Reno Stoebner, 25, has taken a $107.66 lead on the No. 2 man in the 2021 Resistol Rookie Heading standings with $9,574.91 in season earnings.
Stoebner, originally from Bastrop, Texas, now residing in Stephenville, Texas, moved from fourth to first in the Resistol Rookie heading standings after he and his partner, Pace Blanchard, won the Crystal Springs Rodeo in Clear Lake, South Dakota, and placed fifth at the Crooked River Roundup in Prineville, Oregon.
“I hadn’t been looking at it,” said Stoebner of the Resistol Rookie standings. “I’m too nervous to look at it. When I run my 55th one this year, then, that night I’ll look at it. We just finally had a good week last week. I had a really bad winter and bad spring. I didn’t go as much in the spring. I’ve been close a lot of places already and my rodeo count is probably higher than it should be right now. I didn’t know it was going to open up like it did with Coronavirus.”
Stoebner and Blanchard won most of their weekend earnings after winning the Crystal Springs Rodeo with a 4.2-second run, worth $3,648 a man.
“I knew that 4.5 was first and even if it wasn’t there I was going to try and catch, because I think 5.5 was third,” said Stoebner, who rode miniature bulls until he was 11 years old and then picked up a team rope. “Cory Kidd went right before me and went at his steer, so I was just like, ‘I’ll go at him, too.’ I ended up getting a half head. I did miss the left horn and it went on half head and Pace heeled him fast.”
Stoebner, a recent Southwest Texas Junior College grad, headed on his quick-footed 8-year-old gelding, Bean Dip.
“I’ve been the only guy to ever head on him, other than a couple runs,” he said. “I’ve been the only guy to own him, so he’s really custom. He’s the horse that I actually learned how to reach on. When he was young, he wasn’t ever really special, but the first jackpot I ever took him to, I ended up needed one more head horse. I ended up heading on him and won the roping and won a saddle. I just started hauling him from there. He wasn’t even really ready. I rodeo-broke him at Northside and I want to say that I won the first eight rodeos that I took him to. He was just natural at it. I’ve been riding him ever since. He was never built to be a head horse. He was a heel horse forever, but I just practiced on him and he’s pretty flat.”
Before Stoebner and Blanchard roped at the Crystal Springs Rodeo, they started their weekend earnings at the Crooked River Roundup.
“It was kind of a different way of entering,” Stoebner said. “I went to Prineville Thursday night to Clear Lake, South Dakota. I didn’t really look at the map, but it turns out it’s 23 hours across there. We drove it straight through. We got in at like 8:20 p.m. and I think it was an 8 o’clock perf.”
They roped their first steer in 6.5 seconds, which was too long to place. They tied for sixth in the second round with Bryan Reay and Phoenix Everano with a 6.2-second run, worth $477 a man, and placed fifth in the average with a time of 12.7 seconds on two head, worth $1,210 a man.
“Our first one followed us a little bit, so the corner took a while,” Stoebner said. “I think we were maybe fifth or so after the first set went. I figured we would just catch and see how it went. The first 15 in the round didn’t do much good, so I figured, ‘Go catch and let them beat me,’ and right behind me, Luke Brown, Blake Hirdes and Chad Masters all beat us. We went 6.2 on the second one. When we left, I didn’t think we were going to win much, if anything at all. We just pretty much caught and made aggressive runs.”
With Prineville’s rodeo score being 22 feet long, Stoebner saddled his 12-year-old gelding, Jump Man, to run down the two steers.
“He’s a longer-strided horse of mine,” he said. “He was a show horse. He looked like he had a lot of potential, but he ran narrow and faced weird, like the rope show horses do. It took me about a year to get all the way with him. Ever since then, he’s been great. He’s got some more wheels to him.”
With a lot more rodeos to enter, Stoebner is focused on qualifying for the Wrangler NFR in December, as well as finishing out the year as the 2021 Resistol Rookie Header of the Year.
“I’m shooting to make the Finals, and if I win Rookie, then that is something really nice to fall back on,” he said. “I’m kind of being a realist about it, too. I had such a bad winter that, if I don’t make the Finals, I won’t be real bummed about it. I would dang sure love to get Rookie. There are a lot of good one’s left. We’re not going home and we’re going to 65 of them.”
Resistol Rookie Headers
1. Reno Stoebner, $9,574.91
2. Wyatt Muggli, $9,467.25
3. Tucker Menz, $8,040.05
4. John Gaona, $6,202.10
5. Braxton Culpepper, $5,803.46
6. Jon Peterson, $5,309.38
7. Jhett Trenary, $4,903.17
8. Cash Duty, $4,401.91
9. Hagen Peterson, $3,609.61
10. Jay Crain, $2,577.33
11. Jace Johnson, $1,975.40
12. Jase Staudt, $1,465.23
13. Houston Thomas, $1,459.69
14. Monty James, $1,256.47
15. Peyton Walters, $1,142.30
Resistol Rookie Heelers
1. Cole Curry, $13,169.81
2. Rance Doyal, $12,675.89
3. Calgary Smith, $9,441.91
4. Casey McCleskey, $8,203.32
5. Riley Curuchet, $7,518.38
6. Caleb Hendrix, $7,448.02
7. Sam Morgan, $3,027.74
8. Clay Elkington, $2,748.64
9. Trent Vaught, $2,120.64
10. Andy Smallwood, $1,968.48
11. Matt Williams, $1,931.05
12. Robert Murphy, $1,866.19
13. Jaylen Eldridge, $1,702.38
14. Bill Riel, $1,304.60
15. Jace Engesser, $944.53
Resistol Rookie All-Around
1. Wyatt Muggli, $21,498.46
2. Jon Peterson, $5,739.24
3. Tuff Hardman, $3,802.87
4. Jase Staudt, $619.20
5. Sam Morgan, $3,441.80
6. Tyler Zebrovious, $2,009.72
7. Monty James, $1,631.47
