After a rough start in Round 1, Oklahoma’s Cody Doescher battled back to win Round 2 of the 2022 Cinch Timed Event Championship at the Lazy E, worth $3,000 for his time of 51.3 seconds on five head.
“Last night was rough,” Doescher, 31, of Webbers Falls, Oklahoma, said. “My steer in the bull dogging kind of ducked his left horn. They said he’d let off a little bit flat, and I tried to get to the left horn and he tipped it down and I missed it and he got by me. I tried to wrestle him around there to get to his head and I never did.”
But in Round 2, Doescher took a different approach and stuck to his game. He made it through the go-round with just a small bobble on the heel side.
“Honestly, I hadn’t been rodeoing that much lately,” Doescher said. “So when I got here I felt fresh and I was craving it. I hadn’t been burnt out rodeoing for the first time. And my goal was to come have fun and do my job. I’ve come here every year not with a chip on my shoulder but almost feeling like I should win instead of just doing my job. When I go somewhere, I enter three events almost everywhere I go. So to come here should be no big deal. But I expect so much out of myself, I come here and instead of sticking to my game I’ve got outside my bubble. It’s cost me in my main event—mostly in the team roping the last years. I’ve tried to come here with a more fun mentality and relax and do my job.”
Doescher had Oklahoma horse trainer Casey Hicks heading and heeling for him, and he rode Clint Beverly’s head horse and his own long-time mare Ginger on the heel side. In the tie-down roping Doescher rode a horse of Kylie Bedene and Kyle Myers.
“That’s a really good horse and really easy and fits me good,” Doescher said. “Calf roping is my weakest event, and that horse has a lot of run and gives me time to get off and works good for me.”
In the steer wrestling, Doescher is borrowing a horse from Eastern Oklahoma’s International Professional Rodeo Association World Champion David Reagor. And in the steer roping, Doescher is on an ex-heel horse that he made into a busting horse.
“He was a little strong for what I wanted,” Doescher explained. “He was really good to head on, so we went to logging him a little. He’s turned out really good for me. This is the first steer roping horse I’ve made, and it’s a whole different deal as far as patience goes. Blake Deckard and Jason Stockton have helped me with that horse, and I’ve bene so fortunate to have guys like that in my corner.”
The 2017 World Champion Header Erich Rogers was second in the go-round behind Doescher with a 52.8 on five, worth $2,000. Rogers also has the lead in the aggregate with a time of 112.8 seconds on 10.
“The last time I was in the lead on two was four years ago,” Rogers said. “I blew my knee out that year, so that was the last time. I’m still doing the same thing, though. I just go catch them and knock them down. It’s pretty simple. You get caught up in watching them all, and it’s pretty fun, especially when you draw the good ones. It makes things a lot easier. I’d like to stay on the good side of these steers.”
Rogers has the help of his ProRodeo partner Paden Bray, who’s helped him since he was a young teenager at the Ironman.
“He’s helped me for probably all nine years, or at least eight of them,” Rogers said. “And Logan Olson has helped me several times, too. He’s doing a great job this year heading.”
Rogers is riding Cody Lee’s wife Lee Lee in the steer roping, and he’s borrowing JR Ironman leader Clay Clayman’s bull dogging horse. He’s also riding an ex-barrel horse of his wife Danna’s in the heading.
“So far so good, and I get to ride Paden’s heel horse Hugh too, so that’s a plus,” Rogers said.
The Cinch Timed Event Championships will again stream live from the Lazy E at 7:30 p.m., with the fourth and fifth rounds March 12 at 12 and 7:30 p.m., as well. TRJ
