Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2022 i The Team Roping Journal

Dear Roper, I sat down to write this letter to describe our 2022 Breeder’s Guide as a passion project, but a few sentences in to my first draft, I realized I’ve likely overused that phrase on this page in the last few years. The Breakaway Roping Journal? Passion project. "The Score" podcast? Passion project. "The Breakdown" podcast? Yup, passion project. The list goes on (and on and on…) Our team is so. dang. passionate. We’re passionate about team roping; we’re passionate about breeding great horses; about the Western way of life; about great video projects that bring the sport to life; about Arizona winters and Mountain-States summers; about fair rodeos and circuit rodeos and junior rodeos; about big country and bringing the big country to the big city. We just…

It’s been proven over time that every body type has the ability to figure out how to rope and rope well. Because the horse handles a lot of the physical equation in our event, people large and small have reached success as headers and heelers through hard work. In my lifetime, I’ve seen ropers of every shape and size who can reach heading, heel with the best, be fast at both ends and be consistent. If you took Leo Camarillo, Al Bach and Walt Woodard as examples, they had totally different body types. They all had amazing careers, and were incredibly talented ropers. Certain body types might mean more in the tie-down roping or steer wrestling, because those events are full contact. But if you think about it, there are…

“I got Louisiana tied up over here. It’s mine,” JB “Barry” Guillory quipped about being a lone Louisiana bit and spur maker. “I think there’s one other guy who might make spurs.” The son of a butcher, Guillory grew up horseback, but without horsemanship or an obvious path to becoming a maker. In his 20s, however, he came across both via an introduction to cutting. “There was a trainer by the name of Bob Bouget down on my end and he taught me a lot about horses,” Guillory said of the man he credits with his beginnings. “I bought my first cutting horse with Bob and he knew I had a passion for spurs. Finally, he was in the finals at the Futurity—I think he came out in 13th that…

It’s no easy feat roping on a horse that’s running faster than the steer. When your horse is over-running the speed of the steer, that throws you in a different position than where you’d be if your horse was running at the same speed as the steer. You’ve got to fight getting set back, getting drawn back in the saddle and getting your swing too far back and behind the play, because getting yourself in a bad spot that messes up your angles is easier to do on a horse that’s on the gain. MAKE IT HAPPEN The best way to rope on the gain is to give your horse a heads-up that he’s got to slow down before you get to the steer. You try to match the speed…

This month’s favorite bit: Kaleb Driggers’ Petska Straight Chain Horse: Cuervo Bit: Petska Straight Chain Why? “When I got Cuervo (read his story on page 72) from Jeff Flenniken, that’s what he rode him in. The horse is light and doesn’t ever pull on me, so it really fits him. It’s the normal shank Paul puts on all his bits. Cuervo collects himself really well throughout the run, so I don’t need much bit to help him. In the practice pen, I don’t turn steers on him. I rope, stick it on the saddle horn, bring the steer’s head around and then keep control all the way down the arena. That really helps him stay solid, collected and working.” — Driggers From the Maker: “That bit is lighter than…

Three-time World Champion Team Roper Clay Tryan roped at his 19th Wrangler National Finals Rodeo in December 2021. While Tryan’s worked his tail off for every accolade, he didn’t get where he is today by sweating the small stuff. His ability to roll with rodeo’s punches served him well in 2021, when his #1 head horse—the now-17-yearold sorrel named Cee How Nifty, AKA “Johnson”—was sidelined all summer. “Johnson’s been my main horse the last four or five years,” said Montana-native Tryan, who now lives in Texas. “In his prime, he ran hard, scored and faced good. And Johnson’s been good in all conditions. I rode him at Cheyenne, and I rode him at the NFR. Johnson was definitely my #1 from 2017–2020. “Then last spring, about April, Johnson just randomly…

The premiere event of Arizona’s winter season will again take place at Wickenburg’s Rancho Rio. The NTR National Finals VIII, presented by Ariat, will kick off Saturday, March 5, in the Team Roping Capital of the World with a Ram Truck roping, followed by a full week of roping for every number of roper. The event will be topped off March 11 with The Horse Sale at Rancho Rio—the industry’s leading rope horse sale that brings together top buyers and sellers. Consignors at this year’s sale, which is sponsored by Gold Buckle Beer, are by invitation only, with top National Finals Rodeo headers and heelers, as well as the sport’s top trainers and horsemen. providing elite rope horses to the public. “The NTR Finals is a perfect wrap-up to the…

Q: You’re 6’ 1” and grew up a multi-sport athlete, right? A: Yes, I grew up outside of Longmont, and played basketball and volleyball for Otero Junior College (in La Junta, Colorado) my freshman year. Then I transferred to the University of Wyoming in Laramie, and rodeoed for three years. Q: You’re being modest with the details. You rodeoed for Otero your freshman year, too, didn’t you? A: Well, yes. Back then, a women’s team was three people, and there were just two of us rodeoing for OJC—my sister, Shannon, and me. Q: OK, I’ll say it. The Martin sisters were a two-woman team, and you qualified against teams of three for the College National Finals Rodeo. You tied goats, breakaway roped and team roped, and won the breakaway, goat…

I can sound like a broken record, but I’ve got to say it again—every single person who gets on a horse is a horse trainer, whether you’re reinforcing good habits or teaching bad ones. You’ve got to be aware of that every day. So in this month’s column, especially in this issue that’s so focused on the horse side of the industry, I want to talk about the little things you can do daily to ensure you’re helping increase your horse’s value rather than decrease it. An investment in knowledge pays the best interest, and that’s truer in the horse game than maybe anything. If you learn to reinforce cues in the horses you buy, you can sustain a horse so that when it’s time to sell, you can keep…

Remember Round 9 at the 2009 Wrangler National Finals Rodeo, when JoJo LeMond and Randon Adams were 3.4 to set a new NFR and world team roping record, and it lasted mere minutes before Chad Masters and Jade Corkill broke it again with a 3.3-second blur (which was tied last summer by Dustin Egusquiza and Travis Graves in Oakley City, Utah)? At the other end of the team roping record longevity spectrum was Jake Barnes and Clay Cooper’s 59.1-second NFR average record set way back in 1994. It took 27 years to rewrite that one. But Andrew Ward and Buddy Hawkins finally cracked the code at the 2021 NFR, and set the new mark of 54.7 on 10. “We consider ourselves a team with a high catch rate,” said Andrew,…

The field for the Showdown Round at the WCRA Cowtown Christmas Championship Rodeo held at the historic Cowtown Coliseum in Fort Worth on Saturday, Dec. 18, was stacked deep with team roping celebrities, including four PRCA World Champions, a two-time WCRA Major winner, and several Wrangler National Finals Rodeo qualifiers and PRCA Circuit Champions. So, it may have come as a surprise when South Texan ropers Jason Burson and Corey Hendrick claimed the title and big $12,500 paycheck after roping their final round steer in 5.65 seconds. The win at a WCRA Major qualifies the cowboys for the WCRA’s Triple Crown of Rodeo $1 million bonus, given to any athlete who wins three consecutive WCRA Majors. “This arena is so little, you can run one to the back and still…

There’s an art to handling a steer, just like handling a horse or your dog. To be good at it, you need to understand what you’re asking of the animal. We’ve all heard headers say, “He was loose when I caught him,” and laugh about it. That’s ridiculous, because we all want to win and it’s TEAM roping. Fastest time wins, so the object is to make it as easy as possible for your partner. Headers who don’t care about how they handle steers don’t win as much as those who do, and will also have a lot harder time getting good partners than the guys with finesse who are trying to help their heelers. Each steer dictates each handle, so how gentle a steer is and how much he’s…

The acting career of Buck Taylor has spanned the decades, featuring parts in too many titles to name, but of particular and popular note are Gunsmoke, Tombstone and, most recently, Paramount Network’s Yellowstone. On set before he was even 10 years old, the Hollywood Westerns have provided Taylor with a lifetime of cowboy roles, but beyond the camera, he’s a dedicated team roper, too. In the past several years, Buck Taylor has had the opportunity to rope at the Spicer Gripp Memorial Roping in Hereford, Texas, heeling for rodeo greats like Speed Williams, Joe Beaver and, in 2021, World Champion tie-down roper Caleb Smidt. “I missed,” Taylor admitted. “I got one leg out of four runs, and I was really mad.” While he had hopes of getting more done in…

With more and more people training and riding young horses, it’s important for us to be aware of how we handle those young horses in the box. There are tried-and-true strategies for keeping your young heel horses comfortable and calm in the box that will let you do your job as a heeler and keep your horses working for years to come. 1 Sometimes in the practice pen you want to rope the steer and ride down to the stripping chute with your header to talk about how good you did. That’s tempting, but sometimes, you can use that time to regain your horse’s mind by calmly walking back to the box and waiting for your header there. 2 Most of the time, our horses will be calmer in the…

When I’m getting ready to go compete on a young horse, I want to spend the week leading up to the competition making sure my horse’s basic fundamentals are in place. I want him free, functioning correctly and watching the cow. I want him connected to the steer and not over-anticipating me throwing and wanting to cut in. When we get to the roping, everything will speed up and our reactions will get quicker, and that can lead into the horse if we have him too sharp in the practice pen. POSITION DOWN THE ARENA I’m going to make sure he’s in the right spot and keeping his spacing the whole way down the arena, not getting too close to the steer but not jumping out too wide, either. CONNECTION…

“[Jake Barnes] is the reason that I’m even here. He taught me a lot about how to win in big moments. I remember when I was 14 years old, we were at the young pro camp, and he was so proud of me because I could get a neck when there are little horns and stay in the average. He said, ‘That will take you a long way.’ I’ve always admired the way that they could catch in the Mega Matches, and back in the day, they were able to go 30. I look up to him, and he’s taught us all a lot about how to win. It’s an honor. I wasn’t trying to beat the record, but what a privilege to do it and be in the record…