Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2018 i The Team Roping Journal

Dear Roper, Public Service Announcement: Mother’s Day is May 13 this year. If you are reading this magazine the day it hits your mailbox, then you’ve got nearly two weeks left to arrange a special breakfast, buy some flowers, send a card, or at least make a phone call. Because moms, and rodeo moms in particular, work overtime to make this world go ’round. Take Bobbi Williams (page 82), mother of eight-time world champion Speed Williams. She’s spent her life supporting her son, and now her grandchildren, in their passions. In the process, she’s helped foster the development of young team roping talent across the country, even at a time when not so many women showed up and put their money down to rope. For some moms, this Mother’s Day…

Matt Sherwood and Walt Woodard had to be 4 flat and break the arena record to win RodeoHouston. They did it. Sherwood cried. Woodard’s voice cracked like a little girl on Christmas morning. Their emotion was sincere—and contagious. At 48 and 62, these guys are grandpas, for the love of God. And they’ve still got it. Matt and Walt arrived at RodeoHouston with the win at the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo already notched on their 2018 vision-quest belts, as they seek to answer the question of whether or two guys who are a little long in the tooth by the standards of any professional sport can make their way to Rodeo’s Super Bowl. The top 40 in the PRCA world standings are invited to RodeoHouston. Each team ropes…

Wesley Glover, recovering from a 2017 double-lung transplant, wins the #10 Exclusive at USTRC’s South Texas Championships. Glover, whose July 4 transplant resulted from a lifelong battle with Cystic Fibrosis, won the #10 Exclusive at the USTRC’s South Texas Championships March 23, 2018, with header Bryan Larison for their aggregate time of 38.54 seconds on four head worth $6,620. “I’m coming up on nine months since my transplant, and everything is going really well,” Glover said. “All my labs keep coming back good. As far as recovery, I’m on track. I’ve been placing at the small jackpots, and finally at the South Texas deal the other day, it all lined up and we won the good one. I’ve been pretty happy with it. There’s always something you can improve on.…

Q: When did you start team roping, and how did that happen? A: I was raised by a single mom, Linda Smith, and my Grandma Carolyn lived across the street. My grandmother worked the concession stand on Sundays at an arena in Dallas they called the Hog Pen. My brother, Duane, and I would go with her, and we’d bring up the cattle, work the gate and whatever else they needed. That’s how I got the roping bug. J.R. Gilder owned the Hog Pen, and he had summer camps for kids. His grandson Alex Gilder is who first taught me how to rope. He started letting me rope on a horse in 2003, when I was a junior in high school, and I went from roping the dummy on the…

Vital Stats AGE: 57 ROPE: Powerline Lite Soft by Classic WNFR QUALIFICATIONS: 21 HOME: Pueblo, Colorado EARNINGS: $1,589,521 SUPPLY AND DEMAND The toughest gig today is finding the horses that you can win on. As you well know, fewer horses are bred now and there’s more demand. There’s twice as much money in team roping today as there was 15 years ago. So, if you can find good horses, you’ll need to be ready to pay for them. And if you have them and you want to do this for a living, you’ll want to hang on to them and take the best care of them you can. IT TAKES TWO What always fits one person doesn’t fit the next. Before you take off and go rodeoing, you better have…

In March, Jordan Ketscher joined the elite club of California cowboys to win the Cinch Timed Event Championship and the $100,000 that goes with it. His time of 324.3 seconds on 25 head bested reserve champ Clayton Hass by 19.1 seconds. Eight-time National Finals Rodeo heeler Cody Cowden headed and heeled for Ketscher, marking Cowden’s sixth win as a helper. Ketscher rode ProRodeo Hall of Famer Ote Berry’s bulldogging horse, and Berry hazed for him. Ketscher borrowed best friend Lane Karney’s head horse Scout, who’s the same little Paint horse Wesley Thorp rode to win this year’s American Semifinals in Fort Worth in February under opposite conditions as the CTEC.…

Vital Stats AGE: 51 NUMBER / END: 4-Elite Heeler ROPE: Classic NXT HOME: Bonham, Texas All-Girl Power I usually just meet up with my partner, Jayme Marcrum, at the ropings. We’ve known each other for a long time, probably since ’85 or ’86. I used to head and she used to heel back then. I quit for a while after I had my kids, and then I started heeling and bought a heel horse when I came back so I could rope with my dad. So, it’s just kind of switched up and me and her have been roping the last two or three years together at a lot of the All-Girls and some of the #9s, when we can. The Patriot It’s been a big win. Back in ’98,…

Vital Stats AGE: 26 ROPE: XR4 Light MH by Classic PARTNER: Erich Rogers HOME: Lake City, Florida PRCA EARNINGS: $216,756 From the time you leave the box, sometimes without realizing it, you are affecting the way you approach your corner, your rope speed, and your horse’s stop. Way before you deliver your rope, having enough distance to see the run develop impacts how you enter the corner and how you see the steer’s feet. All of that requires horsemanship and a horse that’s listening to your body and your bridle reins the whole way down the arena. 1 Leaving the box, if I go ahead and break out wide—about 15 feet from the steer—I won’t ever get caught up too tight. Leaving wide allows me to see things happening in…

Vital Stats AGE: 34 ROPE: Powerline Lite Soft by Classic WNFR QUALIFICATIONS: 3 (steer wrestling) HOME: Terrell, Texas EARNINGS: $998,239 Sometimes in rodeo, you don’t draw well enough to have a chance. I team rope and bull dog, and that can happen in both events. There are times you have to be three, and you can’t draw anything but five-second steers. There’s nothing you can do but make the best run you can, stay positive, and know it can turn around. Drawing bad can really wear on you, but you’ve got to let it go—because you’ll be mentally down, and you won’t be prepared for the next good one you draw. That’s why I sometimes say that it takes two steers, not just one good one, to get out of…

The snow and ice have melted. The mud is drying up. Winter coats are shedding out. And ropers everywhere are ready to untwist the ties off their new ropes, saddle up their horses, and hit the roping pen. Nothing rejuvenates a roper’s spirit quite like the first warm, dry days of the roping season. But, do team roping horses feel the same? If they are out of shape and rusty from a few months with their heads buried in a round bale, chances are they might be dreading this first day. Some horses are more stoic than others and can push through their fatigue to rope that 20 head their owner has been itching to track down all winter long. But the next day, when every part of their body…

GOAL SETTING “I was going to regular high school last semester, but I wanted to finish early. So I went on independent study through the high school, and I’m all done with that now. I wanted to be able to practice more and work more, and not waste time in classes I was already finished with. My goal is to win the state in high school this year, make the Junior NFR, win the College Finals Rodeo, and eventually qualify for the (Wrangler) National Finals. Along the way, I want to get my degree in ag business and get a certificate in preg-checking and AI, so someday I can run a big ranch and run my own cows.”…

“He made me my own buckle that no one else has and for that I’m very appreciative of Gary.” Gist Silversmiths has made the BFI buckles for nearly all of the storied roping’s 41-year history, but the BFI Champion buckle on Cody Cowden’s belt is one-of-a-kind. Cowden won the 1997 Bob Feist Invitational with a time of 47.72 seconds on six head with his Wrangler National Finals Rodeo partner Bobby Hurley. But the California cowboy lost the buckle that went with the win somewhere on the rodeo road not long after. “I had my buckle for a couple of years, but all of a sudden it came up missing,” Cowden, who was riding his good horse Blue for the Feist win, said. “I kept waiting for it to show up,…

1. Why every serious roper MUST rope the dummy every day (HINT: It’s the #1 reason Michael Jordan won 6 NBA Championships). 2. The biggest mistake ropers make when facing and the fastest way to avoid it. 3. The 1 ninja trick world champion ropers use to stop their horses from getting injured. 4. A complete guide to spurs & why Jake wears a sharper spur on his right foot. 5. The little-known secret tool Jake uses to encourage his horse to face better. 6. How to prepare your young horse for an electric eye barrier vs. a string barrier. 7. Discover how to develop control through the corner to give your heeler the best shot possible. 8. The drills every roper MUST use on their horse to correct bad…

Sterlin English, 15, of Benen, New Mexico, won first and second in the average at the Junior NFR Open qualifier at the Downs’ Classic in Albuquerque, New Mexico, this February, giving him an early lead in the Junior NFR points standings for the event’s $100,000-added finals in Las Vegas this December. WHO ARE YOUR JUNIOR NFR PARTNERS? Calvin Taylor, Luke Williams, and Trent Wood. WHAT HORSES ARE IN YOUR STRING? I’m riding a horse I call Taz—he’s 7—and one named Laser—he’s 10. I ride a palomino—Hollywood—a little bit too. But Taz is my favorite. He rides around there, drags his butt, and jerks the tail end out of them. He’s real cowy. WHERE’S YOUR FAVORITE PLACE TO PRACTICE? My house. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE ROPING? My favorite place to go all…

Vital Stats AGE: 30 ROPE: Xplosion XS by Cactus Ropes WNFR QUALIFICATIONS: 8 PARTNER: Brady Minor HOME: Ellensburg, Washington EARNINGS: $1,298,413 KNOW YOUR SCORE I went to a World Series Roping the other day. I don’t get to go to too many of them, so I have trouble managing the start sometimes. I really wish I’d have worked on having my horse more in my hand, so as soon as I dropped my hand, we’re leaving because the start happens so quick. KNOW YOUR HORSE If he’s on a loose rein, sometimes the horse isn’t getting out of there fast enough. It’s so different than what we’re used to rodeoing. You want to have your horse in your hand and almost pulling against you. You want them gone as soon…

The spring run of rodeos in California wraps up this month, and, per tradition, spending April and May in the Golden State means roping in the mud sooner or later. ‘Tis the season, as they say. Since the beginning of time, timed-event cowboys have debated whether it’s best to boot up horses in muddy conditions. Some have said that horses need to suck it up like the cowboys riding them—and a few still do—but, protective gear has evolved. And, with rope-horse prices at an all-time high, it makes sense to protect your investment—rain or shine. Fifteen-time Wrangler National Finals Rodeo header Clay Tryan won world team roping titles in 2005 (with Patrick Smith), and 2013–14 (with Jade Corkill). “When people take the boots off their horses when it’s muddy, it…