Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2017 i The Team Roping Journal

In this space, I often discuss why folks have a passion for the sports of team roping and rodeo. It’s a popular sport and I find it interesting to explore the many reasons it is. Less numerous, though, are the opportunities to witness championship-caliber performances at this time of year as finals for the various associations and tours are happening. The abilities of those who wind up in the winner’s circles never cease to amaze me. Whether it’s the Elite Rodeo Athletes (p. 44) or the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo (p. 54), watching professionals triumph on the biggest stages is a rare treat. I think about the sacrifice these cowboys have made to be where they are. While they wouldn’t choose any other lifestyle, making a living with a rope…

They call Stephenville, Texas, the Cowboy Capital of the World. But Arizona is the mecca of team roping, because the masses of ropers migrate there each winter for all the ropings and beautiful weather. If you rope for a living, South is the way to go—typically Texas or Arizona—because you don’t have to deal with the elements and winter weather. You can practice year-round and there are lots of jackpots to go to in both of those places, so whether you rope for a living or as your hobby, those places allow you to rope as much as you want. In colder climates, you have to deal with the snow and the cold, and that’s a big disadvantage. I was raised in Southern California, where the weather was good and…

obody saw this one coming. Not even Levi Simpson and Jeremy Buhler. The first all-Canadian team ever to rope at the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo presented by Polaris RANGER deserved to be there, just like every other team that qualified. But they didn’t just strike world championship gold in Vegas. They made that historic opportunity rain records at this year’s December 1-10 NFR. Simpson, 28, and Buhler, who turned 29 during Round 8 on December 8, both got their Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association cards in 2011; the year Simpson won his first of two Canadian Professional Rodeo Association team roping titles (the other came in 2014). This was both cowboys’ NFR debut, but it was tough to tell. Simpson, who entered this year’s NFR ranked 14th and 12th in the…

#15 BRENTEN HALL JAKE COOPER CLAY The World Series of Team Roping Finale XI kicked off at the South Point Hotel and Casino with the #15, and two Oklahoma 17-year-olds went home with top honors. Taking advantage of the removal of the age restriction (previously no one under 21 could enter), Brenten Hall and Jake Cooper Clay split $150,000 after roping four steers in 26.57 seconds. “This is by far my biggest win,” Hall of Jay, Okla, said. “I don’t know how it gets much better.” The duo qualified from a roping in Hamilton, Texas, and came to Las Vegas looking for consistency—not necessarily a big payday. “We told each other we just wanted to catch four clean steers and just take whatever that paid,” Clay, the heeling half of…

Lots of young kids in Seba Delkai, Ariz., grow up watching the Professional Bull Riders World Finals, and iconic Navajo header Derrick Begay was no different. Pretty quickly, Begay realized that bull riding wasn’t in his future. It turns out that he learned to be handy with a rope, though, and his ability to read livestock—honed in the deserts of the Navajo Nation chasing wild cattle—prepared him for a dream job in the arena with the bulls and bull riders of the PBR. “The older I got, I knew I wasn’t tough enough, and I was too scared to ride bulls,” Begay said. “I had a real love for the sport, though, so the next best thing would be to be the guy on the horse roping the bulls. It’s…

Dustin Bird has traditionally spent more time at Canadian Pro Rodeo Association rodeos than most U.S.-based ropers, preferring the milder climate and the closer proximity to his native Cut Bank, Mont. This year, he brought along California’s Russell Cardoza and the two set the CPRA on fire. This is Bird’s second Canadian title and Cardoza’s first, each earning $27,545 on the year. “I grew up close to the Canadian border, and I love rodeoing up here,” Bird said. “We came into the finals here with a shot to win it if we roped aggressive, and Russell did a great job to make it happen.” Bird rode Yahtzee, his 12-year-old grey gelding, while Cardoza counted on Tara, his 12-year-old bay mare.…

Here we are starting another year in the roping and rodeo world. This is our 21st year with Spin To Win, and you’d think we’d have run out of things to talk about by now. But when it comes to team roping, the conversation never ends. The number system revolutionized roping, and offered so much opportunity for every level of roper. The progress that we’ve seen in our event is amazing, both in terms of talent and financial opportunity. We never thought years ago that man would walk on the moon. Now, not only can professional team ropers make a living, but hobby ropers have the opportunity to win big money, too. It’s incredible the leaps and bounds that team roping has made since this magazine started out as a…

Erich Rogers was having a phenomenal first half of the Wrangler NFR in 2015. He was riding Dustin Bird’s great head horse Dolly and spinning for Cory Petska. The pair had placed in five of the first six rounds to bank $45,269 each. But after the first two or three rounds, Dolly wasn’t acting like Dolly. “She usually stands in there like a soldier, and she started squatting in the box and leaving the corner kind of high,” said Josh Harvey, DVM, of Outlaw Equine in Decatur, Texas. Bird’s veterinarian was in Vegas to keep an eye on some of the sport’s greatest horses for his clients. “She was off in the right hind, and we patched her up for a couple of rounds and evaluated her morning and evening,”…

Now ubiquitous at any rodeo or team roping in the West, living quarters horse trailers are actually a phenomenon that have developed in just the past quarter century. Before the 1990s, the closest thing most folks had to a living quarters horse trailer was a mattress tossed into the nose of a gooseneck or a camper in the bed of a truck with a bumper pull trailer. One notable exception, however, was a rodeo and Western legendary figure named Buff Douthitt. Douthitt was an early rodeo cowboy—competing in the 1940s—who had high-wire and rope trick act. He became the face of Lee Rider jeans and was even featured on Wheaties cereal boxes. In the 1970s, he built a horse-house combination trailer that caught the attention of a government housing contractor.…

Jackie Crawford won three more world titles at the 2016 Women’s Professional Rodeo Association World Finals in Waco, Texas, this time in the heading, breakaway roping and all-around races. Crawford, who is set to become a mother this spring, won the all-around with $14,190, the breakaway roping with $24,996 and the heading with $11,934. Alabama’s WPRA Rookie Jessica Remsburg won the heeling world title with $16,088, and Wyoming’s Donene Taylor won the tie-down roping with $5,804 earned.…

2016 will go down in the history books as the year rodeo was flipped upside down. But, the more rodeo changed, the more apparent it remained that Clay Tryan and Jade Corkill are as dominant as ever. Tryan and Corkill, who were not eligible to compete at Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association rodeos because of their ownership shares in the Elite Rodeo Athletes, didn’t take it easy despite their abbreviated rodeo schedule. They spent more time in the practice pen than ever before, and that resulted in wins nearly everywhere they entered—including RodeoHouston, the HorkDog, the Chris Cox Lifeline Challenge, the Pikes Peak or Bust Cinch Shootout and the USTRC National Finals of Team Roping Open Preliminary, plus winning second at the George Strait Team Roping Championship and the USTRC National…

ALL-AROUND JUNIOR NOGUEIRA Junior Nogueira became the first-ever Brazilian Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association World Champion when he won $231,728 taking top honors in the all-around. The heeler entered the race as the regular season wound down, winning $3,500 in the tie-down roping. Given his $120,237 regular season heeling earnings, he shot to the lead heading into the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo. Nine other cowboys competing in Las Vegas were eligible for the all-around, and six of them earned between $104,000 and $130,000—steer wrestler Clayton Hass earning the most with $130,788. Nogueira made $107,942 team roping at the Finals, and it was enough to hold of Hass by $3,620. “I'm very happy, and not just for myself, but for my family, friends and everyone in Brazil," Nogueira said. "I hope this…