Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2022 i The Team Roping Journal

Dear Roper, I’m writing this letter at 5 a.m., Monday morning, Dec. 13, just 24 hours after getting home from Las Vegas. This year, we watched the Ariat World Series of Team Roping Finale XV pay out $13.8 million at the South Point, and we watched all become right in the world at the Thomas & Mack when the long-overdue Kaleb Driggers and Junior Nogueira got their team roping world titles. For those of us in the team roping business, this trip to Vegas unfolded like it should have—the best teams won, lots of tears were cried and we all got to be together again at our home away from home. This year at The Team Roping Journal, we were able to partner with The Cowboy Channel to try something…

Dustin Bird was minutes from losing his bay dream ride Dolly this fall to an infection that about swelled her throat shut. Bird had no way of knowing about the perfect storm brewing in the back of his prized mare’s throat that caused the crisis that came to a scary head on a Sunday up in his Montana home country. An emergency tracheotomy performed by Dr. Caleb Lund of Lund Equine in Billings saved Dolly’s life. “Dolly was at the Williams Ranch all summer in Hammond (Montana), where she was getting bred and hanging out,” Bird said of My Frosty Cocoa, who’s known far and wide in the roping and rodeo world as Dolly. “They said she was kind of losing weight and showing her age. When she showed up…

As a reader of The Breakaway Roping Journal and The Team Roping Journal, you are no doubt familiar with the name and works of Julie Mankin—longtime contributing editor to our roping and cowboy brands. But as the writer of others’ stories, hers is often left untold. Mankin grew up in the company of her two sisters on a ranch in Gillette, Wyoming, and the girls grew up to be powerhouse high school and college rodeo contestants throughout the 90s. “My older sister, Mandy, was the 1991 national high school breakaway champion and I was the 1994 runner-up national barrel racing champion,” said Mankin, who’d been horseback since she was 3. The Mankins then saw success in the arena rodeoing for the University of Wyoming and taking the team to the…

“That shows the world how blessed and fortunate I am to be able to do what I do. Getting inducted into the Cowgirl Hall of Fame was the biggest honor I’ve received in my life. Now we win the team roping and have a great week at the [Women’s Rodeo World Championships], I’m just very, very blessed.” —Lari Dee Guy, Eight-time WPRA World Champion on season four of “The Score,” available to stream or download wherever you listen to podcasts.…

This year’s Ariat World Series of Team Roping Finale added three more qualifying divisions for ropers to nab 2022 Finale spots and bank more money than ever. The Ariat World Series of Team Roping Finale added two Heartland ropings and a #14.5 Bloomer Roping to its 2021 South Point schedule, giving ropers more chances to rope for big money and secure their qualifying spots in Las Vegas for 2022. The #14.5 Bloomer Roping was the first of its kind—designed to pair a higher-fees event with the high caliber of the Bloomer brand—and it paid out some $123,000, including a first-place check of $28,000 to Montana’s Miles Kobold and Texas’ John Folmer for their time of 28.54 seconds on four head. “We kicked the Bloomer Roping series off in Las Vegas…

Q: Tell us about your journey to Tolar. A: I’m originally from Fort Pierce, Florida, east of Okeechobee. My family moved to Stephenville in 1998, and my parents bought a Western store there when I was in sixth grade. Jordon and I moved to Chilton, Texas, when we got married in 2010, then to Tolar in 2021. Q: Have you roped all your life? A: I got my start with horses from my grandma. She trained hunter jumpers and dressage horses, so horsemanship has always been a part of my life. My mom got into cutting horses, so I rode a few of those. I started roping in fifth grade, so I roped about a year in Florida before we moved to Texas. Q: Ever work any other events in…

On a rainy day in October this past fall, World Champion header Clay Smith traveled to Ericson, Nebraska’s Pitzer Ranch to run a Win-A-Day Clinic, brought to you by ADM Animal Nutrition and The Team Roping Journal. The winner, 22-year-old Danielle Wray, invited a handful of friends to join, while a few dads committed their day to covering the heel side of the practice runs. Pitzer’s Jim Brinkman provided not only a dry indoor for a successful event, but numerous mounts for Smith, as well. 1 IDENTIFY YOUR TARGET A header’s swing needs to be turned over on the outside of the right horn, so I want to exaggerate my swing on the outside to get more coverage until it becomes easier to come all the way across and cover…

Charly Crawford’s American Military Celebration raised more than $115,000—enough money to build four mortgage-free homes for veterans—through the non-profit Building Homes For Heroes between Oct. 26 and Oct. 31, 2021, more than doubling what was raised in the inaugural event the year prior. “I never in a million years would have thought I’d be able to build four homes in one event for disabled veterans,” said Crawford, who roped at 10 National Finals Rodeos. “It’s an event that’s beyond me and beyond a roping. Just the amount of calls I’ve had with these guys telling me this is the greatest day of their life, how this is keeping them alive, how this is what they live for. Having an event that can take their minds off the things they’re battling…

You’re going to want to get a piece of string—sometimes they will have them pre-cut at the rodeo and sometimes you’ll have to cut your own. I tie knots at the very ends of my string first. It’s not completely necessary, but it gives me something to grip the string with when I’m trying to pull it tight. There are a couple of different ways that you can put it on your rope. I tie the string onto the end of my rope with a square knot. I like the knot of my rope on the left side of my saddle horn. I usually get ahold of those knots and pull as tight as possible. I like to wrap twice around my horn and come to the front with it…

“Everyone still remembers the Sawyer Gilbert on the paint horse that had her boots tucked in her pants, probably in a misshaped black hat that when it was 110 degrees out,” Sawyer Gilbert said. “That was me. She’s still in there, we just put a professional spin on it now.” Gilbert,19, showed the world that the little cowgirl from Buffalo, South Dakota, is in fact gold-buckle quality. She showed up and made a bold statement at the 2021 National Finals of Breakaway Roping as she was crowned the World Champion Breakaway Roper and the average champion. “It was my dream before it was even possible for breakaway ropers,” Gilbert said, “to win the average and the world title. Obviously, coming into this, I wanted to win the world, for sure,…