Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2017 i The Team Roping Journal

Dear Roper, Welcome to summer. While I know there are some parts of the nation where roping happens year-round, for a great deal of the country the days are getting longer, the weather it milder and the are horses finally slicked off. What’s more, school’s out and the kids’ junior rodeo schedules are full up. It’s a wonderful time of year. The content lineup in this issue might be just what you need to help this season go well. Perhaps most inspiring is Mary Ann Brown’s interview for our Young Guns section. This woman is living out her goals of rodeoing professionally. She’s realistic, but she’s all-in. I think that’s a good way to approach competitive goals and I admire her bravery and level-headedness in pursuit of her dreams. We…

Florida’s Dustin Egusquiza is another in a string of top young talent that includes Erich Rogers and Colby Lovell to set the team roping world on fire with veteran Kory Koontz. They picked up another Pro-Rodeo win at the Clark County Fair and Rodeo in Logandale, Nev., to prove it. Their time of 16.1 seconds on three head netted them $5,893, including the money they won for placing in the second and short rounds. At press time, Egusquiza and Koontz sat in the top five in the PRCA world standings with $46,367 and $42,541 won, respectively. “We were high call,” Koontz said. “We just had to catch. We knew we had a slower steer that was supposed to be real honest and maybe get a little bit heavy. We had…

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CHANGING THE CORNER Last fall, I made up my mind that I needed to focus on a few things to really improve my roping if I wanted to win more. It’s not that I couldn’t rope fast. It’s more that I wasn’t setting myself up to rope fast. I’ve watched my videos, and every time I set myself up well I could make that shot. I’ve watched Jake Long and Jade Corkill rope a lot. They take fast, consistent shots every time, and it’s because they’re never in a bad spot. They don’t have to pull off bad shots—they can just rope. That’s why they’re the best. I needed a faster, more aggressive corner to set me up for a more consistent, quicker shot. That meant I needed to ride…

I grew up watching guys like Leo and Jerold Camarillo, Walt Woodard and Denny Watkins. There were a lot of great ropers traveling and making a living when I was a little kid, and I just got totally hooked on team roping. When I was 10-11-12 years old, I would watch those guys and have my mom film them with the old Super 8 camera. I would watch those films over and over again. Through the years, when I got to rodeoing and started making a living at basically 16, I left home and went out on the road amateur rodeoing and jackpotting. I started seeing all kinds of different regional guys who were great ropers that just traveled in their own region. I always have really watched and tried…

The Ram National Circuit Finals Rodeo celebrated its 30th anniversary in April (see page 50), but it was actually 42 years ago that the wheels were set in motion for this enduring event. In 1975, the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association created a format that divided the United States into 12 circuits with the idea of recognizing cowboys who only traveled within a distinct geographical region. For the first 12 years, champions from each circuit in each event were named (team roping, however, didn’t join the ranks until 1976). The rank-and-file of PRCA membership is not made up of strictly full-time rodeo contestants. Rather, most members compete locally and seasonally. The circuit system was a way to give them a professional goal of being the best in their region if they…

In 2007, a green, 19-year-old Jade Corkill backed into the box third callback at the famed California Rodeo Salinas. A win, or even a check at Salinas, would have been a big coup for the young gun from Fallon, Nev. “I lost my hat and my mind,” Corkill remembered of his first try at a Salinas buckle, a year before he qualified for his first Wrangler National Finals Rodeo. (That was the only time, for the record, that Corkill has ever lost his hat.) Three years later, fresh off two trips to the WNFR and with big wins under his belt at the Cheyenne (Wyo.) Frontier Days, National Western Stock Show and Rodeo in Denver, Colo., and the Sand Hills Stock Show and Rodeo in Odessa, Texas, Corkill was primed…

The Greeley (Colo.) Stampede, Rooftop Rodeo Estes Park (Colo.) and Larimer County Fair and PRCA Rodeo in Loveland, Colo., have combined to honor the contestant who earns the most money at the three rodeos in 2017. That award will be called the Rodeo 34 Award, and the inaugural winner also will receive a $3,000 gas and grocery gift card, along with a pure beaver custom cowboy hat. The winner also will be featured during the 2017 PRCA Mountain States Circuit Finals Oct. 27-28 at The Ranch in Loveland. “This new partnership will be a great way to recognize and award the contestant that competes at all three rodeos,” Estes Park Western Heritage Inc. Chairman Mark Purdy said in a news release. “We felt it was important to provide items to…

Number and end: 4+ header Association of preference: World Series of Team Roping by far, all though NTR is good as well. I have never been to a USTRC or ACTRA roping, so I wouldn’t know about those; however, the money and the opportunity is so great at the World Series ropings. They are some of the best put on ropings around here in Idaho. The opportunity you get to go and qualify for the Las Vegas Finale, you just don’t get that in any other sport as an amateur. Rope of choice: Classic Spyder Biggest win: The biggest win I had was the #9 in the Homedale, Idaho, roping on April 8, but really, that whole weekend. I won $5,300 in the #12 and $5,875 in the #9. So…

People assume that every competition horse has been behind a barrier, but with so many ropings using electric eyes these days that’s not necessarily the case. At the highest level, we face a barrier every day, even at the jackpots. Very seldom do we see an electric eye. It’s always a rope barrier. And on occasion—like the rodeo at Prescott (Ariz.), where both partners come from the right side of the box from behind the barrier, or Salinas (Calif.), where both partners come from the left side of the chute and behind the barrier—the heel horse has to go through the barrier, too. When you get to those places, you’ll see a lot of heelers having their header hold up the barrier before they go, to try and get their…

Addy and Jeyton on his way to Kissimmee, Fla., where he won the RAM National Circuit Finals Rodeo, April 6-9. Not only had Stipes just been to Disneyworld, but he’d also just purchased a new truck and hadn’t even made the first payment yet. Nevertheless, Stipes would go home with a voucher for $20,000 toward a new Dodge RAM, along with bragging Jesse Stipes did it in the wrong order. Ever since 1987, winners of major sporting events from the Super Bowl to the Stanley Cup have had an answer when told, “You’ve just won ___________, what are you going to do next?” But Stipes had just come from Disneyworld. He stopped there for three days with his wife, Ashley, and kids rights, trophies and $15,447 cash, courtesy of the…

Florida’s Manny Egusquiza took over for Colorado’s Garrett Tonozzi as the PRCA Team Roping Event Director on the Executive Council April 1, 2017, and plans to prioritize barrier length in his tenure as the representative for the PRCA’s largest membership block. The PRCA Executive Councils facilitate communication between the Board of Directors and the represented category of membership. Egusquiza served as the Southeast Circuit’s team roping representative for Garrett Tonozzi, and team ropers nominated him to the role when Tonozzi wanted to step back from the Event Director position this spring. “I’m going to try to do the fairest job I can,” Egusquiza said. “I’m protecting the top 30 guys in the world, but I want to protect the circuit guys, too, because they’re the backbone of the PRCA. If…

Power of Goal Setting Mary Ann Brown roped at the jackpots with her husband, Kenny, for 20 years when he wasn’t off rodeoing. But in 2017, she decided she was ready for a new challenge. She bought her PRCA permit and filled it with plenty of time left to qualify for her first-ever First Frontier Circuit Finals Rodeo, heading for her six-time First Frontier Circuit champ husband. They placed in a go-round and placed fourth in the average in Harrisburg, Pa. Braving up I thought about rodeoing for a few years, but I never had the courage really to do it. I never really stepped up. I’ve always had nice horses because Kenny is amazing at making them and finding them. But with this horse, Felina, and how we get…

After years of drought, the rains came and California was green and gorgeous all spring long for the first time in a long time. A couple of standout ropings—the Broc Cresta Memorial and the James Pickens Junior Foundation Charity Open Roping—greened things up in terms of financial opportunity for cowboys during the California spring run, too. The Broc Cresta Memorial, this year April 18 in Red Bluff, is held in honor of the late Wrangler National Finals Rodeo heeler who left us way too soon five years ago. His family and friends go way out of their way to make it an event Broc would be proud of. It was a special win in more ways than one for this year’s champs, Kaleb Driggers and Junior Nogueira. Broc was a…

Coleman Proctor and Billie Jack Saebens, fresh off Saebens’ first Wrangler National Finals Rodeo appearance and Proctor’s third, haven’t had the easiest start to 2017. Proctor was frustrated with his roping during the first few months of the year, so he sold some of his best horses and went to work on his riding. Saebens is struggling with staying mounted, despite owning some top talent on the heel side. He’s been riding his fifth-string mount since the George Strait in March. But if you’ve been following professional team roping much, you’d never guess any of that. At press time, both men had north of $42,000 won and sat in the top three in the heading and heeling standings. They won third at the George Strait Team Roping Classic, won second…