Situation: Second round of the Open WSTR Title Fights at Rancho Rio in Wickenburg, Arizona

Time: 6.88 seconds

Result: Won the Open Title Fights, 30.50 seconds on four head, winning $10,800

a) HORSE:

His name is Doug. I just got him four days before that. He’s 9 years old. He’s always on the go, and he’s a little strong, but not bad. He’s a little new to going fast. He doesn’t know what to expect. He’s used to running to the middle of one and climbing. He just doesn’t know how to read me yet. I had to really sit there and get a hold of him going across to give my partner an easy go right there and bring the steer back to bring his feet together.

b) BODE BAIZE:

We’ve roped since we were little kids. I don’t know why, but we just have a lot of luck together it seems like. He’s a couple years older than me. I’ve roped with his brother at rodeos, I’ve been at the saddle shop with their dad, and I know the whole family pretty well. They all rope really good. We’re pretty much on the same page most of the time.

c) STEER:

This steer was good. We were almost 9 seconds on the first steer. This steer here put us back in the ballgame. We were like 6.9 on this one. It gave us a good chance and then we came back and were 6 again.

d) START:

The start was kind of tricky. If your steer didn’t start, then you were going to get the barrier. If your steer was good, then you could catch up so fast, but if your steer split the gates and you were behind, it took a while to catch up. On this steer, I made sure he stepped before I left. I just caught up and ran to the middle of him and cut his head off. I was just trying to get my partner a shot as fast as I could so he was able to throw faster. If I’m able to throw faster and get the steer’s feet together, I know he can throw really, really fast.

e) LEFT HAND:

I normally have my left hand up. Right here, as I roped the steer, the steer checked off into me and my horse didn’t really read the play, so I had to pull him off the cow. I was just trying to get a hold of his head right there as fast as I could. I was trying to get my horse to get going so I had to kind of pull on him a little bit. I normally don’t want to pull on one, but like I said, I only had this horse for four days at the time so he doesn’t really know what to expect out of me still.

f) RIGHT LEG:

The steer kind of got behind me a touch right there, so I was just trying to pay attention to the cow and see what he was doing in case if I needed to speed up or slow down. Ideally, you want your leg more forward but I was trying to get away from the cow when he slowed down so I was just trying to turn my body to get away instead of having the rope run across my legs.