Corey Whinnery and Robert Murphy walked away from the 2025 Turquoise Circuit Finals in Cave Creek, Arizona, as the average champions with a time of 21.9 seconds on three head, earning $3,295 each.
Whinnery and Murphy, who roped together most of the year, were 8.0 and 8.1 seconds on their first two steers, respectively.
Whinnery, a Wittmann, Arizona, resident who spends summers in Colorado, hadn’t entered a rodeo since the end of summer before the circuit finals.
“I hadn’t been anywhere for money since the end of August at the rodeo in Pueblo,” Whinnery said. “I felt a little rusty out there, actually. I missed the barrier on the first two and finally got a good start on the third one.”
The team ended up third in the third round with a 5.8-second run, good for $1,098. The stock contractor brought enough steers for everyone to get a fresh one in each round.
“We didn’t have a chance for the year-end,” said Murphy, of Congress, Arizona. “The first one was a little stronger, so we just went and got him caught. On the second one, we were hoping to make up a little time, but he was also a little stronger. Then that third one, he was pretty good, so it gave us a chance to get back in there a little bit.”
Whinnery headed to Congress a few days early to get some runs in with Murphy before the finals.
“We guide hunters in the fall,” Whinnery explained. “I got down there a couple days early to practice with him.”
For horsepower, Murphy was riding one newer to his string that he calls “Modelo”.
“I got him a year and a half ago; he’s ten,” Murphy said. “This is the first year I rode him, so it went pretty good.”
Whinnery was heading on one he calls “Casper” that he bought from a two-time world champion.
“I bought him from Matt Sherwood two years ago, and he’s been good,” Whinnery said. “He’s been my number one since I got him.”
Back-to-back for Derrick Begay and Colter Todd
Derrick Begay and Colter Todd won the 2025 Turquoise Circuit year-end team roping titles with $27,534.03 and $25,181.68 earned on the circuit front, respectively, making them back-to-back year-end champions.
A year ago, Begay and Todd bested both the Turquoise Circuit year-end and aggregate races. In 2025, Begay and Todd were on track for a repeat with a clean but out-of-the-money run in Round 1 and a second-place finish in Round 2 with a 6.5-second run worth $1,648 each. A no-time in Round 3, however, took them out of the aggregate.
The win marked Begay’s fifth Turquoise Circuit year-end title. For Todd, it was his second year-end Turquoise Circuit championship but his third overall, having won the Great Lakes Circuit heading title in 2004.
Begay and Todd put together a slate of big circuit hits throughout the season, including $4,351 each from Arizona’s La Fiesta De Los Vaqueros – The Tucson Rodeo in February. They added $2,574 apiece from the Roots N Boots Queen Creek Pro Rodeo and $3,856 a man after winning the second round and placing second in the average at Rodeo de Santa Fe in New Mexico in June. They pocketed $4,178 apiece at Prescott’s World’s Oldest Rodeo and $3,708 apiece for third at the New Mexico State Fair & Rodeo in Albuquerque.
The 2023 NFR average champs now head to the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas. Begay sits third in the world standings with $166,201.94 on the year, while Todd is second with $163,849.59.
