Dear Roper, 

When Tauna Alcorn won her second consecutive roping at the Riata Championships, our cover choice for this issue was a no-brainer. 

She raked in nearly $150,000 at the world’s largest Ariat World Series of Team Roping qualifier in Guthrie, Oklahoma’s Lazy E Arena at the Riata, securing her spot in Las Vegas at this month’s Finale on her 7-year-old mare. 

But I’ve written in this very column about Tauna before, though you may have missed it. You see, 11 years ago, our sales rep, Nick Griggs, picked me up at an airport in Amarillo and drove me across New Mexico to try a horse his daughter’s friend had for sale. She was the brokest, most fun little mare I’d ever swung a leg over, and I bought her and never looked back. 

The girl who sold me the horse was Tauna Alcorn—freshly married to her husband Travis, who was the first one to hug her after each win at the Riata in September. Tauna was a hand then, and she’s a hand now. She’s the kind of horsewoman who’s finding her niche more and more as the Riata and futurity business take off, with Trevor Brazile and Miles Baker having bought a horse from her last year. Tauna’s just one of the many success stories we’ve seen from the growth of this industry, and the acclaim she’s receiving now is well deserved. 

You’ll find inside this issue all the results from the Riata, with the Riata sale preview in the Ariat WSTR Finale program, too, stacked with horses that will have you eligible for millions of dollars in added money in 2025. 

Of course, Kendra Santos pens her preview of the NFR team roping, and our team will be on-site from start to finish in Vegas to make sure you don’t miss a second of the action. 

See you at the South Point, 

Chelsea