Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2025 i The Team Roping Journal

Dear Roper, If you pay really close attention, you might have noticed my name is appearing on fewer and fewer stories in this magazine and online these days. With everything we have going on across the company, sometimes I spend more time making sure all systems are go than actually toiling in the trenches with our team. I'm a creator by nature, though, so I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss writing so many of the stories you read about in this sport. So when timing allows me to dig into a subject like it did for “Signs of Greatness” on page 64, I head down a rabbit hole for days straight. I've interviewed Tyler Wade, Wesley Thorp, Jake Long, Jade Corkill and Kaleb Driggers more times than…

Dustin Egusquiza and Levi Lord kicked off 2025 with the San Diego Rodeo win Jan. 10-12, for $24,750 a man. For the reigning PRCA regular season champs, success at the new high-stakes, stand-alone rodeos has been elusive, until San Diego. “We've never done good at these types of rodeos, so it feels really good to win one,” Egusquiza, 29, said. “It's an awesome venue here at Petco Park. They put us up in a great room some 50 steps across the street; it seems like a pretty crazy place to have a rodeo, but it's also really cool once they get everything set up and we're in there.” Roping in front of a sold-out crowd inside Petco Park, home of Major League Baseball's San Diego Padres, is something Lord, 29,…

Giving the steer's head back is a concept we throw around a lot, and I want to make sure ropers know what it means and how it's affecting how much you win. Plus, I'm going to tag Jade Corkill in here at the end for his take on the whole situation, because I know he's studied it. What Is “Giving the Steer His Head Back?” Your heeler has usually thrown his rope, and you start to face, or your horse gets stiff before the face, or you face down the arena enough. The heeler is pulling his slack, and the steer is in tow, but then the steer's shoulders switch past the hips as the horse faces. Why Is It a Problem? The steers change direction mid-throw or mid-dally. A…

TRJ: OBVIOUSLY, YOU WERE EMOTIONAL, BUT WINNING DENVER—THAT'S YOUR HOMETOWN RODEO, ESSENTIALLY, THE BIGGEST RODEO IN YOUR HOME STATE—WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO START THE YEAR LIKE THAT? “One down, 79 rodeos to go is the way I look at it. It's a step in the right direction. But I can honestly say this was the first time in a long time I've went somewhere I expected to win the rodeo before the rodeo started. I said we're going to win Denver, and I didn't give myself a choice. But I didn't ever press it—it just came together the way it was supposed to in my mind, the way I drew it up in my mind. That's one thing I've learned: Pray for things as if you've already received them.…

Ropers 20 years old and younger (based on birth year, born 2005 or later) must have a minimum of 10 entries between Nov. 29, 2024 and the start of the 2025 Cinch NFTR to be eligible to enter the NFTR. Entries at USTRC, WSTR (including add-ons), NTR, NTRL and Patriot events count toward the 10 entry requirement. This rule is simply to make sure every roper attending the USTRC's Cinch National Finals is handicapped correctly to ensure an honest and fair playing field for all. For ropers who cannot attend one of these events prior to the NFTR in Fort Worth, the USTRC's At-Home-Challenge (AHC) events are a great alternative. These virtual events allow ropers to rope at home on their own cattle with the chance to win free entries…

Reigning and back-to-back World Champions Tyler Wade and Wesley Thorp will once again bring an elite youth roping to Stephenville, Texas's Cowboy Capital of the World March 21-23 at 377 Arena, featuring $30,000 added thanks to some of the industry's leading partners. In its initial year in 2024, the roping paid out over $200,000 in cash and prizes. The WYTRC features two Open ropings March 21 and March 22, complemented by two Youth-Pro ropings, pairing the very best of the sport of team roping with youth competitors in a four-head, enter-up format. Pros competing in each Open must make themselves available for the Youth-Pro. “Great youth ropings that brought the best kids together with the best pros are where we cut our teeth and saw what we were made of…

Q: What do you remember about your dad's roping career from when you were a kid? A: All I remember is the buildings. I only wanted to watch the bull riding. Our hometown rodeo in De Leon was my first rodeo. I was 6 or 7, and entered the junior mustang riding. I was a mutton buster, too, and was adamant that I wanted to be a roughy. I didn't care about roping until later. Q: What are your earliest roping memories? A: My first roping competition was the Junior Looper at the USTRC Finals in Oklahoma City. I was maybe 3 or 4 roping in the 5-and-under, and when I won it, I threw my rope down, jumped on the back of the bale of hay that had the…

When other 10-year-olds were off riding bikes or playing baseball, Gary Fields would instead go to his family's Kansas City, Missouri, shop and play with pipe and sheet metal. There, surrounded by the pumps, thermostats and evaporator coils of his family's HVAC business, he learned the unique satisfaction of building things by hand—a lesson and skill that's served him well throughout his life, whether he's building business empires or phenomenal rope horses. Fields, 65, comes by his mechanical inclination honestly. In the 1920s, his great-grandfather started working in refrigeration and Fields was the fourth generation of his family to take up the industry mantle. By 1977, he was working as a service technician in Texas when a chance encounter changed the direction of his life. Like so many great sagas,…

{ Vital Stats } NFR Average titles: 1 ROPE: Classic Powerline S PARTNER: Hunter Koch PRCA EARNINGS: $1,495,000 RIDING FOR SMOOTH HANDLES Whether you're trying to be 3 or 10, you can handle your steer better by sitting square in the saddle. Here's NFR Average Champ Cody Snow's user-friendly guide to smoother handles. Looking at these pictures, I am really riding in the middle of my horse. That's something I've always worked on, and it lets me handle steers better and give my horses clearer cues. This is a horse with Corona Cartel on his papers that came from Cole Futrell, and with all his run, I like to keep what I'm doing clear and controlled to help his mind. 1 GAINING That horse gains on the steer a lot, but he's really…

Six-time Wrangler National Finals Rodeo qualifier Brent Lockett has two heel horses of the year plus the one that kickstarted his career buried in his backyard. Paint wasn't eligible for an American Quarter Horse Association-sponsored award, because he was registered with the American Paint Horse Association instead. But if you take away that one horse, Brent's NFR back-number collection would surely shrink. Paint's the one who got the rodeo ball rolling for the middle Lockett boy, who's bookended by big brother Blaine and little brother Kyle. Before we get back to Paint, a well-earned honorable mention of the two great ones buried beside him. Wills Budha took 1995 Heel Horse of the Year honors back when Cody Cowden owned him. Brent bought “Blue” toward the end of the horse's career.…

Marcus Battaglia and Jason Johe ended 2024 by winning the California Circuit year-end heading and heeling titles Dec. 31 in Red Bluff, California. Both earned their first year-end circuit titles, with Battaglia claiming the heading title with $24,110 and Johe taking the heeling title with $35,464. “I started when I was 18, so it means everything,” Battaglia, 34, said. “I've been to the circuit finals more than a handful of times, and I won the average back in 2011 with Kyle Lockett. But then I had some horse troubles and life took a different direction. I came back in the last five years, bought a new horse and made the circuit finals again there four or five times in a row. So, to get it done is a dream come…

Eric Fabian and Derek Carey took home the First Frontier Circuit Finals average title Jan. 11, 2025, en route to the 2024 First Frontier year-end heading and heeling titles. The New Yorkers roped three steers in 20.8 seconds in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to secure the aggregate title and finish the year with $14,923.64 a man. Both have careers outside of the arena—Fabian is an elementary physical education teacher and basketball and track coach, and Carey works in construction—so they stick close to the circuit trail and are one of the most recognized teams on the East Coast. Fabian now has four year-end titles and six average titles. But for Carey, who has three average titles, the year-end has eluded him. Until now. “It's a sigh of relief because it's always been…

ROUND 10 REFLECTIONS Coleman Proctor roped for two gold buckles in Round 10 of the 2024 NFR. When he didn't connect, he shared with us the kind of insights that only Coleman can provide. I told (my wife) Steph I would go back and relive that entire day again. Even knowing the result, even knowing the heartache, it's going to follow everything. I would go back and relive that day again because that was the most fun day that I've had besides my wedding and my kids being born—from the support from the fans and knowing that your whole life, you've wanted to run one for a gold buckle, and I got to run one for two. You know what I mean? It doesn't get any better. That's the reason…

Team roping's number system has been around, in one form or another, since 1990 with the inception of the USTRC. That number system—now known as Global Handicaps—has turned team roping into a mammoth industry that generates hundreds of millions in economic impact for the Western industry each year. It draws both admiration and criticism, but its impact is far-reaching. A roper's progress through the number system is a statistical indicator of ability. And perhaps those indicators are most crystallized in the early identifiers of greatness—with guys like reigning and back-to-back World Champions Tyler Wade and Wesley Thorp hitting the upper echelons early in their careers, with good reason. Now, kids like Cooper Brittain, a header who's a 7 at 14, and Michael Calmelat, mainly a heeler who's been a 9.5…

National Team Roping invites ropers of all ages to #eNTRup at the NTR National Finals XI, presented by Cinch, hosted at the iconic two-arena setup at Rancho Rio, March 8-15, 2025. Following the 2024 NTR National Final's $1.1 Million in cash and prizes, The NTR National Finals caters to ropers from all walks of life who come to compete for large payouts and prizes. The Roping While ropers travel from near and far to enjoy untwisting their twines in the warm Arizona weather, the NTR National Finals continually strives to cater to the whole rig when it comes to quality jackpotting action and family fun. The NTR National Finals and NTR ropings throughout the year are user-friendly for both the ropers and the flaggers, making the entire roping fun for…