After the regular season’s over, you take your hat off and wipe the sweat off of your forehead. It’s a relief. You get to go home, and regroup mentally and physically. Hopefully, you made the NFR and it’s time to get ready for the biggest 10 nights of the year. Deciding what to ride at the Finals was always the biggest decision for me.
In my prime, the regular season ended the first week of November, so there was a pretty tight turnaround before Vegas. With it ending September 30 now, guys have two months—this year, from October 1 until opening night at the NFR on December 5—to get ready.
I lived in Arizona most of my career, but most of the NFR guys live in Texas now, where there are a jillion jackpots to go to. They say iron sharpens iron, and those guys butt heads 365 days a year. That’s a great way to stay sharp.
I was always chasing horses throughout my career, and it takes such a unique horse at the NFR. I rode so many different horses there, and rarely rode one at the Finals that I rode all season. By the end of the year, they were either worn out or didn’t fit that little (Thomas & Mack Center) building, especially 10 nights in a row. It takes a special horse to succeed there, and it felt like I was always in search of him.
Speed Williams had an NFR weapon in Viper. That horse was deadly in that building. He wasn’t the biggest horse in the world, but he scored, came across there flat and gave Speedy a layup right there close. Then they pulled those steers off easy, Rich (Skelton) roped them and Viper faced. It’s hard to put a number on what percentage of their success has to be attributed to Viper.
Ropers have learned how hard it is there at the Finals on a horse. Because of that, most people don’t practice much on their NFR horse anymore. Even I didn’t do it back in the day, but got on a practice horse instead. You need to make sure your good one is in shape and dialed in before you get to town, but you don’t want him worn out and anticipating when you get there.
One of the horses I did best on at the Finals was one I hadn’t ridden much. The year Clay and I set the NFR record (59.1 on 10, in 1994) that held all those years, I sat around the USTRC Finals that fall and watched a ton of runs. One horse caught my eye, and he belonged to a jackpot roper by the name of Carlos Ortiz. I asked if he would consider selling him, and he met me at a little building in Albuquerque.
That horse had never been in the bright lights before, and actually worked kind of green there at the Finals. But the start was so short, so you could basically just nod and go. I could get a downtown start, and he broke across there flat. The steers were pretty big that year. I would just stick it on ’em, and rein him off, and those steers hopped off and gave Clay an easy shot.
That bay horse I called Sonny had never been reached and ducked on. He ran right there to the hip, and gave me jackpot throws. I was having to rein him off to get away from the steer, but I wasn’t having to fight for a dally. It was just easy on Clay and I.
The NFR is a unique rodeo, and it’s ironic to take one that’s never been to the big city before and have so much success on him. The crowd is so loud, and it feels like there are 17,000 people sitting right on top of you. Horses that have never heard or seen that can get their skirts blown up and get lost in that building, because that atmosphere packs a lot of pressure.
My bottom line was always wanting to make sure my horse was in really good physical shape going into that 10-day battle. And not getting too quick. I only roped one or two on my good one the day we broke in the steers in the Thomas & Mack.
I always enjoyed going out every morning during the Finals to feed and clean my own pens. And I had a place set up around town where I could go rope a handful of steers in the morning during the week, if my horse or I needed it. Like Joe Beaver said, “If things aren’t going right, I’m going to try something different and change my hat, my rope, my horse or whatever it takes to win.”
—TRJ—
