Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2021 i The Team Roping Journal

Dear Roper, We sent this issue to press as 2020 came to a close, mired by the losses we’ve all faced this year. With legends like Leo Camarillo and Robbie Schroeder passing just hours apart, both from complications related to COVID-19, I’ve got to tell you this issue was compiled with heavy hearts. Kendra Santos sat on the phone with the Camarillo family as Leo passed, while I sat down with Junior Nogueira on learning of Robbie’s death to write his final thoughts on his beloved mentor. These are tasks Kendra and I tackle with the utmost care and reflect the relationships we’ve built that we will never take for granted. These somber moments reaffirm to us why we do what we do—because of our deep love for the people…

Georgia’s Kaleb Driggers, an eight-time Wrangler NFR header, and Tennessee’s Lane Mitchell kicked off the new year by winning the average at the Texas Circuit Finals in Waco, Texas, which ran from Dec. 31, 2020, through Jan. 2, 2021. Though Driggers and Mitchell have entered a minimal number of jackpots together, their partnership was Driggers’ ticket to securing his first-ever circuit finals average win with a time of 24.0 seconds on three head, worth $2,126 a man. “Jake Cooper and Lane were roping together, and we buddied at the end of year,” Driggers said. “We both needed a partner, so we teamed up. We’ve jackpotted a little bit together, but that’s about the extent of it. I’ve won a couple rounds before, but I’ve never won the average before.” Driggers…

at home with | Jake Barnes | Clay O | icons | other gig | craftsman | go-to girl Q: What was life like growing up in Round Rock, Arizona? A: We always looked forward to summer. My grandpa was a brand inspector who worked for the grazing committee in his community. So we went and branded with him all the time in the summertime. On the weekends, I got to go jackpotting with the cousins and uncles right around there at little $10-a-man jackpots. Round Rock is centrally located in the heart of the Navajo Reservation, and is very rural desert country out in the middle of nowhere. Q: How old were you when you realized you wanted to rope for a living? A: When I was 10 or…

1. SARAH TOOLE Rydal, Georgia’s 16-year-old Toole, a 5/4 switch ender, earned her No. 1 ranking in the standings back in August with $5,905 in winnings on both ends at the USTRC Alabama Championships, produced by Allen’s Roping Productions in Montgomery, Alabama. While her nearly $3,000 lead over the competition has dwindeled, she still maintains a significant jump on the rest of the leaderboard by almost $2,000. 2. JAMIE TOWNSEND Townsend, from Aztec, New Mexico, introduced herself to the standings with a $3,750-win in the #10.5 at the USTRC Texas Special in Decatur, produced by X-Treme Team Roping on Sunday, Dec. 6. The 4 header partnered with Brad Foster to rope four in 40.43 seconds for a team total of $7,500. Townsend, 35, also earned $250 from the eighth hole…

Bartender Recently crowned World Champion header Colby Lovell will tell you people notice his head horse because of the pretty color. But the bay roan could be plain sorrel because it’s his scoring, speed and heart that catch your eye. A handful of Oklahoma heelers cultivated “Bartender.” Unregistered, he was nicknamed for his Two ID Bartender breeding. The roan stallion from the Pitzer Ranch was sired by Hallof-Famer Two Eyed Jack out of a mare that went back to Bartender three times. Bartender, by a grandson of Midnight, sired some big-time athletes, including Wanda Bush’s famous Dee Gee. Two ID Bartender was a perfect 15.2 hands and won the AQHA’s 1983 Junior Heading and Heeling World Championships. About a decade ago, Matt Strickler was heeling on the roan colt, then…

Dr. Steven Allday hadn’t picked up a rope in 30 years when Tyler Magnus asked him to step on one of his best head horses a few years ago in Lampasas, Texas. No, Dr. Allday, originally from Huntsville, Texas, had been busy building a career as a leading expert on joint care in racehorses, working on three Triple Crown Race winners and 29 Breeder’s Cup race winners. He went to school at Texas A&M, then interned for Dr. Edwin Churchill, who helped foster his passion for joint care. He began his practice far from Texas on the racetracks of New York, working on Standardbreds and Thoroughbreds, before moving to Southern California to work for the legendary Allen Paulson Racing. “There’s a secret to making money: Buy the best horse you…

5 FLAT with Wesley Thorp SURE SHOT Wesley Thorp rides to position to ensure his signature smooth finish. We took these photos two days before the 2020 Bob Feist Invitational, and this is my young horse I rode at the American Rope Horse Futurity Association’s World Finals (and won the heeling title aboard). At the BFI—with its long start, strong cattle and wide open arena—almost anything can happen, so my focus was on preparing myself to heel in any situation and preparing my horses to react accordingly. 1 There’s no heel barrier at the BFI, but I don’t want to haze the steer left because that arena is so big and open, and it puts the header at a bad angle to the steer if he goes left. I wanted…

“I won it at Robertson Hill. It’s a medium-shank chained port. I like the feel of a chained port. I’ve always stuck to more of a chain because it’s just the feel I like. I don’t really like a solid bit. I like the port that gives you a little more feel.” —Levi Lord, 2020 NFR Qualifier “I came off that port straight and then I put a link on the side so there is one big link and another piece that I connected to the ball. That bit actually stops, so it has more feel. It’s not real free. It actually stops. You can kind of get a hold of them if you need to. It’s a little more severe than a regular mouthpiece because it’s thinner on the…

After finishing 17th in the world in 2019, Paden Bray bounced back and behind Erich Rogers qualified for his first Wrangler National Finals Rodeo in 2020. After they won Round 1, Bray’s #1 heel horse—the 12-year-old sorrel he calls Slider—was sidelined for three rounds by an abscess. After Bray rode his 7-year-old sorrel horse, Hot Rod, in Round 2, and his 17-year-old dun, Hugh Hefner, in Rounds 3 and 4, Slider bounced back in time for Round 5 and finished the rodeo. Rogers and Bray were the only team to rope all 10 steers. They won the average in 80.2 seconds, and after placing in four more rounds banked $122,962 a man. “We’ve had Slider since he was a weanling,” said Bray, 22. “We got him from the Montgomery Ranch…

Leo Camarillo was a roping revolutionary. He changed the team roping game and rodeo business forever, and his legendary roar will be revered in rodeo lore for the rest of time. There has been no more driven trailblazer or fierce competitor than The Lion—ever. He out-studied, out-worked and out-smarted everyone, and did not dignify excuses. When it came to breaking the cowboy game all the way down to find a better way, Leo was relentless and refused to take no for an answer. Having known and loved The Lion all my life—Leo used the term “familia” to describe friendships with lucky families like mine—I’m comfortable in saying that Leo had a love-hate relationship with humanity. He was brutally honest and told it like it was. If the truth hurt, that…

I can’t talk about the head horse/heel horse market without talking about just general horse sales because I have to buy horses from other disciplines, which are exploding. Ultimately, it has to be passed through to the other markets—the rope horse market and everything like that. Prospects are costing more money, so for people to be paid anything for their time, it has to be passed through. They’re not buying prospects for as cheap as they were the last three to five years. Prices have been escalating, but I don’t feel like it’s been passed through to the team roping, heading and heeling market as fast as it’s been passed through to the people who are buying them out of the reining or cutting horse sales. It’s going to have…

CONDITION I underwent surgery for avascular necrosis, a condition that caused the deterioration of both of my hip joints. I had the first one done in November of 2018, and six months later I needed the next one done. AFTER SURGERY My physical therapy was just walking as much as I could. The first couple weeks, even in the middle of the night I’d get up and walk around the house a couple times. I’d sit in the recliner and every couple hours I’d walk around. Then I started doing exercises on my own. It didn’t take very long to get back to being normal. BACK IN THE SADDLE I was riding a horse three weeks after both surgeries. The first week or so, I made sure and rode a…

Any header who’s chased a Corriente on a hard trajectory to the right fence knows that it’s akin to driving a golf ball out of a sand trap or casting a fishing line through pure moss. It’s maddening. It shouldn’t happen. It fries patience and sucks the joy out of “sticking.” Trying to snap on a head loop while the steer’s right horn is dragging along a fence rail will kill a buzz every time. By the same token, any heeler who’s tried to haze only to become too high in the corner or too tight to catch two feet knows it’s akin to being forced to throw the football on fourth and one, or roping with one hand behind your back. It’s an anxiety-provoking confidence-killer. It sucks the joy…

“I think that you’ve got to put your time in and pay your dues. I hope that all of them can do that, and I hope all of them can do it in the right way and be patient about the process. Be patient with your horses and just learn. Go to someone that is successful and learn from them and then be able to take that and pass it on to the next generation. I think that’s so important.” —Jackie Crawford, First-Ever National Finals of Breakaway Roping World Champion on The Team Roping Journal’s Season 3 of “The Score”—a podcast by The Team Roping Journal, available to stream or download wherever you listen to podcasts.…