When the curtains closed on the 2024 Cinch USTRC National Finals of Team Roping in Fort Worth on April 28, Caroline Taylor and Kyra Hendren were each named the Cinch Ladies Year-End Award winners, and deservingly so.
2024 Cinch Ladies Champion Header: Caroline Taylor — 131 points
In July 2023, Taylor, from Canutillo, Texas, broke out onto the Cinch Ladies standings with a first-place tie at 26 points. In August, she firmly took the lead when she earned 19 points at the Albuquerque Classic, giving her a total of 45 points and a 9-point lead over the No. 2 header. Chipping away at the race through the Southwest, Taylor, 24, then grew her cache to 62 points in September at the Turquoise Classic and increased her lead by two to an 11-point spread.
Taylor went quiet for the next two months when the bulk of the action happened for the No. 3 through No. 5 headers. Her lead held through late December, though, when she roped at Walt Eddy’s Lasso Del Sol for 22 points. Suddenly, she held a 33-point lead over the No. 2 roper, a gap that proved too wide for her fellow Cinch Ladies contenders.
When Taylor rode into the John Justin Arena to compete at the Cinch USTRC NFTR (the contest rules state that contenders must compete at the Finals to be eligible for the year-end award), she did so with a whopping 131 points. Even as the next contestants made great efforts to climb the standings charts, the year closed with Taylor boasting a 71-point lead over the No. 2 header.
2024 Cinch Ladies Champion Heeler: Kyra Hendren — 32 points
Similar to Taylor, Albuquerque, New Mexico’s Hendren cracked out in the Cinch Ladies race at August’s Albuquerque Classic when she won second place in the #7 for 9 points, putting her in the fourth-place position in the standings.
In October, though, the 18-year-old heeler continued her upward trajectory when she earned another 8 points when she won third in the #6. That gave Hendren a total of 17 points, which put her in the No. 2 spot, just 7 points behind the top spot. She didn’t remain there long.
By November, Hendren claimed the No. 1 position on the Cinch Ladies standings for herself when she again won second place for 9 points in the Mesilla Valley Classic’s #7 roping. The efforts gave her 26 total points and just a 2-point lead. It was a valuable battle won, but the next month would prove the war wasn’t over.
In January, Hendren lost the No. 1 position by when Nicole Jauregui, of Seminole, Texas, bested her by 4 points after a heck of a showing at the Mathew’s Land & Cattle Andrews Texas roping. In March, though, Hendren proved victorious when she finished fifth in the #8 roping at the New Mexico Championships, worth 6 points.
Hendren finished the year with a total of 32 points and a 28-point lead over No. 2 roper Whitney DeSalvo, the only other Cinch Ladies heeler to enter the Cinch USTRC NFTR in 2024.
As 2024 USTRC Cinch Ladies Champions, Taylor and Hendren were awarded $1,000 cash bonuses and a year’s worth of Cinch apparel, courtesy of the sponsor.
Current USTRC or Key Card/Key Card Max membership is required to participate in the Cinch Ladies Program. Earned points begin counting at the time of membership purchase through the NFTR’s last shootout event. The season begins the Monday after the last USTRC NFTR event and ends the last day of the next USTRC NFTR event.
Ropers must enter at least one Shootout division in the USTRC NFTR to be eligible. The award will be announced at the end of the USTRC National Finals of Team Roping event.
—TRJ—
