Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2018 i The Team Roping Journal

Dear Roper, This issue marks our first anniversary as The Team Roping Journal. One year ago, we made the transition from Spin To Win Rodeo and Super Looper to this one, new brand, and one year ago, the pace of my life changed dramatically. Things at Spin To Win happened at a relatively comfortable pace. Not a ton had changed in the seven years I’d worked at the magazine, allowing my personal life to grow. But at the time we made the switch to TRJ, my daughter was turning 1, beginning to run (she skipped walking all together), and wanting to do things like paint and take trips to the zoo. With the switch to the TRJ, which is nearly double the size of Spin To Win and covers three…

From sixth call, Chad Masters and Joseph Harrison took a 1.7-second lead in the short round of the Cheyenne Frontier Days, turning in a fast time of 7.9 seconds to win the final round, worth $1,813 each, and give them a total of 26.4 seconds on three head, worth $8,939 a man along with trophy saddles and buckles. “I knew the steer was going to come left but I had no clue he was going to be that good,” Masters said. “I kind of decided that I was going to have to throw on the way in but when he was that slow I just tried to not mess him up. For some reason I think I missed my slack or something, but I don’t know that I got a…

INTERNATIONAL FINALS YOUTH RODEO  In July, Leander Williams, 17, of Thorndale, Texas, and Whit Kitchens, of Mullin, Texas, roped three steers in 18.2 seconds to win $1,570.61 and the IFYR team roping title at the Heart of Oklahoma Exposition Center in Shawnee, Oklahoma. They also were 5.4 to win the third round and another $1,570.61, and tied for sixth and seventh with a 6.8-second run to pick up another $443.87 in the second go. They were 6.0 to win fourth and fifth in the first round worth another $853.59. NATIONAL LITTLE BRITCHES FINALS RODEO  Junior Division: Ketch Kelton, 12, of Mayer, Arizona, and Jace Thorstenson, 14, of Surprise, Arizona, daylighted the field at the National Little Britches Finals Rodeo held at the Lazy E Arena in Guthrie, Oklahoma, in July…

Walt Arnold roped competitively from the time he was 14 years old until well into his 77th year, when his battle with cancer forced him out of the arena. “I had seven weeks of radiation and six weeks of chemotherapy,” the now-survivor said. “That kind of took the strength out of me.” Cancer has a way of doing that to a person, but it sure didn’t take the cowboy out of Arnold, who enjoyed a long career as a professional roper and had just come in from checking water for the 600 head of cattle he runs on his Silverton, Texas, ranch, where he was born. “The doctor came out 25 miles from Tulia and delivered me in 1938,” said Arnold, whose birthday is Sept. 1. “My dad was making…

Kayden Little, 17, of Tatum, New Mexico, is hot off a second-place finish at the National High School Finals Rodeo with Maddy Deerman, and led the Junior NFR heeling standings at press time. He’s already a 9 heeler, and he won the Junior NFR’s 15-and-under division in 2017. HOW DID YOU GET INVOLVED IN TEAM ROPING? When I was little, we lived in the city, and didn’t have horses or anything. But my dad bought me a dummy, and I roped it all the time. A few years later, we moved to a smaller town, and a local rancher named Brett Sterling gave me a 2-year-old filly. I learned to ride and my family and I learned to work with her. From there, Taylor Pettigrew taught me to rope. We…

RIDE FIRST I don’t swing from the second my header nods. I ride my horse out, get the right distance, and get to my position before I get my rope up. If I’m trying to get my rope up, I’m wasting swings when I could be getting to position and creating distance. I want to be getting my weight in my stirrups and riding to a good spot so I can set up the run. POSITION IS... At a World Series or USTRC roping, I like to ride a little narrower position down the arena because the headers get such a good start and the head horses are so fast that, as a heeler, you can get behind more easily. If I’m narrow through the corner, I can follow the…

Millbrook, Alabama’s Brian Royal and Opp, Alabama’s Dennis Moore won the American Cowboy #10 qualifier at JX2 Production’s Rocky Top Super Qualifier at the Tennessee Miller Coliseum in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on July 6. Their time of 45.23 seconds on four head earned them $1,600 and a chance to compete in the East Coast’s head-to-head matches in 2019, the next step on the path to RFD-TV’s The American in Arlington, Texas. Top teams out of the East Coast head-to-head matches will rope in Texas in March for a minimum $100,000 payout March 2. Mount Juliet, Tennessee’s Randy Chandler and College Grove, Tennessee’s Tommy Hand won second with 49.68 seconds on four head, worth $1,200 and another qualification. For their efforts, both teams also qualified for the Ariat World Series of Team…

When Jake and I were kids… Before Jake won his first championship… I asked him, “Jake, what are your goals with your roping?” He said, “I want to win a gold buckle for every member of my family, how about you?” I replied, “I want to be known as the fastest roper that ever lived”. Since then we both worked hard at our roping… We practiced, got coaching and surrounded ourselves with other team ropers pursuing their goals… And 40 years later: Jake has his 7 world championships – 1 for himself, 1 for his wife and 1 for each of his 5 children… And me? Well, I’m not sure if I’m as fast as Junior but they created a rule (the crossfire rule) because I was roping too fast!…

Skyline Bit and Spur owner Carson Jorgensen could have been a lot of things when he grew up. The 29-year-old’s family runs a massive sheep and turkey farm in Mount Pleasant, Utah, and they raise ranch and performance horses there, too. Despite finishing at the top of his class as a diesel mechanic and garnering a job offer from Caterpillar, Jorgensen’s dreams of becoming a cowboy craftsman and having the chance to live on his own terms called him away from any of the traditional career paths. “I didn’t want to just be a bit maker—I wanted to leave something that works and lasts a lifetime,” Jorgensen said. “I want it to work for the horse. I wanted to build the right tools for the right people and to put…

If you’ve strolled around the parking lot at a team roping or rodeo lately, you’ve probably seen a trailer or two with horses sporting Soft Ride Equine Comfort Boots instead of standing flat on the ground. You might have even rolled your eyes and thought those team ropers don’t know that horses have stood around for centuries without cushioned feet—but you’d be wrong. BASIC ANATOMY A horse’s frog is a critical part of the animal’s circulatory system. The blood flows down the horse’s leg into the digital cushion, a part of the inner hoof above the frog, which contains a network of blood vessels. The horse’s weight then compresses the frog on the ground, squeezing the blood out of the digital cushion, and pushing it back up the horse’s legs–known…

A) This bay heel horse has a huge dip behind his shoulder blades. His sway back, caused by years of poor-fitting saddles, needs a pad with added orthotic support along the whole stretch of his spine. Just padding behind the shoulders, where his biggest dip lies, would create too much pressure behind his last rib above his loin, according to certified equine massage therapist Mandy Hagler. B) This palomino head horse also has a dip behind his shoulder blade from ill-fitting saddles, but he is less swayed than the bay and sorrel. Hagler says he needs just a little added padding along his topline, evenly spread across his back, to keep the saddle from pinching in front of his withers and behind his last rib. C) This sorrel head horse…

If you’re looking for a more successful, proven, long-term team roping horse program than the one put together decades ago by David Gill, Joe Murray, and Jim Wheatleygood luck with that. The “Horses with a History” way of breeding, breaking, and training talented team roping mounts is tried, true, and trusted by ropers at every level of the game. And on top of great horses, these three National Finals Rodeo ropers’ gold-standard reputations have stood quite the test of time. Gill, Murray, and Wheatley all come from foundation ranching and cowboy families in California. The Gills started raising horses—heavy on the Driftwood and Hancock bloodlines—back in the 1940s. The family is now four generations deep in cattlemen, and has been running cattle in the country around Madera, Exeter, Porterville, and…

Chad Townson, 46, of Stephenville, Texas, proudly wears this Chance Britain Benefit Roping buckle he won in honor of Britain, 18, also of Stephenville, who is recovering from critical injuries caused by a rollover accident in December 2017. Britain’s sister, Cheyenne, works for Chad and Lydia Townson riding horses, and they went to the roping to support the family this past January. Chad won the #10 there with fellow Stephenville resident David Halford. “We were glad to support the roping,” Townson said of the benefit held in Stephenville’s Lone Star Arena. “Chance is making a great comeback. I was lucky enough to win it, and Tres Rios did the buckle and did a great job.” “We were glad to support the roping. ... Chance is making a great comeback.” –…

Dick Yates is the patriarch of the Pueblo, Colorado-based rodeo family that also includes son J.D., daughter Kelly, grandson Trey, and matriarch Jan, who’s the glue that holds them all together. Dick, who’s 81 now, roped with J.D. at 13 Wrangler National Finals Rodeos starting in 1975, when J.D. became the youngest NFR cowboy of all time at 15 years, 4 months. In 1984, Dick, Kelly, and J.D. became the only father-daughter-son trio ever to compete at the Finals the same year. By Kendra Santos Q : Where did you grow up, and what was your childhood like? A: I was raised in the eastern part of the state in McClave, near Lamar. My dad was a farmer—we raised sorghum, alfalfa, and sugar beats—and ran a few head of cattle.…

Dream Team I had really good success at Rocky Top with three of my partners, but the coolest part was winning the girls roping with my best friend, Jessy Remsburg. We’d already won the girls roping in Jacksonville at the [2017] NTRL National Finals, and we’ve been roping together for her entire life. She’s from Florida, but now she lives in Alabama and Texas, and works for Beverly Robbins, but whenever we are in the same place and have a girls roping, we always enter. We had no success whatsoever until this year, so that was kind of the highlight. Horse Business I started roping 25 years ago when I met my husband, Ray, who no longer ropes. We are ranchers. I raise beef cattle and roping cattle. All of…

Diane Andrus, from Arnaudville, Louisiana, is a 3 header who came to rope with me at my place in Lipan, Texas, thanks to my sponsors at Roper Apparel & Footwear. Diane was a school teacher who spent most of her life supporting her daughter and her students. But, now that she’s retired, she’s ready to take her roping to the next level. Her horses are great, and they run really hard. So we spent the day working on her getting ready to rope sooner and covering both horns in her delivery to up her catch percentage. On these next pages, I’ll show you some of the drills we did to help accomplish that. Diane Andrus, a retired educator from Louisiana, was chosen to spend a day with Clay…

Skyline Bit & Spur “This bit has a port in the middle that kind of holds horses a little straighter; then it has some forgiveness with the sides, which helps to bridle them up sometimes and bring them to me when I’m scoring. It allows them to be straighter, but then I can still get some flex out of the corners. It’s like using a stiff bit, but it has some forgiveness to it because my hands aren’t the best.” – Coleman Proctor, four-time WNFR header skylinebitandspur.com…

I hate missing. I hated missing when I started rodeoing, and I still hate missing. Thankfully, I had a partner like my dad (21-time Wrangler National Finals Rodeo qualifier JD Yates) who is about as mentally tough as you can be. He has such a strong mental game; there’s no telling where I’d be if I didn’t have him. They say a lot of guys need to take five or 10 minutes to get over something and then go on, but Dad can ride out of the arena, talk to himself about a mistake on the ride out, and then it’s done. When I started roping with my dad, I would let a miss carry over to the next steer, and I’ve learned I can’t do that to be successful.…

JASON ADAMS From: Logandale, Nevada Number: 8 header, 8 heeler Big Win: California Rodeo Salinas Champion Header 2011 Job: Owner, Bex Family: Hailey (wife); kids Presley, 7, Arbor, 5, & Memphis, 2 • WORK LIFE: It’s really regimented. Everything is on a schedule now. It’s an ongoing process—working smart not hard. When you start to really believe and understand the value of time management and how much your time is worth is when you really start to be productive as an organization. When you’re small, you’re down in the business, but when you transition and grow, you start to feel less productive because you’re not doing all of the things you used to. When I stepped back and stopped doing that, you realize a productive day doesn’t mean the same things…