Whitefield, Oklahoma, header Mike Bush and Choctaw, Oklahoma, heeler Justin Harrell won the Riata Championships Rope Horse Rewards #9.5 World Series qualifier at the Lazy E Arena in Guthrie, Oklahoma, with 35.58 seconds on four head for $41,200. They finished 0.30 seconds ahead of Kylie McLean and Melvin Helmuth (35.88).
For Bush, a 57-year-old contractor who builds houses and buildings, the check was about a lot more than money.
“I just want to start by saying I thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,” Bush said. “Five years ago this month, I never thought I’d be horseback. Went through four big surgeries and 20 rounds of chemo.”
Past Due
Bush and Harrell, a 51-year-old who works for the FAA, have been entering together for several months. They don’t practice together—they just meet up at the ropings—and until Saturday, the results hadn’t followed.
“Either I would miss or he would miss, and we were due,” Bush said. “We’d roped five or six ropings probably and hadn’t won a penny. We were past due. This was a good one to hit on.”
The Runs
Harrell liked their luck of the draw early.
“The first three rounds, we drew three really good steers,” Harrell said. “Short round, I tracked in a little farther than I should have.”
Harrell said he’d been struggling on his third-round steers all week, and it had cost him. Not this time.
“The second-round steer was good. Mike turned him good. Got him roped,” Harrell said. “Finally caught them.”
The cattle in the Lazy E ran a little different than the ones outside, according to Bush.
“They were a tick slower and a little bigger, but they were good,” he said.
Bush thought he broke the barrier on their second steer and told Harrell he’d back off on the third. He ended up even closer to the barrier on that one.
“He said, ‘I thought you was going to back off,’” Bush said. “And I said, ‘It just worked.’”
In the short round, Bush wasn’t taking any chances.
“I just didn’t want to break it. We had to be 11, and [I] just let him move and went and caught him, and Justin did his job,” Bush said. “It worked good.”
The Horses
Bush made the four runs on Little Cats Duce, a 2009 palomino gelding by Little Cat Olena out of Ninos Dr Pepper, bred by Mike and Becky Warden. Bush borrowed him from a friend and proxied him in. He’d never ridden the horse until Thursday morning.
“I went to a warmup roping over here at Cowboy Town, and it’s the first time I’d ever rode him, and I actually won first on him Thursday morning,” Bush said. “I’m glad he let me borrow him.”
Harrell heeled on Meowkaw, a 2020 sorrel gelding by EBR Kitty Hawk out of Asa Santana, bred by Kelsey J Turner. He bought him out of the Solo Select sale.
“He’s a good one,” Harrell said. “My boys can ride him.”
Both horses trace back to High Brow Cat—Little Cat Olena and EBR Kitty Hawk are both by him.
Close to Home
Bush lives about three hours east in southeastern Oklahoma—“a little four-way stop sign,” as he put it. Harrell lives about 30 minutes from the Lazy E, and he admits the Riata flew under his radar for a while.
“I knew nothing about it two years ago, and [I] live 30 minutes away,” Harrell said. “That’s how little my circle is.”
Bush thinks the event is only getting started.
“It’s basically a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for someone to be able to back in there and rope in a roping that adds $200,000,” Bush said. “I think it’s going to do nothing but get bigger and bigger.”
On the Stage
Bush had been carrying a promise with him since the BFI.
“I didn’t make a deal with God, but I told him, I’ve been telling him at the BFI and here, I said, ‘Lord, I’m going to praise you and I’m going to tell everybody, but until you put me on that stage, I can’t tell everybody,’” Bush said.
Saturday, he got his stage.
“I’m just glad to be here,” Bush said. “Be able to do what we do, and we’re not laid up in a hospital bed somewhere.”