Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2019 i The Team Roping Journal

Dear Roper, When I first walked into the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo press room for Spin To Win Rodeo in 2011, I carried with me my iPhone. I decided to start videoing the go-round winners on that phone, posting their stories on YouTube. Seasoned reporters were diligently filing their print stories for deadline or web late that night, as I was posting my often grainy, hard-to-hear clips online and posting winners on this platform that had about 10,000 followers called Facebook. By about Round 5, a veteran reporter asked what I was even doing there. To them, I looked like a college kid playing on her cell phone in the back of the class. Now, nearly everyone in the room has a digital and print deadline to hit, with video…

Q : Tell us about your ranching operation. A: We run about 250 cows. The calves are born in the spring, and we market them each fall. We run them on a combination of state leased and private land. Q : Is the country around Tombstone as rough as it sounds? A: No. Tombstone got its reputation from all the gunfights. But we’re right on the divide between the San Pedro Valley and Sulphur Springs Valley, so where we are is quite a bit nicer than Tombstone itself. It’s high desert grass land and rolling hills right on the north end of the Mule Mountains, which originate by Bisbee. Our house is exactly 25 miles north of Mexico. The border patrol can actually search our house without a warrant. We’ve…

WHAT IT MEANS Winning the year-end means a lot to me because of all the struggles I have had throughout the year and to see the hours I have put in pay off and to accomplish the goals I set at the beginning of the year. MANAGING CHANGE My number kept changing and that was really difficult. I’d get my partners lined out with my new number and they’d bump me again, so I was [always] trying to get new partners. It was like getting thrown another curve ball every time you thought you had something figured out. HEALTH SCARES In June, I was in the hospital for an allergic reaction that had me in the hospital for four days. Then, in July, I broke my hand. We had just…

Smith and Purcella Come From Behind to Win Priefert #14 PRIEFERT # 14 Their first time roping together, Arizona’s Chad Smith and Texas’ Steve Purcella won the Priefert #14 World Series of Team Roping Finale from ninth callback after roping four head in 30.11 seconds, worth $178,000. “Chad did a good job of sticking it on the horns and making it easy for me,” Purcella, a PRCA world champion header and 14-time NFR qualifier, said. “I’ve been on both ends of it. I don’t care what everybody says. The heeler gets all the glory, but that header is the one that makes it all happen. It’s a team event, not keep away.” Lucky for Purcella, Smith, a rancher, had help remembering how to handle steers. “My wife was…

Sept. 24, 1983, was a special day for the Yates family. J.D. and Dick Yates are two out of eight cowboys and cowgirls who’ve won the PRCA Presidential Rodeo at the White House in Washington, D.C. “They took some of the World champions and, back then, J.D. and I were leading the World in the PRCA,” the elder Yates said. J.D. and Dick didn’t send their own horses out to Washington D.C. to compete and, instead, backed into the heading and heeling boxes on borrowed mounts. “We borrowed horses back there,” Yates added. “I rode a little head horse from somebody and J.D. rode one of the pickup horses to heel on. It was quite a deal.” It was a family affair for the Yateses. As J.D. and Dick mastered…

The new year’s here, so it’s goal-setting time. I roped at the (Wrangler National) Finals (Rodeo) 27 times between 1980 and 2015, but making the Finals was never really the goal. That was not optional. It was a must. My goal was always to try and win the world championship. Getting to the Finals has worked out for me 27 times, and I’ve had the good fortune of winning the world seven times. It’s been a little different for me the last few years. That horse fell with me when we (Jake and Junior Nogueira) were practicing right before the Finals in 2015, so I had to sit that one out. Then there was the knee replacement. And I couldn’t rodeo in the PRCA (Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association) in 2016,…

As a horse trainer and a flagger, I see a lot of headers struggle with maintaining horse position and remaining in control of their horses when turning steers. If you’re in control, you’re able to guide your horse to the sweet spot where your catch percentage is the highest—a sweet spot that is different for every single roper. And, if I have complete control after I turn my steer, I can place that steer under my heeler’s loop—something some of the best in the world do unconsciously. Horsemanship and having my horse working on his hind end are also key. 1 Maintaining control in all different situations requires a lot of hard work in the arena, without skipping any steps in the training process. That’s a process that, when you…

Myler Bits “This is one of my favorite go-to bits. I like this bit because it has a lot of flexibility—I can pick my head horses up with this bit. It seems to have a bite when I need it and no bite when I don’t need it. I can pick up the corner of my horse’s mouth through the turn. It seems like I can get a lot of flexion going across the arena and a lot more finish in the face with this bit.” —Adam Rose, PRCA Team Roping Header & Tie-Down Roper…

Jade Corkill’s 2010 and 2012 American Quarter Horse Association/Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association Heel Horse of the Year Fine Snip of Doc—AKA Caveman—was out of action from May to mid-November in 2018 with a broken right-hind splint bone. “I rode him off and on at a roping in Perrin, Texas (in May), and I think he broke it on the last steer of the day,” said three-time Champ of the World Corkill about Caveman, who’s 18 now. “When I undallied, he didn’t want to go forward. I could tell something was wrong. I rode out and unbooted him, and it was already big. I could tell it was something bad, so I just started running cold water on it. “Caveman’s never shown pain. When he tore both of his hind suspensories…

When Derrick Begay, Erich Rogers, and Aaron Tsinigine devised a plan to host a roping school for Native American youth, 2015 World Champion Header Tsinigine had something to say about how the school would be funded. “As a kid, I never had the money to go to a roping school,” Tsinigine admitted. “I know Derrick never went to a school and Erich never went to a school. I said I will not charge a Native American kid to come to my roping school. I never had the money for it.” After a few days brainstorming, the three ropers remembered their connection to the 7G Foundation, a group that supports Native American youth, and they reached out for support. The 7G Foundation jumped on board to cover costs, and the planning…

For a roper to catch more consistently and heel steers faster, you need to be riding your horse with proper weight in your stirrups to allow for better, faster position. LESSON LEARNED I’ve got to give credit here to Speed Williams. Dustin (Egusquiza) wanted to go to Speedy to learn about how to do a better job of jackpot-ting. I was there just to heel steers, when Speedy pointed out to Dustin that his feet were coming out of the stirrups from the first move his horse was making. And he told me he didn’t want in my business, and I hadn’t asked for his help, but he told me I was doing that, too. WHAT IT MEANS Though I’ve preached riding balanced for years, when Speedy pointed this out,…

THE REASON My reason has been the same my entire career. When Treston was born, I started saying I’d step away when the kids started school. I’ve been lucky that Shada loved the homeschooling so much, and that kept us together rodeoing longer. There was nothing better than when I was traveling with my family. We were able to enjoy the travel as much as the winning, if not more. As bad as the travel is alone, it’s that good when you’re able to be around family. By the time my oldest daughter, Style, decided she wanted to go to school the last half of the 2017–2018 school year, I was already committed to this year with Patrick Smith. I was going to finish the year with Patrick, because I’d…

Maybe he was showing off or maybe it was a happy accident, but Paul Eaves pantyhosed the final steer of his and Clay Smith’s four-year partnership to win the PRCA Team Roping World Championship, placing third in Round 10 of the Wrangler NFR with a 4.4-second run. That last steer moved Smith and Eaves up one hole in the average from fourth to third, after Rhen Richard and Quinn Kesler, who were ahead of them going into the round, failed to get a time. Kaleb Driggers and Junior Nogueirawho were $33,965.99 and $32,973.14 behind Smith and Eaves going into the go-round but were second in the average—moved to second in the go-round with a 4.1 behind Tyler Wade’s and Cole Davison’s 3.9 round-winning run. “We kind of figured if [Kaleb…

Long before a few Navajo boys picked up wicked cowboying skills deep in the Arizona desert—which made them world champs—another guy was doing the same. “I used to trip steers out there doctoring cattle with Ike Rude,” said Earl Higgins, an Arizona native. “I’d punch cows and join the roundups in the spring and fall and, when that was over, I’d go to rodeos all summer everywhere we could go.” Higgins was still classified as a 7 at 70 years old. Today, at almost 81, he’s taking names at the biggest jackpots in the world. He couldn’t have picked a brighter star to cowboy with than Isaac (“Ike”) Rude, who was also plenty wolfy at an advanced age. The Hall-of-Fame steer roper was 59 when he threw his hands up…