Collinsville, Texas’, CR Bradley is a 23-time AQHA World Champion and Reserve Champion. He qualified for the National Finals Rodeo in the calf roping in 2004 where he rode his mare Twister Enola Gay, also known as Roanie. The trainer talks with The Score host Chelsea Shaffer about growing up in the horse training world, training techniques, his team roping goals and more.
On Thursday, June 11, 2020 you can listen to the full interview wherever you listen to podcasts, but for now, enjoy some takeaways from the episode, brought to you by Manna Pro.
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1. CR Bradley jumped around working and training under different trainers while he was attending school in Texas.
Bradley worked for Robbie Schroeder while he attended college in Gainesville, Texas, and jumped around learning from different horse trainers throughout his college career.
2. Bradley isn’t too keen on riding one that bucks.
“I don’t like riding them when they’re early 2. I like to have them broke for 90 to 120 days first before I ride them because I don’t like getting bucked off anymore. I do like the cow horse style. I like them really broke, but I like them where their shoulders are up. I want their head up but to bring their nose back and to go into the bridle where they keep their shoulders up and they drive their hind end up underneath them.”
3. Roping isn’t the first thing this horse trainer does when he gets a young horse in training.
“I ride for at least a year before I start roping on them. I’ll start them on the Heel-O-Matic for a month or so then start on slow cows. Heels on calf horses first because it’s slower and easier. When they understand coming out of the box and come out easy then hell start tracking calves around the arena.”
4. The NFR Qualifier and 23-time AQHA Open World and Reserve World Champion doesn’t just rope. He judges, too.
Bradley will be judging the Youth World this year as an AQHYA roping judge.
5. The World Champion has big goals set for himself in the rodeo-sense.
“I would like to become a better header. I still have a lot of work to do. I’ve kind of slowed down calf roping a couple years ago. I’ve always had really good calf horses around but I’m getting older now and it’s a lot of work to flank and tie calves. I’ve been working on my team roping and I would like to get a lot better.
“I’m trying to get better at reaching. When I was in college I headed decent. I actually team roped a lot growing up and then when I started rodeoing I team roped a little bit but, I was probably better at calf roping and I went more towards that and slowed down team roping.”
