Luke Brown and Junior Nogueira won the Windy Ryon Memorial five-head Cactus Ropes US Open Team Roping May 26 with a accumulative time of 38.54 seconds. 

Brown also won fifth and picked up a go round check with Kollin VonAhn, bringing his total for the day to $8,875. Nogueira banked $6,070. 

“It’s a long barrier and huge arena. It’s big—long and wide.” Nogueira said. “The steers can run everywhere—they’re crazy. You really have to draw good at this roping.”

The team came into the short round first high call.

“I had to really ride my horse,” Nogueira said, who rode 10-year-old mare Apaches R Hali (“Hali”). “I was having trouble in the go rounds getting out around the steers. That barrier is so long, so it’s hard to get there. We drew three good steers and the short round steer was good, too. We had to be 7.8 to win it, so if we’d have drawn bad we wouldn’t have done it.”

The flag fell in 7.31 seconds on their final steer to give the duo the win. 

Brown rode his sorrel gelding Cowboy, who he won the Cheyenne Frontier Days on in 2015 with VonAhn.

“Considering I’ve been to the Windy Ryon a dozen time and never won it—it’s a big deal.” Brown said. “It just worked out that day. It was just my day to win. I had a really good heeler.”

“I think it’s awesome to win a big roping—a famous roping.” Nogueira, who placed third at the Ryon in 2016 with Turtle Powell, said. “I wanted to win it. Luke is one of the best headers. It’s an honor to win with him—I’m very blessed.”