Innholdsfortegnelse for October 1, 2015 i The Team Roping Journal

Every roper, every team, every horse, every run has a story. It’s our job to tell them, and after 13 years of doing so in my case (longer for Jake Barnes, Clay O’Brien Cooper and Kendra Santos), you find familiar themes. I love horse stories, and in this issue Chelsea Toy visited with Tyler Wade about his quirky steed, Afterparty (p. 54). Stories of overcoming adversity are so powerful, and Santos weaves a wonderful tale of Rich Skelton’s recovery after a frightening traffic accident (p. 66). My favorite stories, though, come out of the arena. Behind the scenes, rodeo isn’t always pretty, but between the fences, it’s always straight up. When Chad Masters and Travis Graves won the Caldwell (Idaho) Night Rodeo, Toy unearthed details of the duo’s summer that…

Cowgirl Tuff Company and B. Tuff Jeans are back and bigger than ever for the 2015 National Finals Rodeo. Join them at Vanity within Hard Rock Hotel & Casino—Las Vegas. There will be free shuttle rides each day from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. offering pick-ups and drop-offs. This 14,000-square-foot, one-of-a-kind venue has endless shopping, including great specials and gifts with purchases. Take a break from shopping to enjoy a free clinic with Tuff Team endorsees, followed by autograph signings. Wrap up the day enjoying a cool beverage and watch the free NFR Live Feed, taking place all 10 nights of the rodeo. Visit cowgirltuffco.com/nfr to sign up for e-mail alerts and like their page on facebook.com/TuffFest to stay up-to-date on Tuff Fest. Heel-O-Matic Tees Available in: Heather gray, blue…

Oh, the difference a year can make. At the 2014 Lea County Fair and PRCA Rodeo in Loving-ton, New Mexico, Chad Masters and Clay O’Brien Cooper won the first round, and then, just as Cooper threw his loop in the second round, the steer threw itself down, and Cooper came up empty handed. At that same rodeo in 2015, Masters and new partner Travis Graves roped their first steer in 5.4 seconds to place third in the first round, and then, just as Graves threw in the second round, the steer threw itself down, and Graves somehow came up with two feet. That’s just how this year has gone for the two of them, with both sitting in the top five in the world standings at press time. “What was…

Rich Skelton’s always counted his blessings. But never quite like this. Ever since the winningest heeler of all time—Skelton won eight straight gold buckles roping with Speed Williams from 1997 to 2004—woke up from an induced coma in May, the sky is a little bluer, the grass a little greener and the problems that come up in day-to-day life a little smaller. After teaching a roping school on May 15, Rich was cruising along the side of Highway 16 North near the Llano Municipal Airport on the outskirts of his hometown in Llano, Texas. A truck pulling a trailer rear-ended a car, which in turn hit the tractor Rich was driving. As the tractor was knocked to its side, Rich shot like a cannonball headfirst through the canopy on top…

BJ Campbell cracked back out on the heeling side in 2015 after five years getting the horns, so the Arizona cowboy decided to bust out one of his old heeling buckles for the occasion. Flashback to 2001, when Campbell was heeling for Richard Eugerin. Eugerin rode the prolific Calhoon, who he’d sell the next year to a young ex-heeler named Trevor Brazile. Campbell had a team of tough mounts, Beatle and Charlie. They’d start off the regular season with a win at Denver’s National Western Stock Show and Rodeo, and they wouldn’t look back. “We had a great regular season” Campbell said. “We started off winning Denver, and we won a lot of seconds and thirds and we won Pendleton. I don’t remember what else, but it was steady” They…

All in 24 hours of barrel racing in late July, reserve world champion barrel racer Lisa Lockhart won Cheyenne Frontier Days as her daughter, Alyssa, won the National Little Britches Finals Rodeo. The NLBRA held its world championships July 20-25 in Pueblo, Colo., and paid out $300,000 in prizes and had $15,500 added to optional jackpots. FOLLOWING ARE THE 2015 CHAMPS: Junior Boys Breakaway: Braydin Evans, Stockton, Utah, 7.40 seconds on three head Junior Boys Bull Riding: McClain Miller, Panguitch, Utah, 121 points on two head Junior Boys Flag Racing: Barrett Schlieker, Fort Lupton, Colo., 24.208 seconds on three runs Junior Boys Goat Tying: Cory Constance, Sulphur, La., 30.1 seconds on three head Junior Girls Barrel Racing: Grace Hill, Peyton, Colo., 47.060 seconds on three runs Junior Girls Breakaway: Kinlie…

THE DEMAND More popularity means more money from sponsors, which means a bigger industry. General growth can benefit the entire industry, helping the sport become more of a major independent sport. In team roping, it’s hard to keep the attention of a kid or inexperienced adult if they don’t understand what’s going on. They aren’t going to appreciate the sport unless they fully understand it. The challenge is educating newcomers enough so they can get interested in it. “I’M FULL” My dad always told me, “You never know what the other person is going through” If there were a normal 28-year-old man who walked up to me and asked me if I wanted to rope, if I can afford it, I’m going to say yes to him. If I were…

A heeler’s job is to get the right kind of start and work as a teammate to assist the header, if he needs it, going down the arena. Whether you’re holding the steer, he wants you to push him left, wants him to go straight or even moved to the right, it all depends on what a header’s riding, his style and what he likes. That’s one of the first places of influence that a heeler has on the team. Then, as the header turns the steer and sets him up, the heeler needs to have a strategy on how he’s going to set his shot up position-wise. That depends, again, on your style, whether you’re comfortable being in a close position to the steer and you rope more on…

Ben Johnson had already made his mark in Mark Ford’s great cavalry films by 1953. He’d played Trooper Travis Tyree in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and Rio Grande (1950), and he was at the end of a seven-year, $5,000 per week contract with the famed director when he took a break to prove to himself that he was more than just a dimestore cowboy. Born in Foraker, Okla., Johnson cut his teeth as a ranch hand and was discovered when he hauled some horses to Hollywood and was hired as a wrangler by a motion picture outfit. He’d already proven his cowboy cred to Hollywood when he struck out on the Rodeo Cowboys Association trail in 1953 to prove it to the rodeo world, too. In those days,…

One of the biggest downfalls I see in lower-numbered ropers is that they tend to run their horses in behind cattle. The way the ropings are set up with short scores these days, the cattle want to go to the right. Then when the steer comes out and goes straight, the head horse wants to run in too tight. If a steer cuts in front of the horse, it can be a disaster, with the horse running into the steer and clipping him with his feet as the steer cuts in front of him. That’s obviously really dangerous. That steer can feel the pressure of the heeler on his right. A steer gains an advantage when he goes over to the right. The header and heeler need to work together,…

Tyler Wade’s Afterparty might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but the horse has been a shot of Fireball for the header who won a cool $20,000 at last year’s RFD-TV’s The American Semifinals and has amassed nearly $40,000 in earnings in 2015 and more than $20,000 in Texas Circuit earnings so far this year. “If you don’t watch yourself when you saddle him, he will bite you, hard,” Wade’s partner, Kinney Harrell, said. “Every time you saddle him, he’s looking for someone to bite.” It’s a painful parlor trick that Wade’s used as a weapon from time to time. “Someone was BSing with me, and we were going on and on and back and forth and Kinney was standing there while I saddled him,” Wade explained. “I told Kinney…

Junior Nogueira is living his dream. The roping world is unfolding before him. After coming to the United States from Brazil, in just one year, he’s won Rookie of the Year, made the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo—where he finished second in the average—and now he’s in the top five in the world standings headed to his second NFR berth. If Nogueira is just teeing off his professional roping career, his partner, Jake Barnes, is somewhere on the back nine. Barnes has won everything there is to win in the sport—almost literally. “I HAD A LOT OF EXPERIENCE WITH MUD IN BRAZIL. I ROPE LIKE 10 ROPINGS AND USUALLY FOUR IS RAINING.SO I KNOW EXPERIENCE ABOUT THE FEEL OF ROPING IN THE MUDDY.”—JUNIOR NOGUEIRA When the duo teamed up to rope…