With just five weeks remaining in the 2022 ProRodeo regular season, Blaine Turner currently ranks No. 2 in the Resistol Rookie heeler standings with the aim of taking the lead and earning the Year-End title to add to his ProRodeo resume.
Currently, Turner has $23,284.13 in PRCA earnings, $3,711 behind Junior Zambrano, of Nogales, Arizona, ranked at No.1.
Season Highlights
“There’s been some ups and downs this season,” Turner said.
Turner’s rookie year started off with a win at Hempstead, Texas’s Waller County Fair & Rodeo. He then won fifth at Florida’s 94th Annual Championship Rodeo and tied for fifth at Missouri’s American Royal Rodeo. In Iowa, he hit a lick winning the Cherokee Chamber PRCA Rodeo and Atlantic Pro Rodeo, but his most recent win came from Colorado’s Cheyenne County Pro Rodeo.
“Hempstead was probably the best one. First one of my rookie year, I won first. I felt like I was going to win the world,” Turner said with a laugh.
Putting in the Work
The 23-year-old from Batesville, Arkansas, began roping as a header at 15 years old but switched to heeling four years ago. He bought his PRCA card after his friend, four-time NFR qualifier Tyler Wade, asked him to heel at circuit rodeos.
“My heeling from last October till now has drastically changed,” Turner said. “Mainly because I have two new horses. But just practicing with Wade and getting runs in, it’s helped a lot and he’s helped me a lot at the rodeos, too.”
Horsepower
Turner has five horses in his arsenal, but his No.1 right now is a 15-year-old paint gelding that he purchased from Blaine Vick of Breckenridge, Texas, last spring.
Big Goals
It’s going to be a tight race over the next five weeks for the Resistol Rookie of the Year, but Turner has his sights on earning the title, as well as winning even greater titles in the future.
“Rookie of the Year is a one-time thing,” Turner said. “I’d like to win it, but it’s not the end result. I would like to think that the NFR is, and after that, a world title. But that’s a few years away.”
Resistol Rookie Standings as of August 29, 2022:
Resistol Rookie Headers:
- Tanner James, Porterville, CA – $38,263.42
- Kreece Thompson, Munday, TX – $29,683.86
- Bodie Mattson, Sturgis, SD – $13,643.34
- Kash Bonnett, Ponoka, AB – $10,440.19
- Tyler Hobert, Clearwater, KS – $7,930.78
Resistol Rookie Heelers:
- Junior Zambrano, Nogales, AZ – $26,995.09
- Blaine Turner, Batesville, AR – $23,284.13
- Thomas Smith, Mt. Juliet, TN – $20,978.09
- Clay Green, Pine Grove, LA – $16,768.75
- Trae Smith, Georgetown, ID – $16,411.81
