Throughout my entire roping life, my brain has always analyzed every aspect of this game, adapted and changed when I thought trying something new might make me better. To this day, it’s how things work with me. 

Here lately—as I roll up on 65 in May—I continue to work on my roping. But I’m going at the whole process with a different, older body. It’s brought a new challenge into play, as I keep learning and adapting as an older person who moves a little differently now. 

Even though I’m working on trying to stay in shape with a healthy diet and exercise, so I can continue to be as much of an athlete as possible, I’m learning what kind of compensations are needed to be as good as I can be roping in a 65-year-old body. 

There are all types of areas we need to evaluate here—physical and mental dynamics, and what kind of horses and partners work best as we get a little older included. This is not a bad thing, and I’ve learned things from all the transitions over the years that continue to help me. 

We’re all in the same boat here when it comes to aging, and taking this challenge on with a positive mindset as we get older sure helps us adapt to aging as successfully as possible. To this day, I go to bed evaluating where I am with life and roping, and formulate a plan for the next day. That’s how I look at it every day. That’s my routine, it’s strategic and I stick with it. 

I always look at things from that perspective—in 24-hour intervals; one day at a time. What I’ve found is that looking too far ahead or staying stuck in the past aren’t all that productive. My mind needs to focus on being the best I can be today, then get back up and work on the process again tomorrow. Keep your head down and keep paddling. Stay at work. 

I’ve come to realize that my way of thinking is not the way a lot of other people think. I used to think maybe my perspective was the right one. But I’ve come to realize that we all look at the process of life, including roping, differently. And we all have to walk to the beat of our own drummer in how we work, because we’re all different. 

We all have to deal with a lot of the same things, but we go about it in a way that gets the job done for us personally. I lost a year of roping to shoulder surgery in 2024, then got to rope a lot in 2025. It brought me right back to this evaluation process, and trying to get back to a level of personal satisfaction with my roping. 

My eyes still see the same things, and I think I should be able to react to those things like I always have. But I found myself not being able to adapt like I wanted and had in the past. I also realized that some of the principles pertaining to my swing, timing, body position and even horsemanship that have been my style took a lot of strength and power. When I called on that and it wasn’t there, I had to start figuring out new ways to get the job done. 

In this process, I’ve learned some cool things about horsemanship that have helped me adapt to this new normal. I’ve learned things like body position that’ll help with the new mathematics of the equation, and it really made a difference. It’s exciting to me—even at this stage of my roping career—because I’m looking for results just like everybody else. 

I’ve spent the last 30 years or so sharing my roping experience with others, and it’s been fun to help people who are trying to get better, just like me. There’s kind of a double reward. I like helping people, and I get a lot of satisfaction out of them telling me that I explained something to them in a way that made a difference to them and their roping. Everybody wins. 

—TRJ—