SITUATION:
Second round at the Ellensburg (Washington) Rodeo

TIME:

4.4 seconds

OUTCOME:

First in the second round, worth $2,851 a man

a) Steer

My steer was supposed to be about medium. One time he went to the left, one time he went to the right. He wanted to drop his right horn. You can see in the picture that his right horn is kind of dropped. I had to open my head loop to get it around his horns and fortunately it worked out. It’s hard to reach far when they drop their right horn down, but luckily, he came to me and that helped me get him caught.

b) Handle

I got the steer before he got away. I felt like I had my angles down good where I could find the corner of the arena, which worked out well because when they step left at all, if you go much further you can kind of get caught in the V. Luckily, I got him to where I had good enough angles, I could get to the corner and I had enough room to give Billie Jack a pretty decent look.

c) Billie Jack

I thought he did a good job. When that steer stepped left and was trying what he did, he did a good job of getting around him and when that steer came together he was sitting there waiting for him to heel and it all worked out well.

d) Horse

That’s Nastee. I love that horse. He scores good and he can run really hard. He was an ex barrel horse. He’s one of the few horses I’ve had that you can ride at the NFR and he’s good at Cheyenne (Wyoming)—from the small arenas to the big arenas. He worked great on both of them at Ellensburg. He’s one of those that I try to save for the good rodeos and ropings.

e) Left Hand

I thought my left hand was pretty good. You can see where I got tight and am about to get ahold of his head, so I’m pulling my horse across to the steer so I can go ahead and pull him.

f) Mindset

You just have to go at them, so there’s not much thought process. I just wanted to see my start and react. When I’m going at ‘em, that’s my best thought process: Once I see my start, I need to react to what my steer does and try to be ahead of him.