Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2024 i The Team Roping Journal

Dear Roper, This is another of our Horse Market special issues, with content sprinkled throughout that highlights the booming rope horse industry. And this might be one of my favorite mixes of stories on the market yet. In Kendra Santos’ Horsepower department on page 64, she explores Jake Cooper’s growing horse program, with a special emphasis on the mares he’s choosing to cross with his all-star futurity stallion, Reys Of Pep. Cooper is one of the many NFR cowboys making the move to horse breeder, jumping into the rope horse business with both feet alongside partner Kaleb Driggers. Julie Mankin took a deep dive into Look At Her Glo on page 68, the dam or granddam to so many great horses. She’s truly the matriarch of the modern rope horse,…

Kaleb Driggers announced Feb. 13 the retirement of Remis Gays On Ofadoc, the bay gelding he calls Cuervo that carried him to his first gold buckle in 2021 and second in 2022. Cuervo, the 2007 gelding by Reminic N Dunit out of FLS Oaks Classy Lady by Flynns Gayson Ofadoc, has battled a deep flexor injury on and off since before Driggers bought him from Jeff Flenniken, but the maintenance was worth the cost, because the horse let Driggers win where it counted. “He was an instant match,” Driggers said. “I loved everything about him and was very excited to buy him. Then came the dreaded vet check that didn’t go in my favor. So I sent him back and started trying more horses, but nothing fit like he did.…

| Ropers | Big Break Colter Todd was hot off his first Wrangler National Finals Rodeo qualification when he rolled into Salado, Texas for the Wildfire Open to the World—his third time appearing at the $75,000-added event. Coming from Willcox, Arizona, Todd had never had an ounce of luck at The Wildfire. But that all changed in front of Graves. “Stuff hadn’t been going well as far as financially,” said Todd, now the reigning NFR average champ on the heel side. “I’d just got done not doing any good at San Antone, and I was fighting with going home financially and not being able to keep rodeoing. I was trying to figure out if I was going back to my job with the Potters, and I had some horses I…

Miles Baker had a career weekend at the Buckeye, Arizona, Royal Crown Futurity this February, with his horses bringing home more than $83,000 in three days. Baker won the 4-&-Under Heeling on Dasco Cattle’s Lil Bit O Cash and the 6-&-Under Heading on Sevens Hank 2. Meanwhile, 2016 PRCA World Champion Jeremy Buhler jump-rode Relentless Remuda stallion Pride And Joyy for the 6-&Under Heeling win. Two-time World Champion Heeler Paul Eaves also hopped on Remuda gelding Gunners Nite Train to win the Royal Crown’s $20,000-added Open. For Baker, his goal of the weekend was plain and simple: execute. Here’s his step-by-step guide to doing his job on each horse. 1 Lil Bit O Cash 4-&-Under Heeling Champ This is the picture in the turn. The scenario is that I was…

When you head to Cowtown for the USTRC’s Cinch National Finals of Team Roping April 21 to April 28, you’re going to be busy at the Will Rogers Memorial Center. But the schedule allows for great dinners out in Fort Worth and nights on the town, plus enjoying all the event has to offer outside of the arena. Here’s our roundup of add-on activities that will help make your trip to Fort Worth one you and your family will remember forever. BILLY BOB'S TEXAS There’s only one Billy Bob’s. “The World’s Largest Honky Tonk” opened its doors in 1981 and, since then, the facility has been a Stockyards staple. This year, country music star Chris Young will play Billy Bob’s April 26 to 27 for the USTRC crowd in town.…

At the Barrier | association news | industry news | new products The Ariat World Series of Team Roping Finale will host the first-ever Riata Buckle Horse Sale Dec. 8, 2024, at the South Point Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. The event will bring together the largest concentration of team ropers in the world, offering a very select group of 50 to 60 horses all eligible for the Riata Buckle’s $3.5 million payout each year. “There has always been a plan to offer a horse sale when the Riata Buckle program had enough momentum to support a first-class sale,” Riata Buckle’s Lance Robinson said. “Our goal has been to debut the first sale in a premier location, offer the potential for the event to have growing room and make…

The Ariat World Series of Team Roping Title Fights XIV produced by Yost Events once again traveled to Rancho Rio in the heart of the Team Roping Capital of the World—Wickenburg, Arizona. The Feb. 14-17, 2024, event paid out a staggering $1.51 million to ropers from across the world. Held annually, the four-day event is the second-largest WSTR qualifier of the year. And for the first time ever, the roping was streamed live on the Roping.com app and website, featuring two arenas of action and drawing in team roping fans from across the country. The Title Fights began Wednesday, Feb. 14, with a #15.5 add-on and concluded with the Open qualifier Saturday, Feb.17. When the dust settled, the #8.5 World Series qualifier was the richest roping of the weekend, paying…

Ropers at home with | Jake Barnes | Clay O | icons | military salute | big break | Q: Where is Bolivar, Tennessee, and what’s it like where you grew up? A: Bolivar’s in West Tennessee, an hour east of Memphis and about 30 miles north of Mississippi. Tennessee’s a beautiful state, and Bolivar has a lot of green grass and trees. My family farms corn, cotton and beans in Bolivar, and we also run cows. Q: How much team roping goes on in your original part of the country? A: Not a lot. You can go to a roping about every weekend somewhere, but most people might rope once a week and there aren’t very many high-numbered ropers where I’m from. There are round robins and slides, but…

At the age of 16, Judy Wagner and her seven younger siblings lost their father in a December tractor accident on their Western Montana ranch. “That Christmas, I learned firsthand that the cows don’t know it’s Christmas,” Wagner remembered. “So, my marketing and how I think about things started there. It’s not rocket science: You have to know what needs to be done.” She graduated from Montana State University and was working as a county agent when Steve Geisler of Idaho’s Cowboy Cordage asked if Wagner was interested in doing business together, marketing and selling ropes. “My dad didn’t really live long enough to teach us a lot about roping,” Judy explained. “Everything in our barn was 7/16-scant hard, and it was all you had so that’s what you used.…

FINDING FRAME Why and how Joseph Harrison is going back to his roots to frame up his heel horses throughout the run. REALIZATION I had gotten away from putting emphasis on the frame in my horses. I was doing good enough and letting them be what they were more. Some wanted to stay good, and those are the ones I’d be good on most of the time. The ones that didn’t want to stay good, I’d let them find it—but that wasn’t winning and, on maybe two out of five runs, they’d be out of whack going into their stops. WHAT IS FRAME? Where I first learned “the frame” as a young kid was from watching Kollin VonAhn. His horses looked so cool, with their chin in, pole up and…

TOP 5 FACING VIDEOS WITH TREVOR BRAZILE 1. Heading Horsemanship and Facing From Brazile and Patrick Smith’s Legend DVD, this video takes you through Trevor Brazile’s full philosophy on tuning a head horse in a variety of scenarios, with a strong emphasis on the most overlooked part of a run: the face. Brazile explains his facing techniques and the exercises he uses to get a faster, cleaner finish. 2. Body Position in the Face In just 3.5 minutes, Brazile and his Relentless Remuda partner Miles Baker review how your body movement affects your horse’s hips in the face. 3. Facing Drill with a Tire Shot at Baker’s Oklahoma ranch, Brazile explains how he drags a tire with a head horse to work on pushing his horse forward and finishing in…

Derrick Begay and Colter Todd clawed their way to the 2024 San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo victory Saturday, Feb. 24, after raking in $22,500 a man. Begay’s been dreaming about winning San Antonio since the early winter of 2009 after a visit to Sherry Cervi’s house in Marana when he saw her San Antonio buckle. “I got to her buckle display and the first buckle I saw was San Antonio,” Begay, 40, explained. “Since then, I’ve always wanted one. Now I finally got my own.” Through the brackets: $4,750 a man Their trek to the win wasn’t paved with gold, though, and it started much earlier than when they rode in Frost Bank Center for the first time Feb. 16. After the Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo in…

Mike Kunzler piloted the Woody Be Tuff son Celtic Tuff to his third major Intermediate Heading title, while Logan Anseth jump-rode Royal Crown stallion Cashing N My Diamond by Time For The Diamond to the Intermediate heeling win this year at the Royal Crown in Buckeye, Arizona. The Intermediate heading, held Feb. 9, was the largest class of the weekend with 62 entries, while the heeling had 40 entries on Feb. 10 at Buckeye Equestrian Center. Celtic Tuff and Mike Kunzler Celtic Tuff, who won the TX Best Futurity and the Royal Crown in Rock Springs in 2023, is out of the High Brow Cat daughter Sucha SmartLookn Cat. Before Buckeye, the 2018 gelding owned by Briena Nicole Wells, had $23,868 in earnings, and he picked up another $7,776 for…

A stone’s throw away from the Will Rogers Memorial Center, home to the USTRC’s 2024 Cinch National Finals of Team Roping, is the National Cowgirl Museum & Hall of Fame, home to some of the handiest ropers in the history of the sport. Since before Oklahoma became a part of the Union, before the Great War, before the unsinkable Titanic sank in Arctic waters and before the Great Depression, women have been in the roping arena, and their historical feats are immortalized in the Cowgirl Museum. LUCILLE MULHALL (1885-1940 - CLASS OF 1977 Lucille Mulhall was born on the family ranch near Guthrie, Oklahoma, plumb in the middle of the first rodeos in history popping up across the American West. Her father Zack was a roper and the producer of…

You become one of the best heelers in the world because team roping has consumed you all your life. It’s your purpose. It’s just what you do. So, when you’re a 9 heeler and find yourself, at 37, near death with an abdomen full of fluid and half a lung collapsed, the shock that comes with a cancer diagnosis rides along with the realization that you might never rope again. That means it hits differently when the biggest win of your life happens just 15 months later on a horse you trained from a weanling, against the best teams in the world. At the pick-one/draw-one Clay Logan Open in Stephenville, Texas, on Feb. 4, Brandon Gonzales and his draw partner, gold-buckle-header Erich Rogers, split $42,000 as the champs of the…