Rodeo’s honeymoon phase may be drawing to a close for 25-year-old Wyatt Muggli, whose real honeymoon phase is about to begin. Muggli has been building a home that should be ready for move-in this upcoming week and, on Oct. 2, he will be meeting barrel racer Lindsey Mcleod at the altar—a life event outside of the arena that has influenced his perspective on rodeo and the All-Around Resistol Rookie of the Year title.
Muggli has chosen to adopt a strategy based on staying close to home and capitalizing on rodeos that have less entries. He has been staying close to his home base in Lane, Oklahoma, since late July’s Cheyenne (Wyoming) Frontier Days and has been chipping away at the Resistol Rookie race.
Recently in Fort Madison, Iowa, Muggli pocketed $3,035 between calf roping and team roping. He emphasizes that rodeos like Fort Madison are the perfect example of one that has great money added, but may be off of the beaten path for the guys who are hauling heavily. Following this plan, he will only be seen at Springhill, Louisiana; Hot Springs, Arkansas; and Omaha, Nebraska, at the close of the 2021 season.
In the team roping, his faithful horse, Kidd, will get the call for the last few rodeos, but Muggli will be making a change up in the tie-down from his gelding, Ears. His new mare, Caturday Night, known as “Kat,” will get the call.
“Lindsey told me that ‘cat’ with a ‘C’ was just common, and we don’t need common,” Muggli explained, laughing, of the name’s unique spelling.
One major lesson Muggli learned on the road this year is that the team roping is increasingly getting tougher. He notes that, even when you draw great in the team roping and make a great run, you could still walk away empty-handed simply because of the stout competition. Due to this reality, Muggli feels it will be best to focus on roping calves in 2022 outside of the circuit rodeos.
“This year confirmed what I always thought. You’ve got to just enter good to where you have a chance to draw good. Then, it’s just not messing up the good ones. In the future, I’ll probably rope calves more than anything. Team roping’s a knife fight everywhere, where in the calf roping, you can still use your horse really good, draw good, make the best out of it, and you will win.”
Muggli would love to take home the Resistol Rookie title in the All-Around, but would be equally as happy for Slade Wood, with whom he’s been trading the No. 1 and No. 2 spots for much of the season. Looking ahead to 2022, he plans to see how his winter season pans out and how his team of horses is working before deciding on which strategy to follow in the future.
“I’ve got these last three rodeos. Two of them are real good, one is kind of smaller. I’m just going to do my job at them. Whatever happens will happen.”
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