer J.D. Yates once rode all his own 2-year-olds, but at 64, he’s not really craving that part of it anymore. 

“Nobody wants to do it anymore,” Yates said. “Everybody wants to send their horse somewhere to get started. A lot of us who did it are getting old, and it hurts. There are just not a lot of guys who enjoy doing it. They all want to show, and I don’t blame them.”

The 2020 PRCA World Champ Colby Lovell, who’s sold as many high-dollar futurity horses as anyone else in the business, still rides his own 2-year-olds whenever he can. 

“I ride the ones I think have the longevity, the ability to be a stud,” Lovell said. “I like to put my own passage of time in them and depend on myself. Most of the 2-year-old guys are cow horse guys, and they have more passion in that industry. We want head horse prospects big, strong, with a lot of run. Those aren’t usually cow horses, and they’re a lot of horse to start and a lot of horse to want to ride. There are 2-year-old guys, but the kind that make good rope horses can be a lot to handle.”

Darren Johnson, who owns CR Better Be Tuff, one of the horses Harrison has won big bucks on in 2024, also starts his own 2-year-olds before putting them in the hands of guys like Harrison, Cade Rice and Dakota Kirchenschlager. Johnson owned X My Ich, the horse Kirchenschlager won the ARHFA World Championship on in the heading in 2020. 

“I start my own 2-year-olds,” Johnson said. “That’s what I like to do, obviously. It started with Dakota, and I had two nice colts I started, and I used them, roped on them outside, then I sent them to Dakota in July their 4-year-old years. And then it evolved into this rope horse deal. I rope, obviously, and I just think that horsepower is everything now. 

“A lot of people can rope nowadays, so the difference is in the horsepower. I ride them, use them, hand them off to Joseph, Dakota, Cade, and when I get them back, I have a great, quality-trained horse I can take to the roping, and the last thing I worry about is the horse.”

WATCH ON ROPING.COM: Colt-Starting Series with Miles Baker

Show Me the Money 

The best trainers in the world are bringing in $1,500-$2,000 a month per horse, and that money might seem like it adds up fast. For some, it does. 

“I’ll be real honest with you, it makes money, even for the customers, if the horses are good enough,” Harrison said. “There are three or four horses in my barn that we’ve been showing this year that their owners are making money doing it. They might not be making a living, but they’re in the clear on those horses.”

But even for the owners of the best horses in the show-horse business, that doesn’t always make sense when you put pencil to paper. Shane Boston owns The Notorious BIG, the 2018 stallion by CD Lights out of roping’s blue hen mare, DT Sugar Chex Whiz, whose earnings have topped $100,000 in three years of competition with Billie Jack Saebens. 

“Why it doesn’t work, is that you take your average hard-working American who loves team roping,” Boston explained. “He goes and buys himself a $30,000 reject cow horse or cutter or reiner. He sends him to any of the top trainers, and that horse will stay there for a year before he’s ready to compete at a top level, averaging $1,500 a month. So, you have another $17,000 to $18,000 in that horse. Now you’re at $50,000. Then he’s 4 and you start showing him. Well, you’re going to show, possibly winning $15,000 to $20,000, and that’s rare to win that big of a paycheck on one of them. So from a standpoint of putting pencil to paper, you pay your trainer, then your helper, then out of a $20,000 day, you’re going to get maybe less than half of it. You’ve won $10,000. The math isn’t there.”

The Old West Futurity in Wallsburg, Utah, had a payout that topped $1 million, with two $100,000 paychecks going to first place on each end in the 6-&-Under and two $50,000 checks going to the champs in the 4-&-Under. Produced by A&C Racing and Roping’s Richard family and Redgie Probst, it was the highest-paying judged event in the sport’s history.

“The payouts have to be big to make people want to play,” Boston said. “That’s why we’re putting up added money when we can. Now, if you have a program, and you’re trying to promote a mare or a stud or sell colts, it’s getting to be where it’s worth the investment. But at the end of the day, we’re probably still five years away from being where we need to be to get more players in the game.” 

Recreational ropers, however, are used to playing for big payouts every weekend at the jackpots, and Riata has opened a door for tracking those earnings, too—showing the lifetime profitability of a rope horse. That profitability is unlike what horses can win in any other discipline, over a much longer career, with many horses competing well into their 20s. Now, with QData and EquiStat working with Riata and the Equine Network to track those horses’ earnings, rope horses are finally just beginning to show their multi-million-dollar annual impact on the official records.

Sleeping Giant

While the judged end might be still playing catch up and following the template of NCHA, NRCHA and NRHA, the time-only side of things at the Riata are trying to awaken the masses to a new angle in jackpot team roping. With the use of big added money from stallion owners, they have become the third richest jackpot in the world in their first 24 months. It’s catching the attention of everyday ropers on the do-it-yourself end of the horse training spectrum.

“The futurities, the Open guys, they get the press because they’re the best and they win a lot,” Pitzer Ranch’s Jim Brinkman said. “But the 4s, the 5s, the 6s, the younger end of those guys, they pretty much make their own horses and they rope on their horses. At our sale, that’s where the majority of ours go. We have 5% that wind up with Open guys.” 

That’s saying a lot, since Pitzer has two large sales each year and will sell nearly 400 at their coming fall sale.

“The biggest growth is all in the middle,” Brinkman continued. “And consequently, the futurities will eventually be maxed out, entry-wise, on the upper divisions, because you’ll simply run out of guys. The 6s down to the 4s, that’s where the cowboy kids and the ranchers are. If they get a nice horse, they have somewhere to use them for great money at the Riata. That’s our biggest growth area. The majority of the work on those horses at the Riata was done by the owner/operator. If we can keep that middle big, there’s growth. As a breeder, raising horses, I have to shoot 90% of my horses toward that middle to make it economically right for me. I get a few that could go to Trevor, but the guy who’s a 5 is who will pay the bills for us every year.”

The strategy for Riata from day one has been targeting that market. The Riata Mini-Qualifiers were introduced this year to offer cash-incentive sidepots at major jackpots for more opportunities with the horses. Riata scheduled a half dozen of these sidepots in 2024 and has a dozen on the schedule for 2025. Even more telling is the wide-open experimental #8.5 at the Riata Championships that only requires one Riata per team. They call it experimental, but it’s pretty clear they plan to remove nearly all their filters and go hard at the 4s in the #8.5. If it is successful, the #9.5 will be next in line for that same treatment in 2025. With no ceiling to be cracked, Riata is trying to open the door into a sea of low-number ropers.

Jesse Jolly, a Colorado rancher who won the Riata’s #12.5 on the heel side in 2023, said most of the guys he knows who are gearing up for the Riata are do-it-yourselfers like him, putting in the time on their own colts to get them ready for the jackpots. 

“A lot of the guys I know around here have had bad experiences with trainers,” Jolly said. “They send one off for six months, and the horse barely gets rode. Most of them are trying to do it themselves. A lot of trainers are $1,300 to $1,500 a month, and that adds up in a hurry.”

That DIY training approach can take time, something that the average low- to mid-numbered roper working a day job doesn’t have a surplus of. But the word from the Riata nomination office has the number of horses from individuals with a single nomination passing the number of horses from ranch and breeding operations. That was the original plan: to get thousands of ropers to breed to great stallions and build the program from the ground up. It’s possible their proxy program to sell Riata breedings and colts may be providing a false sense of reality in their numbers. But false or not, the colts bought to allow a proxy are going to be hitting the roping arena or horse sales in the next couple of years. 

“This year we have heard repeatedly,  there are guys getting horses ready for two to three years from now,” Gentry said. “These are your average ropers making their own horses. We set the futurity incentives up to encourage the training of young horses. And we set the age of those futurities where, as a horse gets older, we create a horse market down the number divisions. It’s still too early to be making conclusions, but it appears that most of the mid-level ropers can’t compete on futurity horses, or can’t afford them. They will make their own.”

Full Circle

As the saying goes, all ships rise on a high tide. While the highest end of the futurity rope horses sell for hundreds of thousands—whether they go as breeding stock, rodeo mounts or big-time jackpot horses—the middle-of-the-road horses in the judged futurity industry more often than not make stellar horses in the jackpot world. That provides another revenue source for trainers and owners, and that separates roping from other disciplines, where average horses end up culled or out to pasture. Team roping, with its hundreds of thousands of competitors and tens of millions of dollars in annual payout and World Series barrier, once again provides a massive growth opportunity in the Western performance market. 

—TRJ—

The post All Ships Rise appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Here comes the 2024 regular-season finish line. One last mad dash for the weary rodeo road warriors who’ve been out there all year working toward the golden Top 15 ticket to rope at the Thomas & Mack Center in December.

Ever seen someone who’s just run a marathon dig deep enough to sprint the last few hundred yards to try and eke out the win? That’s exactly how every guy within reach of this year’s Wrangler National Finals Rodeo cut feels right now. Time to step on the gas, and some tanks are running on fumes. As we head down the backstretch, we thought it would be fun to have a few longtime Top 15 regulars weigh in on their Finals philosophies, complete with words of wisdom for this year’s bubble boys.  

Tee Woolman, Clay Cooper and Walt Woodard have 95 National Finals back numbers and 12 gold buckles between them. Woolman’s National Finals count alone is 46, including 27 in the team roping and 19 in the steer roping. Cooper’s heeled at 29 NFRs and Woodard’s been there and done that 20 times…and counting.   

Tee Woolman

How big a deal is it to make the Finals when you’re out there rodeoing?

“It’s the biggest deal,” said three-time World Champion Team Roper Woolman, who’s 67 and now calls Stephenville, Texas home. “If that’s what you set out to do, that’s what you have to do. If you’re rodeoing for a living, you’ve got to make the Finals, bottom line.” 

What’s the difference between a Top 20 guy and a Top 15 guy?

“Probably about two rodeos. Maybe one. That’s what it boils down to. It’s the guy who gets the break when you’re battling for a spot at those last couple rodeos when the 20^th guy can move up to 15^th and vice versa.”

What can the Top 20 types do to get over the hump?

“I think it’s all about your mindset all year long. And at the end, when you’re tired and dragging, you have to be more focused and on point than ever. You don’t want to put pressure on yourself, but you have to do your best and outperform the other guys.” 

Did you ever get to where you took making the Finals for granted? 

“I don’t think I ever took it for granted; I went at it with daily goals to win rodeos, and those stair-stepped up to the fact that my ultimate goal was always to win a world championship. I had to make the Finals to have a chance to do that. In my mind, there was never any doubt I’d make the Finals, because I was the best there was and always had the best heelers. It didn’t always go that way, but that’s how I thought about it.”

What was your closest call to not making it?

“The year a horse fell on me during Dodge City and broke my left wrist and dislocated my clavicle. I was out for six weeks in August and September, and when I started back, I was behind. When I got hurt, I was roping with Tyler Magnus. But from there, I rodeoed all over the place with everybody, including Matt Zancanella and Tim Fryar. My back was against the wall, and I barely made it, maybe 14^th or 15^th. But I never doubted I was going to make it.”

What’s your best advice to guys on the bubble right now?

“Buckle up. Let’s get after it. Stay positive, push forward and be gung ho about it. Remember that you’re competing against every steer, not the people. And there can be no negativity.”

Clay Cooper

How important is it to make the cut when you rope for a living?

“It’s everything, especially back in the day, because there were only a few places throughout the year where you could win a big check that was significant enough to pay something off or invest in a place,” said Cooper, who’s 63, won seven gold buckles with Jake Barnes and lives in Gardnerville, Nevada. “When I was competing, it was huge. There are a lot more opportunities to win good money, but it’s still very important because everything costs so much more and you can win $150,000 to $200,000 at the Finals now.”

What’s the secret to being a perennial NFR qualifier?

“It’s just a mindset that that’s just what you’re going to do. You need to stay prepared and equipped to win, with the right partner combination and horses. When that’s all in place, you expect to make it.

“I was down in South Texas 20 years ago in the wintertime. It was about Houston time, after Denver, San Antonio and San Angelo, and none of the regulars were in the standings. One of the new guys commented that he guessed the tide was changing because the old guys couldn’t cut it anymore. I laughed. By the start of the summer, none of those new guys were in the standings anymore, and they were filled up with the regulars.”

What sets those NFR regulars apart from the rest?

“I think once you reach that upper-level threshold, that gives you confidence. And rightly so, because you’re one of the elite guys, and you know you can do it. You have the experience and know-how, and you know not to panic on a day-to-day basis and that it’s a long grind. You learn to just go do your job, and that in the end the cream ultimately rises to the top.” 

What are the most important things you can do to not get left behind?

“That’s a complex equation because you have two guys, two horses and the draw factored in. You can find yourself in the perfect storm either way—kicking butt or not doing as well as you’d like. You have to mentally flip that switch, not panic and go execute your run. Guys who try to do more than they can do tend to fail more. Being too conservative is not the answer, either. Go make your run.” 

Did you ever come to expect making the Finals every year?

“I think I did, yes, because I made it so many times in a row. Then a couple times toward the end of my career, I made it right there at the tail end. I chose to rodeo my way, not as hard, and just kind of had the mindset that it’d happen if it was supposed to—and I made it. You have to override your mind when it wants to panic with the wisdom of all you know. It’s a mind-management game, and you can crater or you can rise.

“There were a few years I pulled up early, because I didn’t want to fight the fight all the way down to the end. I wasn’t roping good enough, or I didn’t have enough confidence in my horse or partner. It wasn’t as important to me as when I was younger, and I knew I’d be a lot happier if I went home and started over at the buildings the next year.”

Tell us about the years you barely made it.

“I squeaked in at the end twice. In 2013, Justin Davis and I flattened off in the middle of the summer and I’d made a deal with him that I was going home every six weeks, and taking two weeks off. That hit during Caldwell (Idaho), so he made a change. My first rodeo back was San Juan Capistrano (California), and I won it with Spinny (Aaron Tsinigine). I barely made it in 14^th or 15^th, and Justin made it in 15^th, so we ended up roping together at the Finals that year anyway.

“In 2014, I was roping with Chad (Masters) the second time. The first year we roped together was a storybook season, but the second time was a struggle all year long. It got right down to the wire, and we were on the bubble with only Omaha and three rodeos in California left. Our backs were against the wall, but we did good in Omaha and that got me in. That was the big controversy year, when it went back and forth between Chad and Tom Richards 25 times over rodeo counts. What a fiasco. I ended up roping with Spinigine at the Finals that year, because Chad had to sit it out.”

What’s your advice to guys on the bubble right now?

“Stay hooked mentally, and keep executing runs. You can only control what you do, so back in there with the intent of repeating your run. That’s the goal, and that’s the only thing that’s going to get you there.”

Walt Woodard

You’ve had the NFR-cut ball bounce both ways, haven’t you?

“Absolutely,” said California native Woodard, 68, who won world titles 26 years apart in 1981 and 2007, and now lives in Stephenville, Texas. “I missed at the Cow Palace one year to make it. It’s not always a Cinderella story. And when you don’t make it, you want to go to Bangladesh, so hopefully they don’t have television and you don’t have to see it on TV, because you don’t think they can have it without you. You don’t ever want to feel that way again.”

All the talk is about the regular-season backstretch, but you have other ideas on that, don’t you?

“Yes, I do. A lot of people put so much importance on the end, but what about Reno? And Greeley? And that time you overslept, and weren’t really prepared to run that one steer? Maybe you didn’t have a great winter, or had a subpar spring. Be honest. Did you really try hard enough all year long? When you don’t make it, it comes down to the failures throughout the year. What you should be thinking is, ‘How did I put myself in this position? I should not be here.’ Making it is about giving it all you have all the time. No one comes through every time, but you have to try.”

What’s different about the guys who make it year after year, and how do you handle the disappointment of not getting it done?

“Great champions have great focus. They eliminate all the doubts, distractions and fears. I’ve always been interested in watching people under pressure, like relief pitchers. I’ve asked Madison Bumgarner how he handles having his entire team counting on him, then a guy hits it over the fence and they lose the game. The way he looked at it was the best hitters in the world are going to hit it over the fence sometimes, no matter who’s on the mound.

“I listened to an older baseball player talk about the same thing one time, and he had a cabin in a beautiful place he went to in the off-season. How he handled it was saying to himself, ‘If they hit it over the fence, the worst thing that happens is they cancel my contract and I get to go to the cabin.’ Those are the thoughts you need to cling to, so you don’t bury yourself in self-doubt. Stop. That will kill you.”

What do you say to the guys who don’t make it this year?

“Jake Barnes said it best, ‘You either win something or learn something.’ (A quote Jake credits to Ty Murray.) That’s one of the greatest lines of all time. Worst-case scenario, you’re going to hate watching it on TV. You can let that motivate you or destroy you. Your choice.  If you know you have the ability, make some adjustments and work harder.

“When I won second (in the world) in 2006 (behind his header Matt Sherwood), that drove me. I thought, ‘If I can beat all but one guy who ropes in the PRCA, surely I can beat one more guy.’ And I did. I came back in 2007 (heeling for Clay Tryan), made some adjustments—including riding stronger position going down the arena and adding more swing speed on my rope—and won the championship in 2007. I took little pieces from guys who are great, added them to my own style and got it done.”

Final words of wisdom for this year’s bubble boys, please. 

“Leo (Camarillo) said one time, ‘You have to challenge every steer, and win what you can win on him. You can’t rope against someone else, what’s the matter with you?’ That was so helpful to me. I benefitted from Leo so much, because what he said was true, even when it was hard to hear.

“This game is about being mentally strong. When you back in that box, you are alone. All by yourself. It’s up to you to either be strong and come through or fail. This is either important enough to you to figure out what you need to do to make it, or not. Just remember that if you do fail, no one cares. That should surely take some of the pressure off of you.”

—TRJ—

The post Fight for the NFR Finish Line appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Situation

This is a futurity run on my 5-year-old, Copperton. On the back side of the turn, the steer took his head away from Blake (Hughes) and got flat. When he does that, the only option Blake has is to dump over the front and pull the cow to get back into control. So you can see there, where the steer is taking a big, open jump, Blake’s pulling on him pretty hard. 

LISTEN ON THE SHORT SCORE: Joseph Harrison is the Richest ARHFA Roper

Normally…

Ideally, when the steer is moving pretty round at the end of the rope (rather than flat like this one is), he’ll pull the tip through for you. But when he planes out, having good reach over the steer’s back gets me enough tip through there to get the left leg.

READ MORE: The Ideal Heel Horse Stop

Problem-Solving

I came through shallow and I barely got the left leg. I have more to the back and the right of the cow than I do to the left of the cow. So it comes tight faster to the left of the cow, and it stays lower on the feet—meaning, I can pretty easily lose that leg. When that happens, I know I’ve got to go all the way to the top of my slack and hold it. That means I’ll have to dally sharp.

I held it there to come tight on the legs to not lose one of them. I’m waiting on that rope to come tight where I can see it and feel it to not lose it. Honestly, that steer is tough even if we’re riding our [seasoned] jackpot/rodeo horses. When you’re bouncing saddles and getting off one 5- or 6-year-old and on another, that’s a tough steer.

—TRJ—

WATCH ON ROPING.COM: Joseph Harrison, a seasoned veteran with over $1,000,000 in career earnings and six NFR qualifications, shares invaluable insight on throwing the perfect heel loop, preparing for a big roping and more. Learn from his exclusive masterclasses available only on Roping.com.

The post Barely Hanging On: Don’t Lose a Leg appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

a) Game Plan

We hadn’t been making very many good runs. Then we went up there and checked the draw and we knew we had a pretty good steer, so we just kind of erased all the runs we had been making and decided to start fresh at Cody. It worked out.

b) Steer

He was a little bit slower, and he took the handle pretty good and fast. A lot of the steers kind of ran pretty good and ran left. Ours was just straight and pretty slow and so it helped us out a lot.

c) Handle

This steer came out and he kind of lowered his head, but Kreece did a really good job getting it on him. Kreece has a really good horse, and that horse got the steer legal to heel really fast. Then whenever he was legal to heel, I just cut it down there at him.

d) Horse

Kreece had just turned that steer here, and my horse did a really good job reading the corner and got me in a really good spot. Obviously, I was delivering my rope, so it was honestly just a really good, timed run. My horse felt good and everything was just perfect.

e) Delivery

That steer, whenever he hit, he kind of hit out to the right of me just a little bit. I knew whenever I went to deliver my rope, I was going to hang on to it as long as I could and try to get my bottom strand all the way on the ground.

f) Body language

When that steer kind of hit out to the right, I knew that I was going to have to follow my bottom strand all the way to the ground and make sure I got enough tip through there.

—TRJ—

The post Cooper Freeman Breaks Down Cody Stampede Winning Run appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

At 35, Tanner Braden is making a charge at his first Wrangler National Finals Rodeo back number. The Prairie Circuit cowboy, who makes his home in Dewey, Oklahoma, with his wife, Jade, and kids, Lexi, 12, Rian, 9, and Brenten, 4, is hoping this is the year he clears the hurdle between him and the bright lights of Vegas in December.

Q: When did you start roping, and who got you started on the right track?

A: I’ve been around it my whole life. My dad (Bucky) used to trip steers, and was 16^th a time or two. My whole family—my mom’s side, too—ropes calves. So I grew up in it. I’ve always ridden a horse, and started roping competitively when I was 6 or 7. 

Q: When did heeling become job one?

A: I actually headed all the way up to high school. I roped with Cody Doescher in high school, but as soon as we left the (National) High School Finals my senior year, I decided I wanted to try the heeling side. By my freshman year in college, I was a heeler, and heeling for my brother, Colt, at the (Prairie) Circuit rodeos. 

Q: What’s rodeo life like in the Prairie Circuit? 

A: We’ve got quite a few NFR qualifiers in our circuit. Even the guys who haven’t made it yet all rope unbelievable, so our rodeos are pretty tough. 

Q: Have you lived in Oklahoma all your life, and was there a lot of roping activity in the area where you grew up? 

A: Yes, I was born in Ponca City, but we’ve lived in Dewey for as long as I can remember. There are a bunch of junior rodeo associations, and my parents got me to all of them. There are a lot of jackpots in our area, too, so if you didn’t go anywhere it was your own fault. 

Q: What’s Dewey like?

A: Dewey’s a small town with a couple gas stations that’s a suburb of Bartlesville. Our mascot is the bulldoggers, and there’s a bulldogger getting down on a steer on our basketball court. 

Q: You heeled for Paul David Tierney the last several years before now. How hard did the two of you hit the trail, and weren’t there years you got close to making the Finals?

A: We roped about four years together, and came close a couple times (Tanner finished 19^th in 2022). Paul David and I were good friends before we were roping partners, so there was never any tension. He wanted to stay closer to home this year is why I’m doing something different.

Q: Who all have you roped with in 2024?

A: I started the season with Bubba Buckaloo at Odessa, Fort Worth and Tucson. Then I roped with Ty Arnold at Austin, Cory Kidd at San Angelo, Guymon and Kansas City, Claremore with Jake Clay, and Andrew Ward at San Antonio and Houston. I started roping with Cyle Denison at Mount Pleasant (Texas) the first part of June, and we plan to finish the year together.

Q: How was your connection with Cyle made?

A: I’ve seen him rope for years, and knew he roped good. Tyler Wade is who told me I needed to give him a call. It’s gone great, and I’m excited to be roping with him. 

Q: With $21,037 a man, you and Cyle were the second high-money-winning team over this year’s Cowboy Christmas run behind only Kaleb Driggers and Junior Nogueira, who won a team roping record $47,275. Hit the highlights for us on your 2024 Fourth of July run.

A: We won Red Lodge (Montana), and won rounds at Greeley (Colorado) and Prescott (Arizona). We also placed at Livingston (Montana), St. Paul (Oregon) and Oakley (Utah). It was the best Fourth I’ve ever had. We buddied with Clint Summers and Jake Long, so we got to go to more rodeos than I ever have in the past. 

Q: What do you do when you’re not out there rodeoing?

A: I put on some small jackpots in an indoor arena near where we live in the wintertime. And Jake Clay and I have a big New Year’s Eve and Day roping in the Tulsa area. 

Q: What’s been the favorite win of your career so far?

A: I would have to say Red Lodge, because it’s over the Fourth and the best in the world were there. But all the rodeos are pretty special, and a guy always needs to win. 

Q: What’s been the best, most valuable lesson you’ve learned rodeoing over the years that would most help a young rookie coming in?

A: To not get too down on yourself. You can have the greatest week you’ve ever had, then the next week can be the worst. It can change in an instant, so don’t get too down or too negative. 

Q: How much of rodeoing for a living is mental, and how natural has handling the highs and lows been for you?

A: It’s dang sure 80% mental. If you don’t believe in yourself, nobody else will either. I feel like I’ve always been pretty good about not letting a whole lot bother me. I’ve had a lot of people in my corner that I’ve learned from who’ve helped me. So I don’t ever get too worked up. 

Q: What’s your ultimate goal as a team roper?

A: To be successful at the sport. If I’m going to be away from my family as many days and months as we are, it needs to be worth it. 

Q: How much do you love this rodeo life, and what do you see your life looking like after rodeo?

A: I love it. We get to see and do more things than some people ever will. But it’s tough when my family can’t come. It’s all about family now, and it will be then, too.

—TRJ—

The post Tanner Braden’s Breakthrough Year appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

On the eve of the inaugural online sale that would introduce the greater equine market to their heritage horse program and their brand, Bois D’Arc Bleu, Tierney Perkins was suddenly widowed. Now, in memory of her beloved husband, Kolt, and out of devotion to their two young sons, Tierney is preserving the legacy he was building, horse program and all, one day and one horse at a time.

One year ago, Tierney Perkins was closing the gate to the horse pasture on her Clarksville, Texas, ranch when a violent wind blew in, snatching her long, dark hair off her shoulders and lashing it northward. She shielded her face from the suddenly stinging sands and made her way to the house to check the weather as a tremendous rain released from the sky. 

It was all over in a few minutes, but Tierney sounded the alarm in a text to her husband, Kolt, who was taking a rare break from the ranch to enjoy the lake with his father-in-law and his sons, Bleu, 13, and Burr, 2.

“A storm is coming,” she warned.

To know Kolt Perkins

When, at 15, Florida girl Tierney Willis first laid eyes on 17-year-old, born-and-bred Texas rancher Kolt Perkins, she didn’t stand a chance. But neither did anyone else.

“To know him was to love him,” Tierney said. “People always gravitated to Kolt…. He was just enough rough around the edges that people immediately let their guards down and started laughing with him. He cusses real bad, but he’s big and sweet. He’s this huge guy that could be really scary, but he’s just a big teddy bear, and people just melted to him.”

Horses, it seemed, were equally prone to meld to Kolt’s ways—a skill that served the multi-generational Perkins Ranch well as he honed the 200-head ranch herd into a solid and sought-after breeding program. In fact, as trusted as Kolt had become regionally for providing well-minded stock to horsemen and ropers with all manner of needs across all degrees of ability, Kolt—in an evolutionary process of moving from tried-and-true cowboy ways to finding opportunity with modern-day technologies—asked his wife and partner to help him grow.

Expecting a cowboy to change said ways can be a fool’s errand, but Kolt and Tierney’s first son, Bleu, had them trained up well when it came to thinking outside the box.

“We have a 2-year-old and a 13-year-old, and our 13-year-old is autistic,” Tierney said. “And, it’s been quite the journey, having a child on the spectrum. We kind of panicked when he was 3 and found out; we had no idea what to do.”

At their core, the Perkins are ranchers. They run a Red Angus cow-calf operation which is the foundation of their horse program: all work is done ahorseback, and the horses that come through the program have done all manner of ranch jobs in all kinds of weather across all types of terrain. The work, however, is the only constant. A day in the life of a cattle rancher is never the same as the last—an appealing aspect for most, but a devastating reality for first-time parents raising a special needs child who requires a structured schedule.

“One of the things they told us that he would need for maximum support was a finite schedule,” Tierney said, recalling the trips they took to Dallas, two hours from the ranch, for specialized therapies two days a week. “Our stomachs dropped when they told us that because every day looks different on a ranch. The weather, the circumstances, hour by hour, we could not provide that sort of structure for him, and we felt like these huge failures.”

In the face of information like the divorce rate catapulting to 80% for couples raising a child with special needs, Kolt and Tierney asked themselves all the hard questions and ultimately decided that moving off the ranch wasn’t an option, so they were going to have to forge their own way with what they had.

“We had no idea where to start,” Tierney said, the exasperation she must have felt in those early days returning to her voice. “But Kolt immediately said, ‘We’re not going to be slaves to this thing. He’ll be fine. The way we live is the best life for him, and we will figure this out.’”

Eventually, weekly trips to Dallas were altered into having professionals come to the ranch to teach Bleu and Kolt and Tierney in their own environments and, the more they learned, the more they grew.

“When he was little, Bleu loved numbers and letters,” Tierney said. “He still does, but he was just obsessed with them and particular fonts, and he liked things to be [in order of] the color spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green. So Kolt said, ‘I need you to print out the alphabet for me in his favorite fonts and in the color scheme he likes. I’m going to hide them all over the ranch.’”

In a culture that can’t get enough of little boys following in the footsteps of their daddies, Kolt had a son who would not be charmed by romantic notions of ranch life.

“Bleu would have much preferred learning French or Armenian to working 300 head of cattle,” Tierney said. “He loves fine dining over Vienna sausages in the feed truck. Kolt’s cattle call was a huge sensory issue. It would leave Bleu on the floorboard of the feed truck with his hands over his ears trying to drown out the sound.”

Against all odds, though, through pure devotion and a little ingenuity, Kolt inspired Bleu to want to cowboy with his father. 

“He would get Bleu out riding his horse for hours, checking cattle, working, and Bleu just thinks he’s on a scavenger hunt for letters the whole time,” Tierney revealed. “He thought it was so much fun. Bleu also loves swings—they help him regulate if he gets stressed out about something—so Kolt kept a swing in his truck that he could mount wherever they were. He mounted it at the corrals; he mounted it on the forks of the tractor. 

“And he loves water, so, if there was a water hole to stop at, Kolt made sure Bleu was able to stop and take a break to swim.”

A day at the lake

A few years ago, Tierney’s dad, Mike, retired and moved from Florida to Texas. With him, he brought his boat and his love for the water, and for the first time in his land-locked, East Texas life, Kolt found himself discovering his own penchant for days at the lake. Plus, he loved spending time on the water with his sons.

“He really started embracing going to the lake and taking off when it was too hot to work and taking the boys for a couple of hours,” Tierney said. “He started going more than I did, and I was like, ‘Who are you turning into?!’”

Both in their early 40s, Tierney and Kolt started to recognize the value in taking breaks from the day-to-day when they could and not letting life pass them by quite so quickly. As the temperature started climbing over the 2023 Labor Day weekend—it would hit 104 degrees in Clarksville that week—Kolt called on his father-in-law and packed up the kids.

Within the hour, both boys were suited up with life jackets, sitting side by side on a towable float and laughing with each cool spray from the boat’s wake. Mike was skillfully captaining the vessel through the busy holiday waters while Kolt kept an eagle eye on the boys. The sun was warm on their bare shoulders, and the wind in their hair was a welcome respite from their sweaty hat bands.

When the youngest, Burr Lewis, fell off the tube and into the water, Mike arced the boat around. Bleu came off, too, so Kolt jumped in the water to help Burr and instructed his father-in-law to pick up Bleu. 

On the dash of the boat, Kolt’s phone pinged.

First loves

After college, Tierney did a work abroad program with PBR Australia and, upon arriving stateside again, she visited Texas to meet a nephew who had been born in her absence. 

“I stayed in Texas for a month and ended up reconnecting with Kolt,” Tierney said of seeing the boy she’d met and moved on from so many years ago. “Here we are, almost 30, and it was like nothing had ever changed. It took literally 24 hours to fall madly in love with him. He’s always been my feral first love that you never really get over.”

Stars crossed and fates were sealed, and the young couple was diving headfirst into forever when Tierney, who’d grown up roping but wanted to pursue a career in rodeo’s live events, learned she’d landed her dream job with the PBR at their headquarters in Colorado.

Tierney spent a year working with the organization and gaining valuable marketing experience, all the while traveling back and forth to Texas to plan her October 2009 wedding to Kolt. Then, she became a ranch wife.

“There are so many funny stories of me getting into my rancher wife era,” Tierney added, smiling. “We had a lot of good laughs about it, but we were so in love and such good partners, it just felt awkward for me to be dependent. I wanted just a little project of my own, so I started an online boutique.”

Tierney speaks of the venture humbly, but most women with Western leanings will probably remember the very successful and very avant-garde Wild Bleu boutique that emerged circa 2011 to the great delight of cowgirl fashionistas everywhere. In an interview about the venture conducted by The Boutique Hub, Tierney flexes her professional wit and wisdom in a way that suggests to the reader she’s authentically accomplished with a healthy side of everyday woman trying to find the balance.

Back at the ranch, though, the balance eluded her. Kolt made a proposal.

Bois D’Arc Bleu

“I did that probably for seven years, but it was supposed to be a little project,” Tierney said of Wild Bleu. “I have no stop in me whatsoever once I get going with something, so I just kept letting it grow and grow. All the sudden there were employees, and I was working just as much as Kolt. 

“He was like, ‘I’m really proud of you, but it’s kind of all hands on deck at the ranch, and I need you here. What if you can do what you do for me?’”

And so began Bois D’Arc Bleu under the umbrella of which Tierney would sell their Ranch 2 Table beef, run an online mercantile and introduce the world to the horses Kolt made and marked with the Sproutin’ P brand—the combination of Kolt’s parents’ LP brand and Tierney’s great-grandmother’s Fleur de Lou that she received from her grandmother as a graduation gift. Kolt’s mom, Vicki Perkins, gave the couple the blended brand as their wedding gift.

It is not uncommon to see the brand at work in roping arenas big and small.  

“I bought my first horse 21 years ago, and I’ve had six of them since,” Duane Livingston said in an interview about Kolt’s horses for Bois D’Arc Bleu. “I’ve got three now. They’re good horses. One of them, I’ve let my grandson have. He’s made a top roping horse out of him, and he’s qualified to go to the team roping in Las Vegas on him.”

Recently, eight-time NFR qualifier Coleman Proctor became the proud owner of “Charlie Daniels,” a Sproutin’ P branded horse he purchased from two-time BFI Week winner Hannah White and her husband, PBR Hall of Famer turned team roper Mike White.

Kolt’s Sproutin’ P branded horses were ranch-raised and good-minded. They knew where their feet were by the time they went to work, and they went to work under the same man who taught his autistic son to sort cattle by pasting his favorite letters on the cows.

“That’s one thing about Kolt,” said his father, Aaron Perkins, in a video filmed for the website. “He’s got the patience of Job, now. And that’s the one thing it takes to make a good horse.”

With proven horses and a revered reputation, Kolt and Tierney geared up for their first online horse sale, a venture that was greatly inspired by Melanie Smith at Solo Select Horses.

“I showed him Melanie as a testament,” Tierney explained. “People are going to adapt to online sales, and there’s a way to do it to make them feel comfortable. She was such a selling point for me to prove to him that there’s a space for the horse industry to move forward and for me to market him in a way that was genuine to his program and how he did everything.”

Tierney started putting Kolt on camera—a position that did not come naturally to the humble horseman.

“I really had to convince him,” Tierney remembered, telling Kolt, “‘You are the source. You are what we do here, and how we do it is something people are going to be really receptive to. None of this is going to be a problem, but I need you to get comfortable in front of the camera, talking.’

“And he was so adorable,” she remembered. “We would practice on video, and it was just the cutest thing because he was not used to it.”

But Kolt cowboyed up, Tierney launched a stunning website illustrating the legacy and love behind their brand and, together, they set the date for the inaugural Bois D’Arc Bleu online sale: Sept. 24, 2023. 

Storm’s coming

“A storm is coming,” buzzed the warning on Kolt’s phone as he jumped in the water and sent the boat away to gather up Bleu.

“What happened at that point, my dad was trying to get our older son back in the boat, but he was having trouble,” Tierney recounted. “So my dad jumped in … and that wind came up and blew the boat away from them.”

A heavy chop developed on the lake making the four bobbing heads invisible to other boaters as white caps crashed against their small watercraft that they turned into the gale to stay afloat in the downpour. When the winds calmed after those brief but horrible minutes, fellow boaters found and retrieved Mike and Bleu. Under Mike’s direction, they returned to where Kolt had swam to the baby.

Burr Lewis was floating in his life jacket, alive. Kolt was gone.

Rising in the D’Arc

With the entire operation already set to launch only three weeks later, the inaugural horse sale was offered as planned, but the year has been one of extreme heartbreak for Tierney. And with it, extreme devotion.

“I think it’s important for my boys to see me get up every morning and put my boots on and go take care of something that’s bigger than me,” said the woman who has committed herself to learning how to stand where Kolt stood. “I mean, if it were just me, I would curl up in the fetal position and happily die of a broken heart to go be with him. But I have to wait patiently and raise these animals, raise these boys, and I have a job left to do in his honor and in his legacy.”

With Kolt’s horse program being such an integral part of that legacy, Tierney made big moves on a stud that checked all of Kolt’s boxes.

“One of our big goals was to buy a new stallion,” Tierney said. “[Kolt] wanted a homozygous roan, and Once In A Blu Boon was one of the bloodlines he was interested in, so I bought ‘Rudy’—Boons Reflections—from Melanie in her November sale last year. He’s exactly what we were looking for.”

The 14.3 hand, 2018 stud has a cutting background to the tune of $72,520 LTE and, after some time training under the NCHA’s No. 1 leading Open rider, Adan Banuelos, is standing at the Brightstone Ranch in Valley View, Texas. Rudy, according to his website, is “owned by Bleu and Burr Perkins in legacy of their Daddy, Kolt Perkins.”

Living a legacy: the new Kolt Perkins Ranch brand

In grief’s timeless tale, what comes after a loss is as harsh and unpredictable as the untimely and tragic loss itself. But even in the wake of the past year’s astounding heartaches, Tierney is staying focused on the goals and the momentum Kolt had put toward their boys and the future he was building for his family through Bois D’Arc Bleu.

This November, Women’s Rodeo World Championship Commissioner Lindsay Rosser-Sumpter will be debuting Rudy’s roping talents at the Gold Buckle Futurities Fall Roping. Coming off his cutting training and going into his 6-year-old year, Sumpter anticipates Rudy bringing his best to the arena.

“You have to teach [cutters, sometimes] how to get behind the cow because they’re so used to getting in front of cattle and getting them stopped,” Sumpter said, explaining what she’s learned transitioning cutters into rope horses in the past, including the horse she’s currently competing on. “But that’s really the only challenge a lot of times. They kind of get to where they like it, and they almost want to beat the cow. And so you have to just remind them that they have to stay behind the cow.”

Sumpter, the recently retired head coach for Otero College Rodeo and a Roping.com coach, too, became friends with Tierney in her PBR years. They’ve long planned to partner up, but life and kids and rodeo and loss seemed to stand in the way. 

“My goal as her friend is to do the best that I can to support this dream that she has,” said Sumpter, who also has mares on Rudy’s books. “All I have is my ability with a rope and a with a horse, and hopefully we can make the dream a reality.”

Moving forward, Tierney will offer beef, clothing and horses under the new Kolt Perkins Ranch by Bois D’Arc Bleu. The horse crop won’t be out of the ranch’s broodmares, but they will be ranch-raised, and they will possess the work ethic, structure and athleticism Kolt was always aiming for. To make sure of it, Tierney made another investment in April when she purchased a Solo Select embryo by The Darkk Side out of SS Blacks Little Kitty, due to hit the ground in 2025.

“A strong bone and big foot meant a lot to him,” Tierney said of Kolt’s preferences in an interview after the sale. “He loved something a hard-working cowboy didn’t have to baby. A strong bone and big foot meant a lot to him. I know he would really like The Darkk Side.… Lord knows I wish Kolt were here for me to ask his opinion every step of the way, but I know he’d be super excited about this embryo.”

Even more recently, Tierney purchased a 2024 own daughter of Shining Spark and out of Sky Blu.

“Sky Blu is a daughter of Mecom Blue,” Tierney explained, “and Mecom Blue and Shining Spark were two of the bloodlines that we used in our stallions. In fact, the majority of our marriage, our main stallion was an own son of Shining Spark, and he was Kolt’s favorite.

“So, having an own daughter, now, is just something I’m over the moon about. I really wasn’t planning on finding an own of Shining Spark, but the opportunity came up and I really have just had such peace this last week because I feel like I’ve really secured the main bloodlines we were wanting. I’m just really grateful for the opportunities that I’ve had to buy great horses and start building back.”

A horseman becomes a hero

The science of drowning is well studied and documented. Almost always, a person in danger of drowning will lose the ability to rationalize his actions and he will, without regard for consequence, save himself if given the chance. But Kolt was no ordinary person. And he was an extraordinary father.

When rescue crews recovered Kolt’s body from the lake some 24 hours later, a truth was realized: Kolt’s final, earthly act of love for his son was his ability to let Burr float atop the water in his lifejacket as Kolt himself succumbed to drowning. He did not reach out. He did not, despite the persistent neurologic compulsion to do so, save himself. Instead, he saved his son.

“From what I’ve learned about people that drown, you should never get close to them,” Tierney said. “They panic, and they’ll hold onto anything.… It tells you everything you need to know about him.”

Standing in the gap

It’s been a whole year since friends, family and neighbors searched the dark waters for Kolt Perkins. A whole year of Tierney navigating days that were designed to be met with her partner at her side. A year of deciding what would become of Bois D’Arc Bleu.

Bois D’Arc is the name of a native tree species in the region. Its wood is hard and durable and, therefore, a natural choice for fences. The Osage fashioned bows from it and, during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, it was constructed into the form of countless windbreaks. On the ranch, Kolt fancied himself a bit of an artist, building entryways that arc sturdily across the gaps in the fence. 

And that is where you’ll find Tierney: Standing in the gap, with Kolt above.

“I’m just doing my best to live his legacy for our boys and stand in the gap and make sure their life on the ranch looks as close to what their dad built for them,” Tierney said. “And those are some really big boots to fill, but it’s my honor to do that and to hold that space for him.”

Chances are good there’s a lot Kolt would be excited about were he to witness what Tierney has taken on: A program founded on what he cherished most in a horse, of course, but also watching his wife realize her own strengths and abilities. 

 “Things that you don’t think about or appreciate, like, I am really grateful for good mama cows this year,” Tierney said of having to only pull one calf in her first solo calving season. “They made my job easy, and they took care of their babies, so I was really grateful.”

Bringing the Kolt Perkins Ranch horses to market will also require many firsts for Tierney, but it’s perhaps the thing she’s never been more sure of.

“This horse thing has really been a way for me to feel close to him and to feel his presence,” Tierney said. “That’s when I feel closest to him, is being around those horses or riding through the cattle. And I know that’s where my children will find him.”

—TRJ—

The post Gone D’Arc: Remembering Kolt Perkins 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.

As of Aug. 28, 2024, header Lexi Andrews’ 58 points landed her in the lead of the 2025 USTRC Resistol Jr. race after a five-place jump from No. 6 at last reporting. In the heeling, 2023 Resistol Jr. Champion heeler Houston Childers entered into the race for the first time this season, planting himself firmly at the top of the standings with 89 points.

The Leaders

Lexi Andrews 

With 58 points to her name, Live Oak, Florida’s Lexi Andrews, 16, took the lead in the Resistol Jr. heading standings after earning 27 points since last reporting. Whereas she had trailed last month’s No. 1 header by 9 points, Andrews now leads the race by 15 points. 

In late July, Andrews attended the 25^th Anniversary Alabama Championships produced by Allen’s Roping Productions. There, she was in the money in the #10.5 and #8.5 USTRC ropings, earning 7 points with her fourth-place finish in the #10.5 and a cumulative 12 points in the #8.5 for her second- and eighth-place finishes. 

In August, she roped in the #11.5 USTRC at the North Alabama Championships, another Allen’s Roping Productions event, to earn another 8 points with her third-place finish, bringing her total haul for the month to 27 points and her season total to 58. Not only are her 58 points worth the lead in the Cinch Ladies race, they’ve also garnered her the top spot in the USTRC Cinch Ladies race.

Houston Childers

Fairmount, Georgia’s Houston Childers, who turned 16 in September, appeared as the No. 1 Resistol Jr. heeler when he arrived in the 2025 race for the first time this season. A veteran champion who won the title in 2023 with 125 points, he now takes the standings lead with 89 points.

Childers began earning points on the season back in June when he first roped in the #12.5 USTRC at the Florida Panhandle Championships and took third for 8 points. That same month, he earned another 8 points for a third-place finish in the #10.5 USTRC at the North Alabama Championships. Then, he turned up the heat.

At the late July Alabama Championships, scored a whopping 37 points when he took first in the #13.5 and #11.5 USTRC ropings, followed by finishing second and third in the #10.5 USTRC. In August, he finished in second place in the #13.5 USTRC at the Tunica Super Qualifier for 9 points, plus another 8 points for taking third in the #11.5 USTRC. 

To wrap up his reintroduction to the standings, Childers then roped at the North Alabama Championships, where he won the #13.5 for 10 points and took second in the #12.5 for 9 points. His 89-point coup gives him a 20-point lead over the next roper in the standings.

The Top 5

Headers

Not unlike Childers, Walker Guy—the 2023 Resistol Jr. Champion header—also enters into the Top 5 seemingly out of nowhere, albeit in the No. 2 position. The talented Texan takes the spot with 43 points, giving him the narrowest, single-point lead over the two-way tie for the No. 3 position, shared by fellow Texan Rance Winters and Arkansas roper Hayes Hartwick.

Equally hot on their heels is Georgia header Hayden Hines with 41 points, worth the No. 5 position in this month’s reporting. Remarkably, the entire suite of Top 5 headers this month ousted last month’s leading headers. 

Heelers

Alabama’s Brit Smith shook loose of his tie with Cole Shook to clinch this month’s No. 2 position with 69 points, but Shook remains in close contention in the No. 3 spot with 67 points.

Texan Callahan Taylor appeared on the scene in the No. 4 position this month with 45 points and, behind him, Oklahoma’s Jaytin Harrell maintains his previously reported 44 points to close out this Top 5 report.

2024-2025 USTRC Resistol Jr. Champion Standings

(as of 8/28/24. Go to USTRC.com for current standings.)

USTRC Resistol Jr. Standings: Headers

USTRC Resistol Jr. Standings: Heelers

Current USTRC or Key Card/Key Card Max membership is required to participate in the Resistol Jr. Champion Program. Earned points begin counting at time of membership purchase thru the NFTR’s last shootout event. The season begins the Monday after the last USTRC Cinch NFTR event and ends the last day of the next USTRC Cinch NFTR event.

Ropers must enter at least one Shootout division in the USTRC NFTR to be eligible. The award will be announced at the end of the USTRC Cinch National Finals of Team Roping event.

The points breakdown is as follows: Starting with At Home Challenge Events, ropers will earn 10 points if they win the Challenge. No other points will be awarded. At Signature Events, points will be awarded to those winning an aggregate check. It starts at First Place with 10 points, Second = 9 points, and so on as far down as the roping is paid. During the Cinch NFTR, the placing points are simply doubled. First Place is worth 20 points, second = 18, and so on. For complete rules, please visit USTRC.com. 

—TRJ—

The post Top 5 Takeovers Abound in Resistol Jr Race: Lexi Andrews & Houston Childers Are No. 1 appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

As of Aug. 28, 2024, Florida’s Lexi Andrews took over the top spot in the Cinch Ladies Year-End Award heading race with 58 points. In the heeling, Colorado’s Jimmi Jo Montera throws down with 56 points to remain in first, but heeling phenom Whitney DeSalvo has entered the race chat behind her.

The Leaders

Lexi Andrews

Lexi Andrews, 16, reclaimed the No. 1 position she previously held and lost to Shawnee Murphy at last reporting. The Live Oak, Florida native made a notable run when she attended the 25^th Anniversary Alabama Championships produced by Allen’s Roping Productions in late July. There, she was in the money in the #10.5 and #8.5 USTRC ropings, earning 7 points with her fourth-place finish in the #10.5 and a cumulative 12 points in the #8.5 for her second- and eighth-place finishes. 

In August, she roped in the #11.5 USTRC at the North Alabama Championships, another Allen’s Roping Productions event, to earn another 8 points with her third-place finish, bringing her total haul for the month to 27 points and her season total to 58. Not only are her 58 points worth the lead in the Cinch Ladies race, they’ve also garnered her the top spot in the USTRC Resistol Jr. race.

Jimmi Jo Montera 

Greeley, Colorado’s Jimmi Jo Montera jumped from 17 points to 56 since the last report. Montera went to work on her trip north to Cheyenne, Wyoming, for JX2’s “The Daddy,” which paid out nearly $1.8 million in late July. 

In Cheyenne, Montera won the USTRC Ladies Open with 2022 Women’s Rodeo World Championship winner Kylie McLean to earn 10 points and then snagged fifth place for 6 points. Then in the USTRC Ladies #10.5, Montera finished in the second, third and fifth places to earn another 23 points, for a 39-point gain. 

The Top 5

Headers

Iowa’s Shawnee Murphy maintains her last-reported 38 points to fall to No. 2 in the standings. Behind her, Georgia’s Holly Childers climbs five holes to No. 3 after doubling her points from last month. To do so, Childers won third in the #10.5 USTRC at July’s Alabama Championships for 8 points and, in August, won second place in the #9.5 USTRC Legends at the Tunica Super Qualifier for another 9 points. 

Now in the No. 4 position is Texas header TyAnn Clements who climbs a spot from No. 5 with the 10 points she earned for winning the #7.5 USTRC at July’s Stephenville Qualifier. Next, Oklahoma’s Tia Danker rounds out the Top 5 by maintaining her last reported 27 points. 

Heelers

Behind Montera is Cinch Ladies standings newcomer Whitney DeSalvo. Arguably the handiest female heeler in the game, Arkansas’ DeSalvo also entered up at The Daddy in July to finish third and fourth in the USTRC Ladies Open for a total of 15 points, worth the No. 2 place in the Cinch Ladies standings this month.

Behind DeSalvo, Nebraska’s Sage Dieter and South Carolina’s Maddie Smith remain in a tie with the 10 points they maintained since last reporting, worth the No. 3 position this month.

The Top 5 is crowded this month with a five-way tie for the No. 5 spot. With the 8 points they maintain from last reporting is reigning USTRC Cinch Ladies Champion Heeler Kyra Hendren of New Mexico, Morgan Robson of Kansas, and Texas’ Janelle Gomez. They are joined this month by Mississippi roper Laurie Baggett and South Carolina’s Tonia Locke.

2024-2025 USTRC Cinch Ladies Leaderboard 

(as of 8/28/24. Go to USTRC.com for current standings.)

Current USTRC or Key Card/Key Card Max membership is required to participate in the Cinch Ladies Year-End Award program. Earned points begin counting at time of membership purchase thru the NFTR’s last shootout event. The season begins the Monday after the last USTRC Cinch NFTR event and ends the last day of the next USTRC Cinch NFTR event.

Ropers must enter at least one Shootout division in the USTRC NFTR to be eligible. The award will be announced at the end of the USTRC Cinch National Finals of Team Roping event.

The points breakdown is as follows: Starting with At Home Challenge Events, ropers will earn 10 points if they win the Challenge. No other points will be awarded. At Signature Events, points will be awarded to those winning an aggregate check. It starts at First Place with 10 points, Second = 9 points, and so on as far down as the roping is paid. During the Cinch NFTR, the placing points are simply doubled. First Place is worth 20 points, second = 18, and so on. For complete rules, please visit USTRC.com. 

—TRJ—

The post Ladies Light it Up: Lexi Andrews & Jimmi Jo Montera Lead appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Dear Roper,

You’re getting this issue as ProRodeo’s fourth quarter kicks off in the Northwest, as your kids go back to school and as you all enter up to get those last-minute Ariat World Series of Team Roping Finale qualifications in. 

But as we’re writing this, we’re in the middle of the summer run, hiding from the Texas heat in our offices or zipping back and forth across the country with our new teammate, Amy Wilson, hosting sideline shows from events like The Patriot and The Daddy in Cheyenne. 

This is my semi-regular reminder of just how much our crew is producing for you to enjoy. If you’re a visual person, we’ve got ropings—everything from old-school Mo’Betta calf roping matches to the BFI and the Cinch Timed Event Championship—streaming 24/7 over on Roping.com. In the last few months, I’ve filmed instructional content with Jake Barnes and Clay Cooper, Tate Kirchenschlager, Dakota Kirchenschlager, Brock Hanson and Ryan Motes. Meanwhile, we’ve all been shooting nonstop for TikTok and Reels, giving you a visual smorgasbord of videos to binge a few seconds at a time on your favorite apps. 

FOLLOW US

You’ll find our excerpt from “The Score” podcast over on page 112, but the wealth of information that’s stored in the hundreds of episodes of that show on your favorite podcast streaming platform is really worth a visit. It’s an audio record of all that’s happened in our sport and, since 2018, it’s had well over 3 million downloads. That’s 3 million times people have listened to real-life stories of what was going on in Aaron Tsinigine’s mind as he won his world title, to Patrick Smith describing a dire plane ride to Pendleton, to every futurity champ from the last few years talking about their great horses. It’s a record we’re proud to provide to the sport. 

Meanwhile, teamropingjournal.com is the largest collection of team roping content anywhere, with stories going back to the earliest days of Spin To Win. We’re working all the time at improving your experience over there, and it’s updated daily. 

Anyway, before we head into the very end of the rodeo season and the finals of the futurity season when our team really hits it hard, I figured I’d drop this reminder. 

We’ll see you at the Riata!

Chelsea

The post Summer Is Almost Over but Team Roping Is Heating Up: An Inside Look at the September 2024 Issue appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

In November 2023, Delane Haynes made his Cowboy Channel debut.

“I wear a Gus hat with a mule-kick and my bright shirts, and my dad said, ‘I wasn’t even close to the TV, and I seen you,”’ Haynes said.

Haynes, 56, had earned three berths into Fort Worth’s Cowtown Coliseum competing in Charly Crawford’s American Hero Celebration—the annual event hosted by the Liberty & Loyalty Foundation that honors and supports team ropers from the military and first responder communities. In the preceding days, the burgeoning roper earned his first qualification roping with reigning PAFRA world champion heeler Clint McMurtry, but also by getting on two qualifying ranch rodeo teams and competing in the team penning.

Ranch raised

Haynes grew up in the ranching lifestyle in and around Wheatland, Wyoming, and adopted his dad’s commitment to putting in long days every day, but he was never at an operation that leaned heavily on rope work. Good using horses that can gather, cut and sort, yes, but not roping. So it wasn’t until the early 2020s when Haynes’ wife, Tracie, told him he needed to get a hobby and quit spending so much time with his nose to the grind did he find himself under the tutelage of his neighbor and friend, Sergio Mireles.

“Sergio and I were at the arena most every night,” Haynes said, chuckling at how Tracie probably didn’t anticipate him getting hooked the way he did. “I bought about six roping steers, and I wore them out.”

Since his Wheatland start, Haynes had moved to Kansas and joined the Kansas National Guard in 1989 and started his trucking company, Delane Haynes Trucking, in 1996. With his return to Wyoming, he joined the 133^rd Engineer Company of the Wyoming National Guard.

“I slowed down in the trucking and went to work for the Department of Corrections in 2000,” said Haynes, who is now a resident of Upton, Wyoming. “And while I was working for them, we got mobilized.”

The man in charge

As Haynes was readying to deploy from Fort Lewis Army Base in Washington State, he received a promotion he wasn’t quite prepared for. 

“I marched my platoon down to the armory to draw our weapons so that we could go get on an airplane and go overseas,” Haynes explained. “And while I’m standing there with my guys drawing weapons, my company commander comes up to me with a 9 mm pistol holster, handed me the holster and said, ‘Draw your weapon, First Sergeant.’

“We finished drawing our weapons and we had a formation that night. They promoted me to First Sergeant and, that night, we got on an airplane and went to the Sandbox.”

In a matter of minutes, Haynes had gone from being responsible for the 32 soldiers in his platoon to being in charge of 152 troops. 

“I don’t think I slept for a week after that.”

In a miraculous feat, however, Haynes and his 152 soldiers all returned home nearly a year later.

“We flew over Bagdad, New Year’s Eve, stroke of midnight,” Haynes said of his arrival in theater. “We rung in 2005 over Bagdad, and then we touched down in Kuwait. Then, I think we left theater Dec. 11.”

In that time, Haynes’ company was recognized as the key to success for the battalion of 790 troops under which they operated. 

“At the end of the year, that little engineer company with 152 soldiers completed more projects, moved more earth, hauled more water than the battalion did,” Haynes said. “Gen. Welch out of Tennessee and Command Sgt. Maj. Jones got the commander and I and said, ‘Your unit is the reason that the battalion and the brigade is getting this unit citation.’ He said, ‘That unit just outperformed anybody in theater.’”

Finding a new focus

As is often the challenge for service members, it’s the coming home part that presents the unforeseen battles. While Haynes is rightfully proud to have brought all 152 troops home, it devastates him to report that four have succumbed to suicide in the years since. 

Haynes would continue serving the 133^rd until 2009, marking a 20-year commitment to the Guard and, after his time overseas, he returned to his family and his work.

“What I’d done with the Department of Corrections was a boot camp program,” Haynes explained. “I used my Army training to help these young, juvenile males, and I enjoyed that because the majority of these kids was on drugs or alcohol or something when they’d committed a crime…. I had kids that were 7 years old when their mom handed them their first joint.”

But while Haynes was overseas, the program had shifted to the purview of Wyoming Law Enforcement and underwent changes that challenged its efficacy in Haynes’ opinion, so he went to work for the Sheriff’s Office until 2014, when the trucking business was booming.

“I stayed on their reserve status and, anytime that I could and the sheriff’s office was shorthanded, I would still come back,” Haynes said. “I would patrol and help them do whatever they needed, just help them out when I could. And then it was  either ’19 or ’20 I went back to work full time.”

Haynes again encountered challenging changes that had taken place in his absence, prompting Tracie and her best friend, Susan—maker of the iconic Western shirts Haynes competes in—to convince Haynes to find another focus. 

With Mireles as a coach and his roping steers at the ready, Haynes put his ranch horses to work in the team roping arena. Predictably, he introduced a few bad habits as he went, learning and training at the same time, but ultimately, his horses proved capable and valuable partners. 

Roping from the northeast corner of Wyoming, Haynes’ roping endeavors went full swing by 2022, which he spent competing in the Wrangler Team Roping Championships after discovering success in their Cactus Challenge in 2021. Tracie and Susan found themselves hauling Haynes and the horses across North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana, and even to Wickenburg at the suggestion of another roping partner. 

Entering up

By the time the crew made it to the WTRC National Finals in Billings, Montana, that fall, Haynes was in contention to win multiple Challenges. 

“Out of six Challenges, I won four, took second in one and, I think, sixth place in the sixth one. So I was in the top six of all six Challenges. I ended up with 30 Fast Back Ropes and 20-some more Cactus Ropes, four saddles, a Priefert chute, a Smarty Xtreme and Wrangler shirts and pants. 

“I had to have my daughter bring an extra pickup and small trailer to Billings that year to haul it all home,” Haynes continued. “Without my girls, I wouldn’t have been able to make it to the ropings that allowed 584 entries. You might out-rope me, but you won’t out-enter me!”

In February 2023, Haynes detached his bicep pulling the ramp out from one of his trucks, and was perusing this magazine. 

“I was reading an issue of The Team Roping Journal, and there’s an article about Charly Crawford and this program he’s got going on, and I’m like, that’s amazing. I think maybe I’ll put in for it.”

Haynes made the cut and, following the Horns ‘N Heroes clinic with Crawford and Trey Johnson, he hit up a Wyoming benefit roping after his Cowboy Channel debut. He won a good check to give back to the family in need, thanks to Crawford’s helpful coaching.

“There are so many things,” Haynes said of the guidance Crawford offered. “He refreshed my memory on horsemanship. That’s my big struggle. I get out there, and I’m wanting to go left all the time. Charly worked with me on setting up my heeler.”

It seemed to click in time for his run with McMurtry, too, and now Haynes is also a proud member of the Professional Armed Forces Rodeo Association. 

“Hopefully I’ll be all healed up, and we’ll go rope in Clovis, New Mexico, at the end of September,” said Haynes, who’s now recovering from a recent hip surgery.

Either way, he’s looking forward to supporting the efforts of organizations like the Liberty & Loyalty Foundation and PAFRA, and is hoping to contribute through sponsorship opportunities, too.

“I sponsored a dinner with the trucking company last year, and I’m hoping to sponsor a back number this year.”

Haynes is also enjoying watching his granddaughters take to the rodeo arena and develop into handy horsewomen. 

“I can’t talk enough about those grandkids,” Haynes confirmed.

—TRJ—

Thank you to Equinety for helping us share stories of military members, veterans and first responders in the team roping community.

The post Army and Law Enforcement Veteran Delane Haynes Discovers Team Roping 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.

After making a living roping for 50 years, I’ve come to realize that finding your own game plan and having confidence in the fact that it works for you and you’re successful with it is really the main goal. You hear some people say you’ve got to do it this way or that way, like there’s only one way to do it. But that’s really just not the case. 

There are so many different viewpoints of how successful ropers use their own systems, do their own thing and win. And in the end, it kind of doesn’t matter how they think about riding their horse or position, the things they do with their timing, swing and delivery, how much they feed their loop, and whether they feed it on the last swing or not—as long as it works.  

READ: Self-Worth and Your Mental Game with Patrick Smith

If what you’ve been doing doesn’t work, you’d obviously be crazy to stay with a system just because somebody told you to do it that way. But one method might not work best for everyone. 

There are just so many different ways to look at it, and it all comes down to you owning your own style. I started by watching the Camarillos, Walt Woodard, Denny Watkins and local guys like Gary Mouw and Don Beasley when I was really young. I would watch, study and mimic things I saw them do. 

Throughout my whole career, I watched great ropers, right on down the line, including Allen Bach, JD Yates, Bobby Harris, Rich Skelton and Mike Beers. Decade after decade, I saw them all, even in that last little five- or six-year run of being out on the road and back at the NFR, when I was studying kids like Jade Corkill, Kollin VonAhn, Patrick Smith and Travis Graves. 

I’ve just always been fascinated with great roping and great ropers. I haven’t been afraid to experiment, and that’s been one of the most fun parts of roping. I enjoy practicing, preparing and trying new things, and trying to implement things that are people’s strengths and make them the great ropers they are. If I could fit something they did into my system, I was never too proud to do that. 

When I teach roping schools, I tell people that what we’re after is results. Some people get frustrated because they struggle with all the multitasking that goes on within one run, where they have to do three of four things at the same time. Which thing should you put in the forefront of your mind and focus on because it’s most important, they wonder?

The most important thing to me early on was timing. Leo, Jerold and Walt could rope those steers when their hind legs left the ground. I spent several years working on that, and it was a game-changer for me. Once I got timing down, it became pretty natural and easy. 

READ: Can Failure Lead to Success?

When I started rodeoing, I had to work more on my positioning, so that became the most important thing I thought of most. I knew if I could set up the shot I wanted, I was going to rope the steer by two feet.

Sometimes you have to bounce around between which thing is the most important to focus on. That’s what the practice pen is for—to work on isolating things like the mechanics of your swing and elements of your horsemanship, then really drill down and have that be your first focus.

For lower-numbered ropers trying to get better, mastering those core fundamentals is critical. There’s not just one way to execute them, but you have to get good at doing those fundamentals your way. The guys who are successful at every level have done the work and mastered them. That’s why they’re as good as they are.

I like listening to what everybody has to say, and using today’s technology, too. I get on YouTube and Facebook, and read and listen to what people have to say who are successful, because I love information. And if I hear something that’s fascinating or different to me, I can’t wait to go try it and see if I can do what they say works for them. 

It’s just fun to soak up knowledge other people have worked on and believe in. Having video cameras in our phones is part of why roping is getting so crazy good. Instant feedback is in the palm of our hands.

Learn from the best. Looking to elevate your team roping skills? From short, one-minute roping tips to hours of full-length training sessions from World Champions like Jake Barnes, Lari Dee Guy, Clay O’Brien Cooper, Caleb Smidt, and Patrick Smith, Roping.com is the ultimate experience for every type of roper.

—TRJ—

The post There’s More Than One Way to Rope appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

As a rookie coming into professional rodeo, I’d only heard of places with long scores. Where I grew up in New Mexico, there were never any long scores, and most were about average. Then it was all short scores when I amateur rodeoed in Texas.

There are a few basics that help you have success over long scorelines, starting with a horse that scores really good and can run. You can’t be successful if you break the barrier or get left behind. And after that long head start, you need a horse that can catch up. With so much speed built up, a handle that slows things down and smooths out that corner is also important, so you help your heeler and don’t jerk one down. 

LISTEN: Long vs. Short Game Evolution

The 40-foot scoreline at Salinas is the longest in our sport, and it’s the only five-steer average rodeo out there. The steers are chute-run, and both guys come from the left side of the roping chute. 

Salinas is my favorite rodeo of the whole year for several reasons beyond the cowboy conditions and old-school tradition, including the weather. It’s dirty hot everywhere else you go that time of year, so it’s refreshing to be out there on those misty mornings for slack. And everybody loves getting to run one every day. 

If you can stay the course, you can be successful at Salinas. Heelers have a disadvantage there, because with both guys coming from the left, a lot of steers go over to that right track fence and cut in front of them. Heelers stay in catch-up mode, so it’s really important as a header to slow that momentum down to give your partner a chance.

Roping at Salinas reminds me of the NFR grand-entry rehearsal. They make you do it horseback about five times, and all those roughstock guys are whooping and hollering, and having fun making it a horse race while the production people are trying to tighten it up. After about the second run-through, all the horses are acting like runaway racehorses. 

READ: Coy Rahlmann’s Salinas-Winning Secrets

Add 10 performances to that, and you can have your horse blown up before he ever backs in the box. That’s why so many guys ride a different horse, or their backup horse, in the grand entry. Because when the announcer tells all those cowboys to tip their hats to the crowd, those horses go to jumping and wheeling out of there.

After you run a steer or two at Salinas, even as slow as they open the gate there, a lot of horses go to jumping around and are hard to hold in there, just like in the NFR grand entry. I was scared to death the first time I roped at Salinas. It was just so foreign to me, and was not the typical hip-to-the-pin setup. I felt like I had to wait 30 minutes for that steer to get to the line. 

They put a Styrofoam cup out there in the dirt at Salinas to let headers gauge when to go, which on an average steer is about when his head reaches the cup. Some steers walk to the line, and it’s a big advantage if they run one in there for you that’s kind of lost like that. 

The scoreline at Cheyenne is 10 feet shorter than Salinas at 30 feet, and they’re using an electric eye there this year. They draw the steers, which are walking fresh in two rounds of steer roping first. So you get the video on what your steer does from a steer roper. 

Cheyenne just added team roping in 2001. The box is shorter and so is the score, so you don’t have to sit there as long as at Salinas. But coming off of all the one-headers over the Fourth of July, it’s sure enough a lot different. 

Clay and I won Cheyenne the second year they had it, when they roped muleys in 2002. I was fortunate to win it again with Walt Woodard in 2011, and when Walt and I won, we drew the three best steers there and placed in all three rounds. We couldn’t have hand-picked three better steers, and that win was a major factor in us making the NFR that year.

WATCH ON ROPING.COM: Unlock the Secrets of Successful Heading

—TRJ—

The post Handling the Longest Scores in Rodeo appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Jade Corkill, now a three-time PRCA world champion heeler, was 20 when he won RodeoHouston in 2008 with Chad Masters, propelling him to his first National Finals Rodeo qualification that year.

Masters and Corkill had started roping earlier that winter for the first time, but their run at Houston was the last one they’d make until the summer. 

“Chad had torn his knee up getting ready for the (Cinch) Timed Event (Championship),” Corkill said. “He was roping at Houston, and then he got surgery and was out until Reno.”

They made the most of it, taking the RodeoHouston saddles, buckles and $50,000 payday. But the win occurred back before RodeoHouston paid equal money in the team roping, so each man walked away with $25,000. 

“We were the last team to go, I think, and Travis Tryan and Michael Jones were 5.2 and they were winning it (on Walt and Jackyl),” Corkill said. “What I remember is I don’t know if we had the best steer, but we had one that we thought tried a little bit. Chad nailed the barrier and reached, and the steer checked off a little bit and made it to where I had a shot to throw. We were 4.3 and won the rodeo.”

Corkill—who years later won his first world title on Jackyl five years later—was aboard IceCube, the grade sorrel gelding the heeler made his living on for a decade. 

“I was probably confident, but I probably shouldn’t have been,” Corkill remembered. “When I got Chad, I thought that gave me the confidence that someone like him was roping with me. At that time in my life I wanted to be high call every time.”

Corkill roped with Masters upon his return that summer, then heeled for Brandon Beers in the Northwest that fall, finally roping at his first Finals with Luke Brown. It was also Brown’s first NFR, and they placed in seven of 10 rounds to win second in the average. Corkill finished that season with $166,673 won.

—TRJ—

The post Big Break: Jade Corkill’s 2008 RodeoHouston Win appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

a) MENTAL

That first round, we kind of stayed on par up there just because it’s a different setup. We definitely wanted to place in the first round or win the first round to get ahead of the average and get some money won.

b) TIMING

You know the steers are going to be wild at Guymon and you know it’s going to take a lot of loop. So that’s what I focused on. Our plan was to pull the steer—I think they handle better like that as opposed to letting them hang on the end of the rope and fight—so Dustin stuck him and moved. He was taking big wide hops, but I tried to be aggressive and set as much rope down there as I could.

c) BODY POSITION 

To me, that’s about perfect. I haven’t really changed much. I’ve got my feet in between my stirrups, so that means I have weight in my stirrups and I’m squeezing with my legs, so I’m real balanced in the middle of my horse, not leaning forward or backward. Then same with my upper body; it’s not leaned way back or way forward. It’s just tilted forward just enough to where I set my rope on the ground, but it’s not swayed one way or the other. I like how I’m real square in the middle of my horse, and that means I had a good delivery and should be able to get a good finish.

d) SEPARATION

I think I can rope a little bit farther away, maybe, than some guys, so I guess that’s just because I was comfortable there. I mean, I have already probably thrown from a little closer than that, but he was taking a big jump away from me. My horse looks like he was working really well, so I threw. When I delivered it, I was closer than that, but I guess it just kind of looks farther away than it actually was because my horse is stopping as the steer’s taking a big, wild jump away from me. I’m going to have enough rope to pull my slack and dally, and it shouldn’t be any problem.

e) PAULY

He looks like he did perfect. He is hitting his butt like he needs to be and pedaling with his front feet, so it’s going to be forgiving for me to dally. It’s not like he’s trying to cut my hand off or something. He’s just really helping me, and I don’t even have any pressure on the reins but he’s still stopping. You know he knows what he’s needing to do in that spot when I don’t even have pressure on the reins, and he’s still got his butt up under him like that.

—TRJ—

The post A Lot of Loop: Levi Lord Breaks Down Guymon Pioneer Days Run 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.

As of July 24, 2024, Iowa’s Shawnee Murphy moved to the top of the Cinch Ladies Year-End Award heading race with 38 points while, in the heeling, Colorado’s Jimmi Jo Montera’s 17 points are safe for first, for now. 

The Leaders

Shawnee Murphy —No. 1 Header

Shawnee Murphy, 17, first dipped her toe in the season’s waters back in May roping at the Missouri Classic by Jeff Smith and 3 Point Productions, where she finished seventh in the #9.5 USTRC for 4 points. In the last few weeks though, she’s dove in headfirst.

At the end of June, Murphy threw her name in the ring when she roped in the #11.5 USTRC at the Oklahoma Championships to win fourth place for 7 points. She also entered up in the JR #10.5 USTRC to finish second and third for 9 and 8 points, respectively. Winning the #11.5 at July’s Guthrie Championships gave her 10 points and a total of 38 points in the standings—good for this month’s No. 1 Cinch Ladies Header title (and a tie for No. 2 in the Resistol Jr. race, reported on p. 36)

Jimmi Jo Montera — No. 1 Heeler

Greeley, Colorado’s Jimmi Jo Montera holds her place at the top of the heeling standings this month with the 17 points previously reported.

The Top 5

Headers

Former No. 1 header Lexi Andrews maintains her 31 points from last month but drops to No. 2. Just 4 points behind her, Glencoe, Oklahoma’s Tia Danker cracks out with 27 points, earned entirely at July’s Guthrie Championships.

On Danker’s heels is fellow Top 5 newcomer Maddie Gomez of Belton, Texas. Gomex boasts 25 points she earned at June’s West Texas Championships, worth the No. 4 heading position. Behind her, TyAnn Clements maintains her 19 points, but falls three places to No. 5.

Heelers

Montera’s lead holds, but by a margin of 7 points instead of last month’s 9 points. In a tie for the No. 2 spot are Top 5 newcomers Sage Dieter of Alma, Nebraska, and Westminster, South Carolina’s Maddie Smith with 10 points each.

The remainder of the Top 5 consists of a three-way tie for fourth. In it, reigning USTRC Cinch Ladies Champion Heeler Kyra Hendren of Albuquerque, New Mexico; Morgan Robson of Rolla, Kansas; and Belton, Texas’ Janelle Gomez each bring 8 points to the standings.

2024-2025 USTRC Cinch Ladies Leaderboard 

(as of 7/24/24. Go to USTRC.com for current standings.)

Current USTRC or Key Card/Key Card Max membership is required to participate in the Cinch Ladies Program. Earned points begin counting at the time of membership purchase through the NFTR’s last shootout event. The season begins the Monday after the last USTRC NFTR event and ends the last day of the next USTRC NFTR event.

Ropers must enter at least one Shootout division in the USTRC NFTR to be eligible. The award will be announced at the end of the USTRC National Finals of Team Roping event.

—TRJ—

The post Header Shawnee Murphy Claims No. 1 Spot on 2025 USTRC Cinch Ladies Standings appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Missouri header Wyatt Walker maintained his lead in the USTRC Resistol Jr. race by a narrow margin. Meanwhile, North Carolina heeler Cole Shook is still in the No. 1 position, but he now shares the spot with Alabama’s Brit Smith.

The Leaders

Walker Wyatt — No. 1 Header

This month, Diamond, Missouri, switchender Wyatt Walker, 12, maintained his top spot in the heading with 40 points.

Cole Shook — No. 1 Heeler (tie)

Leicester, North Carolina’s Cole Shook, 14, led with 33 points at last reporting, and he’s now added another 21 points. The 54 points are worth the No. 1 position, but in a tie.

Shook roped at June’s South Carolina Championships, where he finished in third place in the #9.5, worth a gain of 8 points in the standings. Then, in the #8.5, he finished in both the fourth and fifth holes to earn 7 and 6 points, respectively.

Brit Smith — No. 1 Heeler (tie)

At last reporting, Brit Smith of Atmore, Alabama, was in the No. 4 position with 27 points earned in the heeling standings. Those 27 points were earned in the first half of June, starting with a second-place win in the #12.5 for 9 points at the Florida Panhandle Championship. Two weeks later, Smith secured two more reserve titles at 9 points each in the #11.5 and #9.5 at the North Alabama Championships. 

To make his moves for the lead, Smith, 17, roped at the South Carolina Championships and captured first-place finishes in both the #12.5 and #10.5 ropings for an additional 20 points. He also seized the fourth hole in the #10.5, worth 7 points and a tie for first place this month.

The Top 5

Headers

Behind Walker, Shawnee Murphy of Melrose, Iowa, earned a whopping 38 points to tie Gage Hines for second place—a position Hines has maintained since last reporting. Pecos Patton also maintains his 36 points but falls in the standings one hole to No. 4. The Top 5’s other newcomer is Ames, Oklahoma’s Tripp Suit who edged into the position with 32 points—just a single point ahead of last month’s No. 5 header, Lexi Andrews.

Heelers

With Shook and Smith in a tie for first with 54 points, Choctaw, Oklahoma’s Jaytin Harrell comes in at No. 3 with 44 points. Cooper Britain keeps his 32 points, but falls from the No. 2 spot in the standings to fourth place. Final Top 5 newcomer for the month is Wesson Parker of Marlow, Oklahoma, with 30 points.

2024-2025 USTRC Resistol Jr. Champion Standings

(as of 7/24/24. Go to USTRC.com for current standings.)

USTRC Resistol Jr. Standings: Headers

USTRC Resistol Jr. Standings: Heelers

Current USTRC or Key Card/Key Card Max membership is required to participate in the Resistol Junior Champion Program. Earned points begin counting at time of membership purchase thru the NFTR’s last shootout event. The season begins the Monday after the last USTRC NFTR event and ends the last day of the next USTRC NFTR event.

Ropers must enter at least one Shootout division in the USTRC NFTR to be eligible. The award will be announced at the end of the USTRC National Finals of Team Roping event.

—TRJ—

The post USTRC Resistol Jr. Heelers Surge in Latest Standings Update appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Dear Roper,

As we were planning this issue, I heard one of the best guys in the world theorizing on retirement. He asked what I thought made guys with all the talent in the world step away from rodeo, go home, get a job or just “do something different.”

A long time ago in Spin To Win Rodeo, we used to write ‘retirement’ stories. But after countless “Just kidding, I’m not really retiring” re-writes, when guys decided to get back on the road after only a few months or few years at home, we gave that up. Even guys like Jake Barnes and Clay O’Brien Cooper had been semi-retired before they made comebacks that looked a lot like world title runs. 

Regardless, at about this point in every rodeo season, I hear guys thinking they’re done with rodeo. Summer is long, fuel prices are high, money is tight and horses are hard to come by, and that grind wears on even the toughest-minded competitors. 

On page 64, I talk to some legends who walked away from rodeo, either for a season or a lifetime, to find out what pushed them to that point and what their backup plans were when rodeo wasn’t their main source of income. 

The conversations were so good, that I recorded them and made them into a podcast series for you—it’s over at “The Score” all summer, with bonus interviews, too, from guys not in this article.

The best part about this sport, however, is that every one of the guys I talked to still gets to play the team roping game—and for an even better ROI than when they were pounding the pavement all across North America. Most still make appearances at the jackpots like the Ariat World Series of Team Ropings and rope horse futurities, and they’re getting to be hands-on dads and husbands at the same time. 

Of course, the whole magazine is packed with more stories for anyone who swings a rope, so sit down and enjoy it, whether you’re heading to the Northwest next week or just enjoying the dog days of summer by the pool after the practice pen. 

Chelsea

The post What Retirement Means in Team Roping: An Inside Look at the August 2024 Issue appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

In late 2023 the men at War Horses for Veterans got a call—Trevor Brazile and Miles Baker had a Relentless Remuda horse that might fit their program.

“Ty Smith with Solo Select heard that Trevor Brazile was looking to donate a horse and wanted to know the right place for it to go,” said medically retired Marine Sgt. Jake Greenlief, who is the War Horses for Veterans Ranch Manager and Director of Equine Management.

The WHFV program was founded in 2014, three years before Greenlief completed his 10 years of service. Based in Stilwell, Kansas, its mission is to empower and equip “veterans and first responders who experienced life-disrupting trauma to recover” through exceptional horsemanship. Emphasis on exceptional horsemanship.

Any program that’s introducing people who’ve maybe never touched a horse to the experience requires good-minded horses, which War Horses definitely has. But they also have papers.

Western community connections

The WHFV Board of Directors is heavy with people of note, including Wayne Hanson, president of R.E. Lewis Refrigeration, which services the U.S. food processing and distribution industries. Hanson is also a player in the cow horse arena. 

“Wayne owns Hanson Quarter Horses with his wife, Michelle,” Greenlief explained. “They owned [$4 million sire] Mr Dual Pep. They introduced us to Ty, and Ty and Melanie [Smith] both have helped us out a lot with breedings and stuff like that.”

Through that network, Greenlief and WHFV Media Director and U.S. Army veteran Jay Williams found themselves sitting in the Relentless Remuda office in Decatur, Texas, this past winter.

“Talk about intimidating,” Greenlief admitted. “They asked, ‘What do you guys do for feed up there?’ and I [stalled]. Then I was like, ‘Hey dummy, you know what you feed your horses,’ but I was kind of just dumbfounded being around those guys.”

Despite their social anxieties, the Relentless Remuda’s “Scotch” was shipped to Kansas in December to begin his service as a WHFV horse.

The finest Scotch

Of course, Scotch isn’t a fit for everyone in the program. He is a certified Relentless Remuda graduate, possessing the kind of horsepower and talent that earned him his cheek brand. But in a program that values empowering people by putting them aboard well-trained talent, getting to ride Scotch marks a victory for the ropers who ride with WHFV.

“My favorite experience from War Horses for Veterans was roping off Scotch,” said retired Police Sgt. Greg Ziel, who The Team Roping Journal first wrote about in May 2022. “Holy smokes, that horse flies!”

In a demonstration of the power of these programs and the lives they touch, Ziel and Greenlief are examples of how one network can change the course of multiple lives for years to come. 

Working backward, Ziel roped off Scotch when he participated in a program at WHFV, where Greenlief began working in 2021. The two originally met when Ziel was acquiring his horse, Midnight, which was Greenlief’s own first horse in his path to recovery that he acquired with the help of the Charlie Five organization. Charlie Five was founded by Jeremy Svejcar, a U.S. Army veteran who found his calling after participating in programs like the Semper Fi and America’s Fund Jinx McCain Horsemanship Program, the same program Greenlief credits for saving his life.

The tough stuff

“John and the Jinx McCain program got me back on horses,” Greenlief said, referring to the program’s foreman, retired Marine Col. John Mayer. 

The SFAF discontinued the JMHP in 2024, but Mayer is continuing his mission to tap into the hearts of his fellow warriors by getting them horseback and out of their heads.  

“I was battling a lot of demons,” Greenlief said of when he first signed up with the JMHP to work cattle on the historic Kokernot 06 Ranch in West Texas’ Davis Mountains.

WATCH: The Drive to Brotherhood — Sgt. Greelief continues to heal on a 2021 cattle drive with the JMHP in Wyoming’s Big Horn mountains. Watch as he, from atop the dark paint, narrates cutting cattle from the herd (and slinging a few friendly jabs) around 17:30.

Greenlief grew up around horses but hadn’t touched them since he joined the Marine Corps in 2008. Instead, he deployed four times and when he returned stateside to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, he was training to become Helicopter Ropes and Suspensions Techniques Master. Then it came crashing down, literally.

“I’ve been on four deployments with the Marines, the infantry,” Greenlief said. “I’ve been to Afghanistan. If you remember the tsunami that hit Japan, I was there for that. There was a ferry that sank off the coast of Korea with a bunch of high school kids—responded to that. I mean, a whole slew of things and I never really had an issue with anything, I think because I was so busy.

“I kept myself busy until the helicopter crash and it wrecked me, no pun intended. I’d made it through a lot of other situations in my life unscathed and, here I was in the United States on a training mission. We were doing nighttime training inserts—repel inserts into LZs (landing zones). I was part of a Helo Raid Company, and I was riding in a helicopter, and it crashed.”

The Sept. 2, 2015, event initiated a cataclysmic shift in Greenlief’s life. As he spent the next two years recovering in the Wounded Warrior Battalion—including 28 weeks in the Traumatic Brain Injury Center—with severe balance issues, Greenlief was dealt a decision by a medical board that nearly ended him.

“They originally said it was not a service-related incident. There are a few people in my life who know this and it’s the closest I’ve ever been to suicide. My wife, CC, was the only thing that kept me alive because they were going to separate me from the Marine Corps and give me like $15,000. They said I had 0% service-related injuries.

“I was at the peak of my career doing phenomenal things, going places that were new to the Marine Corps and having a lot of fun. My career ended and I went to the Wounded Warrior Battalion where everyone, at the time, was either blown up or shot … and was feeling like I shouldn’t be there because everybody else was legitimately combat wounded, mostly.”

Credibly, Greenlief fought the medical board and has since decided that the initial decision of a few people managing paperwork shouldn’t minimize the rest of his time in service, but it’s taken years and work and grace to gain that perspective. 

A hand up

Once medically retired, Greenlief returned to his hometown and took a job with the sheriff’s office. 

“If you want to get personal, I was in a really bad spot in my life,” Greenlief said of the timing, which coincided with sincere civic unrest and, oftentimes, riots in our urban city centers. “Law enforcement was not a great transition out of the military for me. 

“In all honesty and in fairness to the law enforcement agency that I was with, I wasn’t mentally okay to take over and deal with the stress that it took.”  

After a year and a half, Greenlief burned out and took up some farming work. Feeling better, he returned to law enforcement and became a detective working crimes against children and then became the lead homicide investigator.

From the military board trying to rid its hands of Greenlief to navigating through police retaliation threats and trying to manage the chaos bred by a culture of crime, Greenlief was ready for an assist when the SFAF, which had provided support to his family through his medical recovery, put him in touch with Mayer and bought him a plane ticket—his first since the helo wreck—to Texas. Overcoming the fear he’d developed proved worth it.

“Rod Devoll came up to me at the end of it,” Greenlief said of the Kokernot 06’s foreman and wagon boss. “He said, ‘Man, you would make a good hand.’ And that, to me … it kind of felt like being accepted again.”

Ready for more roping

At Charly Crawford’s and Trey Johnson’s Horns N’ Heroes roping clinic this past November, Greenlief brought a good dose of horsemanship and cow horse know-how to the table, but he stepped into the roping arena with a square-one approach to his heeling. In a few short days, he gained enough to earn the award for Most Improved, and he also discovered an opportunity to reconnect with God.

“I think I have a better appreciation for what it is,” Greenlief said of the sport. “I have a better knowledge and way of explaining things. Most of my time was spent with Trey on the heel side and the way he explains things and how he brings it back to God is honestly the best thing about being at [the clinic].”

When Johnson was able to spend a day at the WHFV clinic this April, another door opened for Greenlief. 

“At the end of the day, [Trey] said he’d love for me to come down to the … American Hero Celebration and just spend a day doing horsemanship.”

Greenlief hopes it works out, but thinks he’ll be at this year’s AHC regardless.

“We’ve got a few guys from War Horses who are putting applications in to go down and do that and use War Horses horses to rope off of.”

Meanwhile, Greenlief will be looking for good horseflesh to purchase for a program that creates the same path to healing he discovered horseback.

—TRJ—

Thank you to Equinety for helping us share stories of military members, veterans and first responders in the team roping community.

The post Sgt. Greenlief Gets a Relentless Remuda War Horse appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

A year ago this month, Kirby Blankenship won the Daddy of ’em All in Cheyenne heeling for Billy Bob Brown. The 25-year-old Lampasas, Texas, cowboy has since had a change of plans. As much as he loves to rope, he recently graduated from college and took a job he also adores that comes with a weekly paycheck.

Q: Where is Lampasas, and what’s it like there?

A: Lampasas is on (Highway) 281 between Hamilton and Austin. It’s about an hour north of Austin, and an hour and a half south of Stephenville. I was born in Stephenville and raised in Lampasas, which is a bigger town that still has small-time vibes. Everybody in Lampasas wants to see you do good.

Q: Reigning World Champion Barrel Racer Brittany Pozzi Tonozzi and her National Finals Rodeo header husband, Garrett, also live in Lampasas. Are you neighbors and friends?

A: Yes. Garrett and I are great friends, and I go rope there as much as I can. We just cooked steaks for them before Garrett headed to Colorado for the summer, and Brittany took off rodeoing again. 

Q: Congratulations on your recent graduation from Sul Ross State University. Tell us why you’re on the older side for graduating from college. 

A: My mom’s a loan officer who’s president at a credit office in Lampasas. She went back to school like I did, and always told me I’d feel better if I finished. She said to just get it done because you never know what opportunities might be possible. 

Q: Where else did you go to college?

A: I previously rodeoed under (NFR tie-down roper) Johnny Emmons at Weatherford College, and roped with (NFR header) Coy Rahlmann one year. I went to Weatherford for three straight years, then one at Sul Ross. I took a break before finishing up at Sul Ross this year. 

Q: You were out of college rodeo eligibility, but went back anyway?

A: Yes, I took my mom’s advice, and didn’t want to limit my career possibilities to only a rope. I was able to finish school online. 

Q: Weatherford’s Emmons and Sul Ross’s CJ Aragon were highly respected contestants. Has that carried over to their coaching?

A: Absolutely. The two guys I got to college rodeo under both rodeoed for a living. They know all about backing in the box to eat, and I learned a lot from both of them. They were super helpful, and also so understanding about me wanting to circuit rodeo on the side. Johnny and CJ both have good attitudes and winning mentalities and truly care about the young people in their programs. You’re not just another guy on their rodeo roster. 

Q: What do you consider your career highlight to date, and why? 

A: Winning Cheyenne last summer was something a lot of people who rope better than I do will never get to experience. Cheyenne’s not an easy rodeo, and a lot of things can go wrong. We drew good, and it was a win I’ll never forget. 

Q: You roped with Junior Dees at San Antonio and Billy Bob at Houston this year, but haven’t been seen around much lately. Where’ve you been?

A: I told Billy Bob early on this year that I was going to stay home, work and amateur rodeo. I went to the BFI, and hope to circuit rodeo next year. I have a really good job now working for a construction company in Austin. We build residential subdivisions, and I work for the dirt side of the business building roads. I’m on the job by 7 in the morning and done by 4:30 or 5 most days. I work Saturday sometimes, too. 

Q: Your current career goals?

A: I wanted to go see it (the rodeo trail), and got to do that. Now I’m trying to build a backbone for me and when I have a family one day. For me, there’s a bigger picture to life than just living on the road. I love to rope, but my whole life does not revolve around swinging a rope. I respect every person who’s ever done good in rodeo, but there’s a lot of gambling in the rodeo business. I’d like to have something built up before I gamble too much. 

Q: You sound happy with your decision.

A: I am. My parents never told me not to rodeo. But my dad and grandpa told me taking this job was smart, and that they’re proud of me. There’s a paycheck every Friday, and that’s really nice. This is a massive company with 800 employees, and there’s a lot to learn in this business, too. 

Q: Tell us about Kirby Blankenship Performance Horses. 

A: I had a bunch of horses before I got this job, and now only ride as many as I have time for. I love the process of horse training. I learned a lot about horses riding young ones at a young age. My dad always said, “If we’re going to feed a horse, he’s either going to make money or last a long time.” I like making jackpot horses anybody can ride and win on. 

Q: Who has most influenced your roping and horsemanship?

A: A lot of people have helped me. Early on, my grandpa built some of Rich Skelton’s places. I went with my grandpa, and Rich helped me and never charged me. Our neighbor Hamp Conlan had good roping fundamentals and helped me as a kid with mine. He knew a lot about horsemanship, position and approach, which is 90% of heeling. Hamp always said, “Don’t watch me, listen to me.” I worked for Clay Logan almost two years, and he introduced me to the horse show side of this business, and taking pride in how horses look and work. 

Q: Who do you practice with most now?

A: I rope with one of my bosses, Kyle Kates, and Garrett the most now. Both live about 15 minutes from me, and we rope at their houses or mine. 

Q: Describe your heeling style.

A: I’m a position heeler. I like to be in my spot, and I’m a second-hop heeler. I’m not conservative, but I don’t throw on the corner every time. I just try to be as fast as I can while still staying smooth and correct. 

Q: Which heelers do you watch the closest, and why?

A: Everyone out there does something cool that works. I love the simplicity of how Jade (Corkill) rides a perfect corner every time. And it’s pretty cool how fast (Wesley) Thorp gets a steer. He dallies on a short rope every time. 

Q: Final word on how roping fits into your life now…

A: Roping has done so much for me. I don’t take it for granted like I did when that’s all I did. I respect how long it takes to get good at it, and I’ll always love to rope. It’s also nice to know it’s not the only thing there is to life.

—TRJ—

The post Kirby Blankenship: Life Beyond the Rodeo Road appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Miles Baker stood at the head box during the 2024 Bob Feist Invitational to rattle the back gate for plenty of the other headers. But why?

On Long Starts

At jackpots with long starts like the BFI, you’ll see someone standing by the chute rattling the back gate, looking at the header and head horse.

Hard Crack

We do this for each other for different reasons. Some people need a hard crack of the back gate to trick their head horse into standing in the corner, because the head horse hears that initial “false” bang and then is on go and ready when the actual gate bangs. 

Steady Rattle

More often, guys’ horses need a steady rattle instead, taking their focus off the main noise—essentially desensitizing them to the sound so they have time to hold them on those long starts. 

At Home

At home, I’ll call for the back gate, too. I want to hold one really tight, and when that back gate bangs, I want them not to react to it. I’ll allow them staying steady in the corner to be the release, and then I’ll let the horse walk forward. I don’t want the bang of the gate to be the horse’s release.

—TRJ—

The post Can I Get a Rattle? appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

I have spent a long time putting together a program and a setup that lets me do what each horse needs every day—and along the way, I’ve learned things from guys like Brad Lund, Gary Wells and Bill Myers who’ve shown me pieces of what they do to make great horses.

Here are some foundational pieces of what I do to make horses that can go on beyond my time with them to be successful with their owners at the jackpots or with guys going down the road trying to make a living rodeoing. 

1. All About Control

My program is about slowing things down to where my wife—a 3—should be able to get on most of these horses and head the steer. If she pulls on the reins and wants the horse to come to a complete stop or slow down, that horse should be able to do that.

2. Practice Cattle

We have a bunch of Holstein-cross calves—Jerseys—whatever you want to call them. I like them because they’re not really heavy. You can rope them and your horse can’t just get a hold of them real hard, so you can work on your horse’s control and body position without making them dread it or crave the pull too much. Plus, they tend to be slower, or get slower faster, and that allows me to put more control into my horses every step of the way. A lot of people want to buy fresh steers that haven’t ever been roped because, sure, they can be a lot of fun, but that’s rarely the best practice for your horses.

3. Practice Mentality

Some people want to call their buddies up and drink a six-pack and try to run steers. And that doesn’t usually go well. You’ve got to set yourself up for success, and it all starts with how you practice. If you don’t practice well, then you’re not going to perform well.

4. Diversify

At my house, we’ll score a lot, we’ll breakaway a lot, we’ll make some regular runs, we’ll rope and push our horse forward and circle the steer around us. We do different things like that so we have full control of our horse at all times

5. Tools

You’ll see a scoring lane in my arena. Even on a fast steer, you can let them out because the lane slows them down. Then you can go, or you can walk-start every time as the steer trickles down the lane. That forces your horse to pay attention to you and stay in your hand. Sometimes, we’ll sit in the corner and let the steer out and make the horse make a run up there. The next time, we might just walk-score and walk the whole way out into the arena. It helps the horse relax and build confidence. Kaleb Driggers has one at his house. It’s twice as long and has high steps in it, so they’ve got to slow down to go over it.

Dakota Kirchenschlager’s entire program is on Roping.com, providing comprehensive how-to explanations for all levels of training—from green horses to great horses and everything in between. 

—TRJ—

The post Training User-Friendly Horses appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

The cowboy career J.D. Yates has put together has exceeded every expectation he ever dreamed about. This youngest National Finals Rodeo qualifier of all time—J.D. heeled for Daddy Dick at his first Finals almost 50 years ago in 1975, when he was but a 15-year-old boy—has 21 NFR back numbers and 11 from the National Finals Steer Roping on the trophy room wall in Pueblo, Colorado. J.D.’s also won 47 American Quarter Horse Association world championships. Inductions into both the ProRodeo Hall of Fame this summer and the AQHA Hall of Fame this fall will make this a most memorable year of lifetime achievement recognition. But fame and fortune are nothing next to family for Team Yates. 

“It’s kind of unbelievable,” said J.D., who’s 63 now. “I didn’t set out in this world to get into a hall of fame. Getting there after all these years is very gratifying, and a pretty amazing feeling. I never thought being a hall of famer was an option, much less two this big in one year. 

“The most incredible year of my career was in 1984, when my dad, my sister (Kelly) and me all made the Finals together. I rodeoed with my dad, my mom (Jan) went with my sister, and we all got there. That was 40 years ago now, and it’s still very special to me. Always will be, because we are a tight family.”

It all started with patriarch Dick and matriarch Jan, who headed to Heaven in the spring of 2019. In the early going, times were tough and they really did live on love. 

Daddy Dick

Dick Yates headed at 13 NFRs—J.D.’s first 13. As cool as that was and still is, it was all business inside the arena. They couldn’t survive on the sentimentality of how sweet it was for a dad to rope with his son. 

“Jan and I started off with very little,” said Dick, who’s 86 now and placed at the last roping he entered earlier this year with J.D. “We rodeoed as a business, and if it wasn’t feasible for us to make money, we didn’t go. One of the reasons J.D. was never a world champion team roper or all-around champ was because if, say, winning at a rodeo in the fall didn’t more than cover our expenses, we didn’t go. We were building and accumulating from poor folks to people who made our way. It had to pencil. 

“I was working for the state as a brand inspector a lot of those years, and when I was working, we only went to about 35 rodeos a year. As rodeo got bigger and it took more money to make the Finals, we went to a few more. But in the summertime, we went to a lot of rodeos where we were back home that night.”

Their practice arena was J.D. and Kelly’s playpen. But fun and games were for recess. 

“J.D. and I roped together as a business,” Dick said. “A lot of fathers and sons fuss and don’t get along, especially in the roping pen and when they’re working together. That was never a problem at our camp. We talked about things, but there was never any feuding or fussing about horses or missing. We went out there to work at it and get better, so we could win money. 

“Building a good reputation was always important to me, whether I was roping or training and selling horses. J.D. went everywhere with me when he was a little guy and I was (brand) inspecting. He went with me to the sale barn, and grew up around ranchers and didn’t ever get to play with other kids. He grew up around grownups, so he could talk to anybody about anything when he was just a little old kid.” 

J.D.’s been inducted into a number of rodeo halls now, including Dodge City, Cheyenne, Ellensburg and Pendleton.

“The first rodeo hall they put him in was Dodge City, and J.D. has more Dodge City buckles than anyone,” Dick said. “We won the team roping there twice, he’s won the calf roping and the all-around I don’t know how many times.

“If you enjoy what you’re doing and work hard at it, you generally accomplish quite a bit. Trey (J.D.’s son) fits right in. He gets up early and works hard, just like his dad. I’m proud of my family. I’m still mad at old Jan for leaving so soon. She handled the books, paid all the bills and did all the cooking, and we miss her. But it’s been a good ride for my family and me.” 

Sister Kelly

Kelly Yates is an NFR barrel racer and renowned barrel horse trainer and jockey. She’s also J.D.’s big sister. 

“Mom was the core—the center of our family,” Kelly said. “We all always helped each other. We shared a close bond, and we all pitched in and did whatever it took to make it all work. 

“J.D. and I always fussed at each other when we were little. I always won, because I’d bite him. But J.D. was never mean back. The only thing I can remember him doing was roping me by two feet and jerking me down when I was 10 and Mom was secretarying a college rodeo. I chased him, but he ran into the men’s room and got away. 

“I wasn’t a mean child, just a wild child and go, go, go. J.D. just minded his own business and played in the dirt. We’ve always supported each other, and even more so as we’ve gotten older and matured. I love to rope, too, and I headed for J.D. at the high school rodeos my senior year. We’ve roped at a lot of mixed ropings, too. J.D. is a very loyal brother, and I’m proud of all he’s done. He’s accomplished so much, and a lot of it at a very young age.”

Son Trey

Trey Yates is a three-time NFR heeler who won his first Finals with Aaron Tsinigine in 2018. 

“We have a very close-knit bond in our family, and we’re very fortunate that we all enjoy roping, which brings us together even more,” said Trey, who also won the 2018 National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association title heeling for Kellan Johnson; Trey’s NIRA and NFR saddles sit side-by-side next to J.D.’s in the family trophy room. “My granddad and grandma hauled me around as a kid when my dad was showing a lot of horses. Kelly would take me at times also. Cousin Jay Lynn (Wadhams) was always there, and helped me a lot with my roping, too. 

“We’re fortunate most of all to be a close family. Roping and rodeo is just what we do. Roping is a big bonus because it’s something we get to do together. There’s no hollering, yelling or screaming in our arena. It’s a place we get to enjoy getting to do what we love to do. Together. 

“The moral code in our family is the most important thing. My dad and my grandpa always say, ‘Just treat people right and with respect, and the roping will take care of itself.’ This is a big year for my dad, and I’m pretty proud of him. I’m always proud of my family.”

Cousin Jay 

Jay Wadhams and his wife, Lindsay, now own and run the American Rope Horse Futurity Association. But he, too, grew up in that Yates arena. 

“All of the Yates family brothers and sisters were close, and Dick and my mom (Raeana Yates Wadhams) have always been extra close,” Jay said. “We lived about 20 miles from Dick and Jan, and I lived there in high school and college because they were closer to town and I was roping there all the time. Mom and Dad (John) came by every day after work. 

“I learned to rope in Dick’s arena. The first year I went and helped J.D. at the World Show, I was still in high school. Our family is very unique, and it’s kind of crazy how it all fell into place, because back when we were young they might have only had seven or eight steers and not many horses. Dick, J.D. and Kelly worked hard at what they made a living at, which was rodeoing, but the beginnings were humble for all of us.”

To this day, J.D. and Jay are more like brothers than cousins.

“We grew up together, and I lived with them for 10 or 12 years,” Jay said. “Even before I was old enough to rodeo, I’d take off driving for Dick and J.D. when I was 16. 

“I only had about four partners in my whole rodeo career, and I roped with Dick forever when J.D. was roping with other guys. I made my first Finals with Jay Ellerman (in 1993), then it got to where J.D. and I were horse-showing so hard that it just made sense for us to rope together at the rodeos.” 

Jay and J.D. made the NFR together in 1996. 

“Winning the BFI with J.D. (in 2010) is my career highlight, for sure,” Jay said. “People may have forgotten that I made the NFR. But nobody ever forgets who won the BFI. And the older we get, the more sentimental we are about getting it done as a family. 

“All those years when I was going to the horse shows with J.D., I was either in front of him (heading) or behind him (heeling). I’m proud to have helped J.D. win a lot of his AQHA world championships, and of the 15 I think I’ve won, he probably helped me win at least 10 of them. Standing back watching now—I don’t rope at my own futurities—J.D.’s still the best head-horse showman there is. It’s no wonder he’s won so much. He ropes great with his right hand. But that left hand of his is great, too.”

James Donald

You can probably double the $1.6 million-plus J.D.’s won rodeoing to get his actual lifetime earnings, which also include a superstellar horseshow and jackpot career. Those 32 National Finals back numbers span four decades, he’s won the average at both the NFR (in 2002 with Bobby Harris) and the 2008 NFSR. J.D.’s also a rare NFR switch-ender who heeled at Rodeo’s Super Bowl 19 times and headed there twice. And those 47 AQHA gold globes speak for themselves.

“This one here (the ProRodeo Hall in neighboring Colorado Springs) was a big surprise,” said J.D., who won two NIRA titles of his own in 1980 and ’81. “It makes all those all-night drives, fast times and no times all worth the trip. I put my heart and soul into the love of the sport and this event. I’ll love it ’til the day I die. I still enjoy going and competing to the best of my ability, and watching the best guys work. That’s why I can’t quit and will never retire.”

J.D. remembers watching the bridle class at the Cow Palace in San Francisco when he was there roping with his dad as a kid. 

“I got to watch the top riders in the world doing the cow-horse stuff in what at that time was called the bridle class in California,” he said. “I was amazed and impressed by it. In 1979, I went and helped at the World Show for the first time, when Sonny Jim Orr hired me to head and heel for him. I was there for five days, and was just amazed by the whole process. 

“I started learning about showing horses in 1980, qualified my own horse for the World Show and didn’t do any good. We came back in 1981, and qualified my dad’s NFR head horse, Hank (Hank Houser was his registered name) and my NFR heel horse, Swevin, who I called Little Gray. My dad’s horse was the reserve world champion head horse that year, and mine was the champion heel horse. 

“I got hired to show some horses in 1982, and my dad took his NFR head horse back to the World Show and won it. To be inducted into the AQHA Hall of Fame, well, it’s gratifying when other people see how hard you’ve worked. These are just honors you don’t plan on in your life.”

Making the NFR with his dad and sister. Winning the all-around at Cheyenne thanks to steer roping and team roping earnings with his son. Winning the BFI with his cousin, and placing there years later with his son. These are the memories that mean the most.  

“I roped with a lot of different guys after my dad quit and before Trey came along,” said J.D., who won the 1983 Presidential Command Performance Rodeo with Dick, dined at the White House with him; they were presented their buckles personally by President Ronald Reagan. “But there’s nobody I enjoyed roping with more than family, whether it was my dad, my cousin or my son. That means the most. 

“Dad and I were all business in the arena. We needed to win. But when we walked out of that arena, he was my dad. I wasn’t always as level-headed and strong-minded as my dad when I started roping with Trey. When I messed up for him, it really bothered me. I had a harder time making it business only.”

J.D. looks and sounds more like his dear dad every day. 

“We’re healthy, we’re happy and we still get to do what we love to do,” J.D. said. “I don’t know why I love to rope and ride horses so much, but I do. I couldn’t ask for more than getting to do what I love, and to make a living at it with my family. To make 14 of my 21 NFRs with family—13 with my dad, and one with my cousin—is pretty special to me. 

“We still rope as a family. My sister and I still love to go compete. I’ve had a lot of years competing with my dad and son, and sometimes against them. But when we walk out of the arena, we are united as a family. It’s been a pretty good ride, and that’s the accomplishment I’m most proud of.”

—TRJ—

Train with the legends. The Yates family has built a lasting legacy in the sport of team roping, and their exclusive Roping.com series gives members a look into the program that has produced three generations of champions. Watch Grandpa Dick, J.D. and Trey work through horses young and old, as well as preparing up-and-coming futurity mounts. They also give tips for creating the correct swing, scoring and facing. Watch the full series here.

The post Family First: Hall of Famer J.D. Yates appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

As of June 24, 2024, Florida’s Lexi Andrews leads the 2025 Cinch Ladies Year-End Award heading race with 31 points while, in the heeling, Colorado’s Jimmi Jo Montera leads the heelers with 17 points.

The Leaders

Lexi Andrews

Lexi Andrews, 16, cracked out in June at the Florida Panhandle Championships, where she earned the total of her No.-1-worthy 31 points. There, she first competed in the #9.5 USTRC and went to work by finishing in first place for 10 points, as well as in seventh place for another 4 points. 

With 14 points secured, she leveled up in the #7.5 USTRC to again win first for 10 points and, this time, also to win fourth place, worth 7 points. The same results also earned Andrews the No. 4 position in the USTRC Resistol Jr. Champion race.

Jimmi Jo Montera 

From Greeley, Colorado, Jimmi Jo Montera, 56, attended the June 7 Rope the Rockies event in neighboring Loveland, Colorado, where she earned her season’s first 10 points heeling in the #10 Add-On. The proven switchender then continued her pursuit for the lead with a fourth-place finish in the #10.5 Legends USTRC, worth 7 points.

To date, Montera’s 17 points are worth the No. 1 position in the Cinch Ladies heeling standings.

The Top 5

Headers

The remaining Top 5 Cinch Ladies headers are currently giving Andrews a 12-point jump on the season’s standings with TyAnn Clements of Stephenville, Texas, entering the No. 2 position with 19 points earned in the #7 Handicap at May’s Cowboy Capital Classic (second place for 9 points) and June’s West Texas Championship #7 USTRC (first place for 10 points). 

The heat is on Clements, though, with a two-way tie for third place happening between Bethany, Missouri’s Kay Stevens and Lathrop, Missouri’s Amy Swanson, who each have 18 points that they both earned roping at the Missouri Classic in May and at the Southern Illinois Showdown in June.

Their parallel successes have earned Stevens and Swanson just a single-point lead over No. 5 header Gretchen Hilley of Perrin, Texas, who rounds out the Top 5 with 17 points earned at the Cowboy Capital Classic.

Heelers

Montera is sitting pretty ahead of a two-way tie for second place between Morgan Robson of Rolla, Kansas, and the reigning 2024 USTRC Cinch Ladies Heeling Champion, Kyra Hendren from Albuquerque, New Mexico, who each have 8 points earned to date after individually placing seventh in a #7 USTRC roping—Robson at the Oklahoma Classic and Hendren at the Red Rock Classic.

Behind them, Valentine, Nebraska’s Chris Lien closes out the early season standings with 6 points earned at the June roping in McCook, Nebraska, where she took fifth in the #7.5.

2024-2025 USTRC Cinch Ladies Leaderboard 

(as of 6/26/24. Go to USTRC.com for current standings.)

Current USTRC or Key Card/Key Card Max membership is required to participate in the Cinch Ladies Program. Earned points begin counting at the time of membership purchase through the NFTR’s last shootout event. The season begins the Monday after the last USTRC NFTR event and ends the last day of the next USTRC NFTR event.

Ropers must enter at least one Shootout division in the USTRC NFTR to be eligible. The award will be announced at the end of the USTRC National Finals of Team Roping event.

—TRJ—

The post Cinch Ladies Leaders Lexi Andrews and Jimmi Jo Montera Set an Early Bar in 2025 Standings Race appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

As of June 24, 2024, the race for the 2024 Resistol Jr. Champion title proved well on its way with Missouri’s Wyatt Walker and North Carolina’s Cole Shook in the standings lead with 40 and 33 points, respectively, giving them a narrow but important lead over the rest of the pack.

Current Resistol Jr. Leaders

Walker Wyatt

Entering the race out of Diamond, Missouri, switchender Wyatt Walker, 12, secured his spot at No. 1 in the heading standings in May, first competing in the Missouri Classic early in the month, followed by the Heart of the Ozarks Championship a few weeks later.

At the Missouri Classic on May 3, Walker earned two fourth-place finishes worth 7 points each in both the #10.5 USTRC and the #8.5 USTRC, giving him a 14-point foundation by the time he entered up at Heart of the Ozarks. There, the young header hit his stride and took second place, worth 9 points, in the #11.5 USTRC and the #10.5 USTRC. Then, he finished the event in third place in the #9.5 USTRC for an additional 8 points. And that was just in the heading.

Walker has also established himself a spot on the heeling side of the standings at No. 18, which he shares with Kase Key from Stephenville, Texas, who also has 12 points, the whole of which Walker earned with a second-place and eighth-place finish in the #8.5 USTRC at the Missouri Classic.

Cole Shook

From Leicester, North Carolina, Cole Shook, 14, went to work at the Virginia Championships in early June. There, he earned the entirety of his standings-leading 33 points by taking second and sixth pace in the #9.5 USTRC, worth 9 and 5 points, respectively. 

Then, Shook did double duty in the #7.5 USTRC, too, claiming the champion and reserve champion titles for 10 and 9 points, respectively. 

The Top 5

Headers

The rest of the Top 5 Resistol Jr. headers are in close pursuit behind Walker, who has a 2-point lead over No. 2 header 

Gage Hines of Dilley, Texas. Hines also maintains a 2-point lead over No. 3 header Pecos Patton roping out of Shallowater, Texas, with a total of 36 points in the standings.

Patton possesses a somewhat more comfortable 5-point lead over No. 4 header Lexi Andrews of Live Oak, Florida, who, with her 31 points, leads No. 5 header Ryder Volf of Stephenville, Texas, by 3 points.

Heelers

Behind Shook, the Resistol Jr. heeling standings stack up quickly and closely, with No. 2 heeler Cooper Brittain from Rockwall, Texas, just a single point behind Shook’s 33 points.

From Ingalls, Kansas, Jhett Vanderhamm takes the No. 3 spot with 29 points, which gives him a 2-point lead over No. 4 heeler Brit Smith of Atmore, Alabama. Smith also holds a 2-point lead over a tie at No. 5, shared by Sterling City, Texas’ Pason Patton and Holt, Missouri’s Blaine Gray with 25 points each.

2024-2025 USTRC Resistol Jr. Leaders

(as of 6/26/24. Go to USTRC.com for current standings.)

Current USTRC or Key Card/Key Card Max membership is required to participate in the Resistol Junior Champion Program. Earned points begin counting at time of membership purchase thru the NFTR’s last shootout event. The season begins the Monday after the last USTRC NFTR event and ends the last day of the next USTRC NFTR event.

Ropers must enter at least one Shootout division in the USTRC NFTR to be eligible. The award will be announced at the end of the USTRC National Finals of Team Roping event.

—TRJ—

The post New Season, New Resistol Jr. Leaders in Wyatt Walker and Cole Shook appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Dear Roper,

The roper on our cover, Kenna Francis, is no stranger to most of you. She’s in the office at so many of the country’s biggest ropings, from the Riata Buckle to the Ariat World Series of Team Roping’s outdoor qualifier at the Finale to so many qualifiers in Texas and New Mexico produced by Mathews Land and Cattle. 

When we first started The Team Roping Journal back in 2017, Senior Editor Gabriella Schiavino trekked to Las Vegas, New Mexico, to get a peek into the lives of Chris and Kenna Francis, Oren Mathews and Cade and Kersti Passig at MLC. The resulting story was called Elements of Success, and it’s still a great read seven years later. In 2019, I first got to really know Chris and Cade when they won The Feist, and it’s one of my all-time favorite pieces I’ve gotten to write, too.

I guess these stories have stood out to us for the same reasons Kenna’s win with Whitney DeSalvo at the Women’s Rodeo World Championship for $120,000 does—because we’ve gotten a front-row seat to the grind. As a staff, we all see what Chris and Kenna and their MLC crew put into what they do, day in and day out, to rope their best and to ensure that everyone who puts their hard-earned money up at the ropings they produce gets their best shot at the pot. 

Needless to say, when Kenna and Whitney got those WRWC buckles and big checks, we all felt a little something for two ladies who’ve been so consistently exceptional at this sport, and who put everything they have into this game we all love. 

In the rest of the issue, you’ll find a very equine-focused collection of stories. Kendra Santos celebrates J.D. Yates’ induction into both the AQHA Hall of Fame and the ProRodeo Hall of Fame, while Julie Mankin pens a story about the long-great Harrison Ranch. Dig in, and let us know what you think. 

Chelsea 

The post Hard-Earned: An Inside Look at the July 2024 Issue 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.

Canadian cowboy Dillon Graham finished 16^th in the 2023 world heeling standings roping behind his big brother, Dawson, who finished last year 19^th on the heading side with the same money won. The Graham brothers—Dillon’s 23 and Dawson’s 25—are from Wainwright, Alberta, and won Canadian Professional Rodeo Association team roping titles together in 2022. 

Q: How long have you been heeling for Dawson at the rodeos, and who taught you guys how to rope?

A: We started rodeoing together in 2016. Our grandpa Roger Fletcher and our uncle Kurt Fletcher taught us how to rope. The Fletcher side of our family ropes, and the Graham side is mostly farmers. 

Q: How big is team roping up in Canada these days?

A: Team roping’s pretty big up there, and is getting bigger, for sure. Some of the lower-numbered ropings in Canada are getting 600 teams now. 

Q: What’s your favorite career highlight so far?

A: Winning Canada, for sure. To win that was definitely a goal of ours. Our parents always took us to the Canadian Finals when we were kids, and it was a goal to win it since. 

Q: In the last three years, you finished 46^th, 33^rd and 16^th in the world heeling standings. Are you happy with how fast you’re climbing the world-class roping ladder?

A: I think you always wish you would have done better, no matter what you do. Last year was our first year of really rodeoing hard.  

Q: Did you look at finishing 16^th as the heartbreak hole, or as more major progress? 

A: Nobody wants to end up 16^th, but it motivated me to be better. When you get that close and don’t make it, you have two options—dwell on it and not get any better, or keep moving forward and get better. 

Q: Are there pros and cons to brothers being partners? 

A: I don’t really see any disadvantages to it, and there are a lot of advantages. When you win, you win with your brother. There’s not much better than that for me.  

Q: Do you guys travel together? 

A: Yes, we travel in the same rig, and Dawson likes to drive. We buddied with Rhen Richard and Jeremy Buhler last year, and Rhen did all the entering. This year it’s on us, but we always have Rhen to call.

Q: Does being the big brother give Dawson the upper hand? 

A: Dawson’s a big softy, and he’s always in a good mood. The best part about him is he’s always the same, so there’s the same vibe in the rig no matter how we’re doing. He stays pretty even keel, and we just keep moving on. 

Q: Did you start out rodeoing mostly in Canada?

A: Yes. In Canada there’s no age on it. I was 15 when we first rodeoed up there. Dawson and I both won rookie of the year up in Canada in 2016, when I was 15 and he was 17.

Q: When did you start venturing down to the States, and how do you split your time between Canada and the U.S. now?

A: We first started coming down here 12 years ago, when our parents bought a place in Arizona. We started entering the PRCA (Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association) rodeos—Tucson and a few others—in 2018. But we didn’t go to many rodeos until I turned 20 in 2021. We go back to Canada from May 1 to Reno in June. Then we bounce back and forth. We enter 20-25 rodeos a year in Canada now that we’re rodeoing down here so much.

Q: What’s your favorite rodeo down here? 

A: Probably Pendleton. Roping on the grass is something different. It’s a cool rodeo, and something different from all the rest. 

Q: And your favorite rodeo in Canada? 

A: Wainwright. It’s a pretty big rodeo, and it’s our home-towner.

Q: Have there been people who’ve gone above and beyond to welcome you and help you when you started coming down here?

A: A lot of people have helped us. JD Yates and the Yates family stand out a lot. I’ve stayed there and roped with them a lot, and have gone to some horse shows with JD. We hang out at Hunter Koch’s place in Texas quite a bit when we’re there. 

Q: Do you have goals up there and down here?

A: Yes. They’re both kind of the same—to win Canada and make the (National) Finals (Rodeo). The goal is always to win it if you’re going. 

Q: How is team roping different in the two countries? 

A: It’s pretty much the same. Team roping is a standard event in Canada, too. The only difference is the amount of entries at the rodeos. It’s tough up in Canada, there just aren’t as many entries or rodeos. There are only 52 rodeos in Canada. I’d say about 80% of the rodeos in Canada have equal money in the team roping. Lyle Kurtz, who owns CVS Controls, has definitely fought for equal money in the team roping up in Canada. 

Q: Describe your team’s style.

A: Dawson throws fast, and I just try to catch. 

Q: Who’s your favorite heeler to watch, and why?

A: There are a lot of guys I like to watch—Jade (Corkill), Clay O (Cooper)—all the greats. 

Q: What were the most important lessons you learned coming so close last year that you’re using now?

A: Every steer counts. They all matter, no matter where you’re at or what time of year it is. 

Q: How do you like your team’s chances of getting over the NFR hump in 2024?

A: I’m pretty high on our chances. We’ve got good horses, and we work hard at it every day. Hopefully luck falls our way.

—TRJ—

The post Dillon Graham Talks Rodeoing With Family, Roping in The Great North and Climbing Out of the Heartbreak Hole appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Two of the three team ropers at the heart of this story that’s been searching for its happy ending are no longer with us. They’ve crossed the great cowboy divide, and learned as we all will when our days here are done that “you can’t take it with you.”

Ed Yanez was the 1949 world champion team roper and wore the buckle that went with the highlight of his career with great pride before passing it down to his only son, Tommy. When Tommy Yanez got sick, and realized cancer was going to cut his own life short, he placed his most prized possession into the trusted hands of his longtime friend and fellow team roper, Mike Johns. Tommy’s dying wish was that Mike find the best permanent home for his dad’s treasured trophy buckle. 

As this is a decision that will outlive us all, I was honored to get the call from Mike to lend a hand. He gave Tommy his word that he would honor his last request, and has taken that responsibility very seriously. Trust is earned, and Tommy was a good judge of character when he chose Mike for this one final favor.

Following his father’s bootsteps

As Ed’s heyday was before we were born and his cowboy contemporaries are also gone, Mike nor I ever got to know Ed Yanez beyond what rodeo’s record books tell us and the stories Tommy told Mike about his dad over the years. Historic documents tell us that California native Ed won the world in 1949, when he was heeling for Oklahoma’s Ben Johnson and fellow Golden State cowboy Andy Jauregui. 

When Johnson won his world team roping title in 1953, Yanez was the reserve champ of the world. Those were the days when a single world champion team roper was often named because you could go twice at some of the rodeos, and he with the most money at year’s end was the champ. Had that happened today, Johnson would have been the world champion header, and Yanez would have been crowned the 1953 world champion heeler for a career total of two titles. 

A special side note: After winning the world at 35, 1953 World Champion Team Roper Ben Johnson went on to win an Oscar at the 1972 Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in “The Last Picture Show” when he was 54. Johnson brought the high-society house down with his country-boy charm when he ended his acceptance speech with a grin and, “This couldn’t have happened to a nicer feller.” Johnson was inducted with the inaugural Class of 1979 at the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Records and reride stories Tommy told Mike over the years also say Ed was a renowned pickup man in his time, who often worked for stock contractors and rodeo producers and roped at the same rodeos.

“Tommy told me that his dad passed away when he was pretty young, at maybe 54 or so, of a heart attack,” Mike said. “Tommy always talked highly of his dad, and Tommy became a cowboy because of his dad. He wanted to be just like him. 

“Tommy loved telling old rodeo stories of the days when Ed worked for Andy Jauregui (a stock contractor from the same part of California as Yanez who was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame with Johnson in 1979; Jauregui also won a world steer roping championship in 1931 and the 1934 world team roping title) as a pickup man. When Tommy was little, he rode around out in the arena with Andy during the rodeos, and called him ‘Uncle Andy.’”  

True blue friends

I never knew Tommy personally but did happen to be at a roping on the Central Coast of California the day disaster struck for his heeling career. It was in the early ’80s, and when one run came tight, it cost Tommy most of his roping hand.

“His pinky, ring and middle fingers were on the ground,” Mike said. “And the finger you point with got cut off at the first knuckle.”

Tommy somehow, some way figured out how to swing a rope again. But with so much of his roping hand gone, it was never the same. As is often the case, when times got tough is when Tommy found out who his truest friends were.

Lifelong ranch cowboy and team roper Johns grew up on a 66,000-acre cattle ranch in Big Pine, California, about 15 miles south of Bishop. He calls Fallon, Nevada, home now, but lived in Paso Robles, California for 21 years after a year each in Merced and Coalinga for college. 

“I met Tommy in the ’70s when I was going to high school in Shandon (California),” remembers Mike, who shared his original home country with National Finals Rodeo header and close cowboy friend Mike Boothe, who died at 25 in 1995 after a head horse fell with him at Pendleton and broke his leg. “I went my first two years in Shandon, and my second two in King City. Tommy was living in the Shandon area working on ranches for people like the Twisselman family. 

“Tommy was pretty handy with a horse, and roped pretty good, too; he was a good cowboy, and he was good help. He started colts, shod horses and cowboyed on ranches. He actually started out as a header in the arena, most likely because his dad was a heeler. But he worked on his heeling, and when he felt like he could win more doing that, he switched.

“In the late ’70s, and all those years when Tommy was in his prime, he was one of the guys to beat on the Central Coast. He caught a lot of cattle—maybe not for first, but a lot of thirds and fourths. But after he cut off most of his hand, it was impossible to rope like he did before.”

Lost then found

Tommy and Mike had seen each other around at ropings for years. Then life took them in different directions for decades.

“I hadn’t seen Tommy in 20-25 years when I ran into him again at the ACTRA state finals in Winnemucca (Nevada) in about 2016,” said Johns, who heeled behind the likes of Boothe, Bronc Pryor, Sherrick Grantham and Justin Hampton at the rodeos over the years. “We went and sat in a restaurant, visited and caught up with each other. Tommy was living in Susanville (in Northern California), he had some colts to ride and it was a wet year and had been raining a lot. 

“I told Tommy to come down to the desert at my ranch in Silver Peak (Nevada). He loaded up those colts and a broke horse, came down there and ended up staying about a month. Tommy got those colts going, then went back home.”

Then the two old friends parted company again. 

“Tommy came back to help us brand a few years ago, in 2017 or 2018,” Mike said. “He was good help, so I offered him a job. He ended up leaving, but came back two or three years ago and stayed.”

It was one of those times in life where everybody wins. Tommy had a place on a beautiful ranch in Paradise Valley (Nevada) to call home while working with and for a friend. And with his trusted help in holding down the fort, Mike, who’s 64 now, was able to start spending winters roping in Arizona.   

Life throws a curveball

They were both rocking on and enjoying the third quarters of their lives. Then came another curveball in Tommy’s life, when he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer last July. 

“Tommy got to where he couldn’t swallow very good,” Mike said. “And one Sunday morning, he started throwing up blood.”

Yanez sought medical attention in Winnemucca on Monday and was immediately shipped to Reno for stepped-up care. On Tuesday, Tommy asked Mike to come get him and take him back to the ranch on Wednesday. 

“One doctor told Tommy if the cancer was only in his esophagus, he thought they could save him,” Mike remembers. “But when I took Tommy back to town, they found cancer up and down his throat, and beyond his esophagus. They sent him to the hospital, and the doctors gave him a 50-50 chance. Then when it came time to operate, the surgeon told him he had a 30% chance. Tommy said, ‘That’s not good enough, take me back to the ranch.’

“It went downhill fast from there for Tommy. We hauled him back and forth to Reno three times, which was three and a half hours each way. But Tommy had had enough.”

The end was coming fast, and Tommy knew it. When he went back home to Mike’s ranch for the last time, running soup through a blender was his only attempt at sustenance. Mike wondered if starvation would take him before the cancer could. 

The younger Yanez had always traveled light, so there wasn’t much to getting his final affairs in order.

“Tommy was a bit of a gypsy, and could move from ranch to ranch in one pickup load,” Johns said. “Like his dad, Tommy was a neat freak. They used to give a best dressed award in the RCA (Rodeo Cowboys Association; predecessor to today’s Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association) every year, and Ed Yanez won best-dressed cowboy in the RCA in 1953. 

“Tommy would stand in front of the mirror and comb his hair for five minutes. His truck was immaculate, and when he was shoeing horses, every tool was in its exact place.”

What matters most

There were just two matters of business that were important to Tommy before he drew his last breath. 

“Tommy had a good dog,” Mike said. “He called her Bea, and that she had a good home to go to was his #1 concern. Tommy gave Bea to a friend’s granddaughter. He called that friend from the hospital when he was there for the last time and knew he wasn’t going to get out of there alive. Tommy wanted that family to know how much he appreciated them giving that dog a good home.

“His dad’s buckle was #2, and Tommy’s only other concern there at the end. Tommy asked me if I could see to it that that buckle made it to a hall of fame. He’d mentioned that before he was sick. It meant a lot to Tommy that the buckle be somewhere it’d be seen.”

The perfect place

My first four thoughts on best final-home options for Ed Yanez’s 1949 world team roping buckle—which by the way was won all the way back before “gold buckles” were made of gold, and is solid silver with 10-karat gold words and team roper—included the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs; the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City; the California Rodeo Heritage Collection Museum in Salinas, California; and the Ben Johnson Cowboy Museum in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. 

The ProRodeo Hall is dedicated exclusively to the legends of professional rodeo. It was started by rodeo cowboys, and has stood for now 45 years as rodeo central downstairs from PRCA Headquarters with majestic Pikes Peak as its picturesque backdrop. Johnson and Jauregui both being immortalized there would surely mean something to Ed and Tommy. 

The National Cowboy features vast ranching, rodeo and Native American collections. Jauregui’s enshrined there, too, and there’s a Ben Johnson Award given annually in Ed’s old amigo’s honor. 

The California Rodeo Heritage Collection Museum makes its home at the rodeo every cowboy considers the ultimate team roping rodeo in Salinas, where California native Ed spent his roping, ranching, pickup-man cowboy career and much of his life. Tommy told Mike that beyond that massive cowboy-conditions Salinas rodeo arena, generations of the Yanez family won many a bridle class over on that Salinas track over the years. Big Week has always been a big traditional deal to team ropers. 

The Ben Johnson was opened in honor of one of Ed Yanez’s closest cowboy compadres. While the focus there is on the Western heritage of Osage County, Oklahoma, Ben was without doubt one of the most significant partners of Ed’s career. 

I wondered if Ben’s 1970-71 World Champion Team Roper nephew John Miller (John’s mom, Mary Ann, was Ben Johnson’s sister), who was born in 1942 so was only 7 when his Uncle Ben helped Ed win the world, ever had the chance to know Johnson’s main heeling man in his world championship. 

“At that time, Ed Yanez was pretty much the hot heeler in the country,” remembers Miller, who was only 11 when Uncle Ben won the world in 1953, but had so many glorious years of listening to the best rodeo stories of Johnson’s heyday before Ben died just shy of his 78^th birthday in 1996. “Ed lived down there along the California coast, and was a little short guy who was really fast with his rope. He was a happy-go-lucky guy who was always smiling and giggling. 

“Ed is, of course, the one who helped Uncle Ben win his championship. California would be a great spot for Ed’s buckle because that’s where he was from and also where team roping started. The Ben Johnson Museum would be a hell of a spot for it also, just because of how close they were and how much they had to do with the success of each other’s careers.”

I can come up with pros and cons to all four places. Some rotate their collections, so it’s possible the buckle would be placed in storage when not in rotation. Some are open all the time, while others have more limited days they open their doors. Current staff can promise the buckle will be seen, as was Tommy’s wish to Mike, but there are no guarantees for what the future might hold. 

Tommy Yanez died on August 31, 2023, just 39 days after his first cancer diagnosis. He was 74. While he mentioned more than one of these halls and museums as good possible choices in Mike’s fulfillment of his last wish, he did not have time to do the due diligence on each option before he left. What he did know before he died was that that treasured buckle his dad left to him was in good hands, with a friend who’d go out of his road to make what he deemed the best possible decision. 

“The two things Tommy was concerned about were that dog and this buckle,” Mike said. “None of the rest of it meant much to him, and he gave it all away. Tommy lived long enough to take care of his dog himself, and I gave him my word on the buckle. I want to do right by my friend and the Yanez family. That buckle meant the world to Tommy.”

Home at last

Mike and I weighed it all, and made the call. Ed’s world championship buckle will make its final home in Salinas. California is where it all started for the Yanez family, and for team roping. 

As Mike put it, “The Yanezes were California natives and had strong family ties to the rodeo in Salinas. Tommy’s dad and Uncle Andy were the two people who meant the most to him in the rodeo world, and both of them had a lot of history there. Leo and Jerold Camarillo are both in the Salinas (California Rodeo) Hall of Fame, they grew up in the same country in California as Ed and Tommy did, and Tommy really looked up to those guys. Salinas is also the most traditional team roping rodeo of all time to this day.”

And there you have it. That 1949 world champion team roper buckle found its perfect permanent home, and this story found its happy ending. Promise kept, and the buckle will be hand-delivered to Salinas next month during Big Week 2024.

—TRJ—

The post A Cowboy’s Dying Wish appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

We all rope so much, and we’ve run so many steers at this point, it’s really no different for me no matter what’s on the line. If I miss, it for sure won’t be the first time I ever mess up, and it won’t be the last. I try not to put too much pressure on myself because this is what I’m supposed to be doing for a living, and I know I’m working at it. 

If it doesn’t work out the way I think it’s supposed to, there will be another way it will work out. Last year helped me a lot with that—I kept thinking there were big rodeos I had to do good at to get to the Finals, and I’d mess up or it wouldn’t work out but, somehow, other stuff kept happening. I won [the NFR Open in] Colorado Springs—stuff like that you wouldn’t want to count on. I did good at Pendleton, and that’s a place you don’t want to have to count on as your make-it-or-break-it spot. 

WATCH: Conquering Competition Nerves

All we can do is do the best we can. After that, it’s out of our hands. I try to remember that. I’ve missed a lot of steers on big stages, and it doesn’t feel any better or any worse than any other times. It won’t ruin my life if I don’t do well. I don’t do anything crazy. 

I listened to a podcast with Chad Masters—I’ve looked up to him for a long time. And he said he doesn’t watch the team in front of him go. He just looks at his steer in the back. I picked that up—I don’t really go any more in-depth than that. I don’t know why that sticks with me. It helps me to focus a little more. I’ll get a little scattered now and then and not pay attention to what I’m doing, so that little hack helps.

READ: Mindset Matters

For a long time, I tried to think about too many things. I tried to think about my swing, riding my horse, doing all this stuff. And I just got to thinking one day, if you go somewhere in a high-pressure situation, you look back and don’t remember what happened. I try to just remind myself to watch the steer and not worry about too much else. I just rely on muscle memory and all the practice I’ve had. I want to watch the steer, and when he lets me heel him, I heel him. I don’t want to make something happen. Some guys can make a shot happen, but I can’t. I try to let it develop and, when I see a throw, just take it.

—TRJ—

The post Inner Strength with Tyler Worley appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Rhen Richard was the reigning National High School Finals Rodeo all-around and tie-down roping champion when he rolled into the Reno Rodeo with Nick Sartain in 2008. 

Their first rodeo together had been just over a month earlier in Guymon, Oklahoma, and Richard’s goal was the Resistol Rookie of the Year title with Sartain, who’d already made the Finals in 2006 with Shannon Frascht. 

 “I felt like I should have been there, I felt like I had a good partner with a good head horse,” Richard said. “We entered because we expected to win.” 

Richard heeled three steers in Reno on a 5-year-old stud named Travs Little Sug (who’s now a Riata Buckle and Royal Crown sire) in 17.6 seconds, worth $10,909 a man—a win that would have him convinced he’d never see a poor day. 

“We killed them the month of July for about three weeks,” Richard remembered. “We won like $30,000 from Reno to the end of the Fourth. I honestly got a little bit of a false sense of confidence—I thought it was easy. I thought I’d make it [to the NFR] every year forever.”

As the rodeo road goes, though, that first Finals qualification took Richard 10 years and a switching of ends to make. 

“I was so young,” Richard said. “I remember thinking I was going to make the NFR that year, and I had always had quite a bit of success growing up. Rodeoing that year was a lot to take in and learn, and I didn’t learn it all that year, or for another 10 years, I guess. The ups and downs, figuring out how to have a short-term memory—not letting failing kill you mentally—that was all tough.” 

But Sartain was one heck of a partner to keep the often all-too-serious Richard having fun on the trail. 

“I really hadn’t been out of Utah, and even to this day, Sartain is one of my better friends,” Richard said. “He’s an actual good person—not just a good time. I’m super grateful he got to be the guy who cracked me out. Nick is the king of the all-night drive, and I learned driving sucks that year. That was probably the hardest thing: learning how not to sleep.”

Sartain and Richard won Livingston over the Fourth of July, and they split the win in Cody, Wyoming, too. He won $49,698 on the year, finishing 23rd in the PRCA World Standings. 

Richard made his first NFR in 2018—qualifying in both the tie-down and team roping that year. He made the Finals again in 2019 in the tie-down, and he qualified for the NFR from 2021 to 2023 in the heading. 

From ‘Big Break’ to the Next Generation

In 2024, Richard is sticking close to home to go to the rope horse futurities with his family’s A&C Racing and Roping—a program that relies, in part, on the same horse Richard got his big break on back in 2008. 

The Richards’ program now stands a number of stallions, including Travs Little Sug, who’s 20 this year. By Travalena out of Little Miss Sug by Peppy San Badger, his stud fee is $3,000, with offspring eligible for the millions in incentive money. Richard rode Travs Little Sug on and off for a few more years, including to win the Greeley Stampede in 2012 with Jake Cooper. 

But for most of the last decade, the horse has pulled double-time in the breeding barn. His colts are just starting to make their way into the earnings charts as the futurities become more prevalent, but his 2014 colt, Docs Smart Young Gun, was Richard’s backup NFR horse in 2022. That horse, out of Smart Clo A Lena by Bar A Smart Chick, is also the head horse A&C Racing and Roping’s Trinity Haggard rode to win ninth at the Riata Buckle #10.5 in 2023, picking up $10,760. 

Thad Ward is showing a 4-year-old stallion in 2024 by Travs Little Sug, having already won a go-round at the Arizona Sun Circuit’s ARHFA Pre-Futurity against the best young horses and trainers in the country for owner McKay Taylor. Another A&C-raised 2020 Travs Little Sug mare, Heavy Sug, out of Heavys Version by Winners Version, won second in another round at the Sun Circuit’s heading pre-futurity, too.

“He seems to cross pretty good on everything,” Richard said. “He was one of those horses that could really take the heat at a young age. His colts mature pretty early, which is important in the futurity world. The horse was made right, had good papers and was a super individual. It made it pretty easy to keep him around.”

Train with the pros. Watch hours of Rhen Richard’s full training sessions—with many of A&C Racing and Roping’s top prospects and Richard’s rodeo horses—on Roping.com.

—TRJ—

The post Rhen Richard’s Rookie-Year Reno Win appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

It wasn’t until the December issue of The Team Roping Journal that Oxford, Florida, header Ashton Hughes or Guymon, Oklahoma, heeler Kale Roark appeared for the first time in the Top 10 standing for the year-end title. Seven months later, they carved their names in the annals of Resistol Jr. history as champions.

2024 Resistol Junior Champion Header: Ashton Hughes – 174 Points

Hughes, who will be 17 this month, first entered the Resistol Jr. Top 10 in the No. 6 position with 33 points in the calendar month of October. His season began in early September with an out-the-gate, second-place win in the Tennessee Special #11.5 for 9 points. The next month, he pulled off an impressive hat trick when he won third in the #11.5, #10.5 and #8.5 for 8 points each at the Southern Alabama Championship, earning him his Top 10 entry.

Hughes’ standings held through November, but in December 2023, he nearly doubled his points to jump him into the No. 2 seat with 64 points. The catapult came from a 15-point gain for third and fourth in the South Georgia Super Qualifier #12.5 for 15 points. Then he took fourth in the #9.5 and second in the #7 for an additional 16 points.

By the time Hughes hit February, it was game on. In fact, he and his cousin, Hayden Hughes, set a goal for either of them to win the year-end championship. Hughes won 27 points at the Muddy River Classic by winning the #12.5 and taking third, plus winning second in the #8.5. When he went to the North Florida Championship, he snagged another win in the #14.5 and took fourth place in the $10.5 and #9.5, giving him 115 points total and the No. 1 spot in the standings. Hayden, at the time, ranked No. 5 with 52 points.

“We told each other we weren’t going to be mad if one of us won it,” Hughes explained. “We were just hoping one of us would win versus anyone else. He youth rodeos, too, and he skipped it just so we could go to these US ropings so we could keep up with each other.”

Hughes, 16, arrived in Fort Worth for the Cinch USTRC NFTR at the top of the standings with 156 points. He sealed the deal on April 21 on his year-long efforts with a reserve championship in the #9.5 Lawleys Shootout. With points at the NFTR worth double, the 32.41 on four with Raphael Sampaio meant an 18-point gain for Oxford, Florida’s Hughes—not to mention a $26,000 paycheck.

Hayden finished the season No. 2 with 124 points. Not only did the boys make sure one of them became the Resistol Jr. Champion Header, but they bolstered each other to the top to claim a shared victory. 

2024 Resistol Junior Champion Heeler: Kale Roark – 117 Points

Roark, 16, entered the race at No. 5 with 42 points. It was a 17-point gain he made at September’s Oklahoma Classic that gave his original points cache—7 points from the May Oklahoma Classic and 18 points at the July Guthrie Championships—the boost into the Top 5. He earned another 9 points at the Panhandle Classic to boost his total points to 51 and the No. 2 spot in the heeling standings. 

Roark seized his championship victory in the USTRC Resistol Jr. race with 117 points won in the 2023-2024 season. Ahead of the NFTR, the 35 points he gained in March gave him the 9-point lead he needed to best long-time leader and former Resistol Jr. Champion Houston Childers.

For their year-long efforts, Hughes and Roark win $1,000 cash bonuses, 40X Arena Resistol Felts, 20X Wildfire USTRC Resistol Straws, Gist trophy buckles and Resistol Jr. Champion bragging rights.

Current USTRC or Key Card/Key Card Max membership is required to participate in the Resistol Junior Champion Program. Earned points begin counting at time of membership purchase thru the NFTR’s last shootout event. The season begins the Monday after the last USTRC NFTR event and ends the last day of the next USTRC NFTR event.

Ropers must enter at least one Shootout division in the USTRC NFTR to be eligible. The award will be announced at the end of the USTRC National Finals of Team Roping event.

—TRJ—

The post Late-Season Successes Lead to Resistol Jr. Year-End Titles for Ashton Hughes and Kale Roark appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

When the curtains closed on the 2024 Cinch USTRC National Finals of Team Roping in Fort Worth on April 28, Caroline Taylor and Kyra Hendren were each named the Cinch Ladies Year-End Award winners, and deservingly so.

2024 Cinch Ladies Champion Header: Caroline Taylor — 131 points

In July 2023, Taylor, from Canutillo, Texas, broke out onto the Cinch Ladies standings with a first-place tie at 26 points. In August, she firmly took the lead when she earned 19 points at the Albuquerque Classic, giving her a total of 45 points and a 9-point lead over the No. 2 header. Chipping away at the race through the Southwest, Taylor, 24, then grew her cache to 62 points in September at the Turquoise Classic and increased her lead by two to an 11-point spread. 

Taylor went quiet for the next two months when the bulk of the action happened for the No. 3 through No. 5 headers. Her lead held through late December, though, when she roped at Walt Eddy’s Lasso Del Sol for 22 points. Suddenly, she held a 33-point lead over the No. 2 roper, a gap that proved too wide for her fellow Cinch Ladies contenders.

When Taylor rode into the John Justin Arena to compete at the Cinch USTRC NFTR (the contest rules state that contenders must compete at the Finals to be eligible for the year-end award), she did so with a whopping 131 points. Even as the next contestants made great efforts to climb the standings charts, the year closed with Taylor boasting a 71-point lead over the No. 2 header. 

2024 Cinch Ladies Champion Heeler: Kyra Hendren — 32 points

Similar to Taylor, Albuquerque, New Mexico’s Hendren cracked out in the Cinch Ladies race at August’s Albuquerque Classic when she won second place in the #7 for 9 points, putting her in the fourth-place position in the standings. 

In October, though, the 18-year-old heeler continued her upward trajectory when she earned another 8 points when she won third in the #6. That gave Hendren a total of 17 points, which put her in the No. 2 spot, just 7 points behind the top spot. She didn’t remain there long.

By November, Hendren claimed the No. 1 position on the Cinch Ladies standings for herself when she again won second place for 9 points in the Mesilla Valley Classic’s #7 roping. The efforts gave her 26 total points and just a 2-point lead. It was a valuable battle won, but the next month would prove the war wasn’t over.

In January, Hendren lost the No. 1 position by when Nicole Jauregui, of Seminole, Texas, bested her by 4 points after a heck of a showing at the Mathew’s Land & Cattle Andrews Texas roping. In March, though, Hendren proved victorious when she finished fifth in the #8 roping at the New Mexico Championships, worth 6 points. 

Hendren finished the year with a total of 32 points and a 28-point lead over No. 2 roper Whitney DeSalvo, the only other Cinch Ladies heeler to enter the Cinch USTRC NFTR in 2024. 

As 2024 USTRC Cinch Ladies Champions, Taylor and Hendren were awarded $1,000 cash bonuses and a year’s worth of Cinch apparel, courtesy of the sponsor.

Current USTRC or Key Card/Key Card Max membership is required to participate in the Cinch Ladies Program. Earned points begin counting at the time of membership purchase through the NFTR’s last shootout event. The season begins the Monday after the last USTRC NFTR event and ends the last day of the next USTRC NFTR event.

Ropers must enter at least one Shootout division in the USTRC NFTR to be eligible. The award will be announced at the end of the USTRC National Finals of Team Roping event.

—TRJ—

The post Standings Domination Leads to Year-End Titles for Caroline Taylor and Kyra Hendren appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.

Dear Roper,

Welcome to the Cinch USTRC National Finals of Team Roping special issue of The Team Roping Journal. The ‘US Finals,’ as we all call them in this business, are monumental in scope, and perhaps more industry-defining than anything else in the history of Western sports. 

I’ve done a few* interviews over the years with Denny Gentry, who posits that the first US Finals in 1990 was the event that broke down interstate barriers in recreational team roping, cracking this industry wide open to the fun and economic impact it has today. That first roping paid $600,000, with an Open, a #12, #10, #8, #6 and Century.

He’s not wrong—not even a little. This year’s Cinch USTRC NFTR was a far cry from that original little jackpot in Oklahoma. The 2024 edition of the US Finals featured 18 different divisions with 5,500 teams, plus three breakaway ropings. It paid out $3.3 million, plus another $250,000 in prizes. The Will Rogers Memorial Center housed 1,500 horses throughout the week, as well as the 1,100 head of cattle that made the roping go round. 

The current roping royalty grew up at the US ropings—with names like Tyler Wade and Wesley Thorp dominating from the Junior Loopers all the way through the handicap system, eventually adding world champs to their USTRC titles, too. 

We know, though, that the US Finals is about the stories of the families who get to rope together, the businessmen and businesswomen who take a week off to enjoy Cowtown, the kids roping the dummy 12-plus hours a day outside the entry office and that new roper getting his or her first big check in the John Justin in front of a crowd. 

Starting on page 60, we cover the eight days of Cinch USTRC NFTR competition in detail, and you can still watch the whole roping on our video platform over at Roping.com, too.

There’s plenty more packed into this book, so I hope you spend some time flipping through it in the passenger seat on your way to the next one this month. 

Chelsea 

The post The US Finals: An Inside Look at the June 2024 Issue appeared first on The Team Roping Journal.