Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2020 i The Team Roping Journal

Dear Roper, We’ve got this rule in the magazine business about our editor’s letters. Every month we try to write something that will be relevant when the magazine hits your mailboxes a month and a half later. I stick to that pretty well, usually. Through mass shootings, acts of war, sports scandals—I usually find something distracting to write about in these few hundred words that is applicable later. But I’m sitting down to write this letter March 23, 2020, not knowing at all what May 1, 2020, will look like when you thumb through these pages. When we started this issue’s production schedule, I was heading to Disney World with my family and Assistant/Digital Editor Kaitlin Gustave and Senior Editor Kendra Santos were heading to RFD-TV’s The American. It was…

Cory Kidd V and Caleb Anderson roped three steers in 14.88 seconds to win the average at the Robertson Hill Lone Star Shootout in Stephenville, Texas, on Feb. 29, leaving with $45,000 each and new five-slant aluminum Bloomer trailers. Following the format of the infamous George Strait Team Roping Classic, the Lone Star Shootout, in its third year, continues to grow in quality, payout and spectators. The 10 fastest teams on two head are each taken from five rotations, with a #16.5 incentive, to compete for life changing money. Second to the Bob Feist Invitational, the Lone Star Shootout gives open ropers the ultimate opportunity to rope for a payout that could help carry them on the road to Vegas. “We didn’t draw perfect the first day,” Kidd said. “Our…

Those Idaho girls know how to get it done, as they again proved by winning January’s Art of the Cowgirl Ranch Rodeo in Phoenix, Arizona, where the team competed as The Idaho Girls. The win follows a four-year World Champion run in the Western States Ranch Rodeo Association’s women’s division, where the team competes as Miller Livestock. “We got together four years ago,” said Ariat World Series of Team Roping member Katie McFarlane. “We’re all here in Idaho, but each of us are about an hour away from each other. It’s just not something we practice. We all have cattle and we ranch and brand. We do stuff all the time like that. And we just kind of click together.” McFarlane and her teammates are already qualified for the WSRRA…

My ranch-raised cowboy horse doctor dad has commented all his life about how people always want to talk about the studs when it’s the mares who raise the colts. Don’t get me wrong—dads are a big deal, too. But with May comes Mother’s Day. Perfect timing to get to know the mom who made sure the winningest cowboy of all time would always stay humble and kind; a gentleman of manners and grace in and out of the arena. Glenda Light Brazile Horney is Trevor’s mom. And there’s so much more to this sweet little lady than most could ever imagine. Glenda grew up in Amarillo, Texas, the daughter of C.C. and Gertrude Light, and big sister to brother Jerry (who is two years younger, but because they share a…

There’s no doubt about it: left-handed heelers don’t exactly have the same resources to improve their craft that right-handed ropers do. The articles that populate this magazine every month are targeted at right-handed heelers, and most professionals and clinicians can only theorize about swinging a rope in their non-dominant hand. The intricacies of heeling left-handed can only be truly mastered by those who do it—something the lefties we surveyed emphasized again and again. Another lesson they repeated, though, is that roping left-handed doesn’t have to be an uphill battle if ropers work on finding the right help, learning to ride the correct position, buying or making the right horses and keeping a positive mentality. Finding Help Left-handed heelers might run into trouble when it comes to finding help to improve…

Cinch Timed Event Championship Rookie Taylor Santos of Creston, California, took the 2020 title at the Lazy E Arena with 340.4 seconds on 25 head in heading, tie-down roping, heeling, steer wrestling and steer roping. Santos rode Cody Snow’s horse in the heading with Colton Campbell on the back side; his own horse, Hank, in the tie-down roping; big brother Lane Karney’s horse, Special, in the heeling with Tyler Waters’ help; Jack and Jake Kahla’s horse, Ernie, in the steer wrestling with Ote Berry on the hazing side; and Jace Bland’s steer roping horse. Including the Round 3 win, Santos cashed a $103,000 check.…

My normal rodeo schedule—with a month off in the spring and downtime in the fall—has always fit in with my colt-riding schedule. It’s a slow process in bringing a colt up, and it takes longer for mine to get seasoned. But I believe that it takes that much time—with time on and off—for their minds to develop. And what’s more, if you’ve got a colt in the trailer all the time pushing him, you could be setting yourself up for physical issues down the road. So my preference is to give my horses time in the spring, and then turn them out while I go rodeo for the summer. Then we come back to them in the fall. 1 A lot of times, the ones you feel like might have…

“What I like is that it elevates them. It has a fairly good-sized port in it. I ride it on a lot of my heel horses, but Drago is naturally built a little flatter. Sometimes other bits that I ride in his mouth can get him a little bit too flat, and not be collected and pulled up—breaking at the poll as much as he needs to be. He feels the best in this bit. I swap between other bits, but it seems like I always come back to this bit because Drago is not the lightest mouthed heel horse, I promise. He’s got a little bit of a harder mouth, but that bit keeps him pulled up a little bit more and keeps him elevated, which for him is…

ON FEBRUARY 18, DURING THE SECOND ROUND OF THE SEMI-FINALS AT THE TELEVISED SAN ANTONIO RODEO, STEVEN AND JASON DUBY CAME TIGHT IN A NEAR-WORLD-RECORD 3.5 SECONDS TO WIN THE ROUND BY A HALF-SECOND AND EARN $10,000 PLUS ADVANCEMENT TO THE FINALS, WHERE A SIMILAR RUN WOULD NET THEM ANOTHER $30,000 AND A FIFTH-PLACE RANKING IN THE WORLD.EXCEPT THEY DIDN’T. The brothers from Oregon were flagged out for crossfire, despite the fact that everyone in San Antone and across the country via live TV believed they watched the steer take a complete hop in tow before he was roped. “I asked Matt Sherwood to tell them I’m sorry,” flagger Chuck Hoss said of his mistake. “I’d like to fix it, but I can’t.” Why is it such a tough call,…

“I want to use everybody’s best qualities to try and bring it to myself. I like the way Clay Smith heads and the way he rides his horse. I think Luke Brown throws great head loops. They’re big and open and he always seems to catch. [Kaleb] Driggers’ horses never seem to duck. He rides pretty straight and square in the saddle. I try to critique all of the things that I think they do to get to work for me.” —Tyler Wade, Three-time NFR Qualifier on “The Score,” a podcast by The Team Roping Journal, available to stream or download wherever you listen to podcasts.…

Octavio Espinoza (44), of Lubbock, Texas, and 2017 Ariat World Series of Team Roping Finale champ Erick Alvarado (29), of Midland, Texas, stopped the clock at the AT&T Stadium in 8.10 seconds to win the Ariat World Series of Team Roping’s American Cowboy #10.5, earning them $56,000. Alvarado is no stranger to big money through the Ariat World Series of Team Roping, as he won $362,000 just two years ago with Will Jones in the association’s #10 Yeti WSTR Finale in Las Vegas. “It’s a crazy feeling,” Alvarado said. “I guess I’ve been in a similar situation, but this place just outgrows it so much. The amount isn’t the same, but just the atmosphere that we’re getting to rope in is crazy. Honestly, I took a big downfall after Vegas.…

Buddy Reed (50), of Lorena, Texas, and Hamp Conlan (48), of Lampasas, Texas, won the inaugural Ariat World Series of Team Roping’s American Cowboy #12.5, earning them $16,500. “Money is always good,” said Reed, who is a rancher, a bull riding judge and a hay broker. “It’s already spent probably before we got it anyway.” Reed and Conlan were the fourth team to back in the boxes at AT&T Stadium. Out of the first three teams, there had only been one catch by the team of Chad Walker and Doug Schmidt with a 8.98. Reed and Conlan knew they needed to catch something in the lower 8-second range and got the timer stopped at 8.50 seconds to move into the lead. “The steers, overall, were a lot slower than I…

Cabin fever is for real, and cowboys have been living it like all Americans. Recent coronavirus-related cancellations of ropings and rodeos have forced team ropers to “shelter in place,” and have put income-earning opportunities on hold. And yet, our cowboy community marches on, determined as always to make the most of the cards we’ve been dealt. Here’s how 2018-19 World Champion Header Clay Smith, 2019 Wrangler National Finals Rodeo Heading Champ Cody Snow and 2019 World Champion Heeler Wesley Thorp—who won the world and the NFR heeling for Snow—have been spending their time away from the rodeo trail. Clay Smith I’ve been staying home in Bowie, Texas, with my wife, Taylor, and son, Jade, who just turned 2 on April 23. We have a baby girl due on June 9.…

“I won my first belt buckle in 1946. I was a junior in high school.” In March, Red Rightsell was relaxing in his chair, awaiting warmer weather and the opportunity to go to the next roping. “It’s been so cold this winter,” he said, “but we’re getting the horses in shape and trying to get everything ready to go.” Rightsell is a natural conversationalist, humble in his accomplishments, yet eager to talk about all things roping. Without being told his birthday, it’d be hard to imagine he’s in his 90s. His roping career began when a family moved to his Patterson, California, hometown. “The kids were roping and I’d just seen what they were doing and I tried to copy that,” Rightsell explained. “They had a high school rodeo and…

The header’s position gets overlooked a lot, and positions change for every roper at any level. There are some NFR ropers who break to the pin, and others who break wide. As you’re developing your roping, you need to learn where you’re most comfortable leaving the box. TOO NARROW? If you’re riding too narrow for your horse and your throw, you could be waving it off. For me, if I try to break to the pin and throw fast, I’m going to throw to the right of the steer. Speed Williams, though, used to break to the pin and throw fast, and obviously he had a lot of success doing that. TOO WIDE? If you need to ride your horse to the steer to keep him from cheating you, you…

ANALYZING THE HORSE If all of a sudden Colonel (Long’s three-time PRCA/ AQHA Horse of the Year) starts to consistently make mistakes or be off in his performance, the easiest thing to do is to get frustrated. But it’s important to take the emotion out of it, because if something were bothering me and I tried to play basketball, my performance would also be off. VET TRIP The first step is to go to your vet to troubleshoot anything that may be wrong structurally—maybe something needs to be injected or something needs addressed. You don’t want it to be a soundness issue, but it’s the easiest thing. You get that taken care of that way. STILL OFF? If they’re still doing the wrong thing, you better look at your equipment.…