NFR heeler Douglas Rich is third in the aggregate with 33.50 seconds on four head on his head-horse-sized mount Cockys JR Shine at the 2024 Wrangler National Finals Rodeo, a testament to the horse’s ability to stop the clock on the heavy, big-framed cattle at this year’s Finals.
Jake Smith and Rich got their first check of the week in Round 4, but Rich’s 11-year-old gelding has been smooth as can be on his first trip in the Thomas & Mack.
“That horse is big,” Rich said. “We measured him the other day when I was at Jake’s house, and he’s almost 15.1. He’s a pretty big horse for a heel horse. But he is athletic, and he finishes good. I know when I put my rope down, no matter how big the steer is, that he’s not going to move—he’s going to stop the steer. And so I think it helps in the middle the arena. We can get a good finish. I know that he’s not going to get jerked around. And the saddle horn comes up when he stops, so he’s easy to dally on. It’s a pretty good feel.”
The big bay horse made his rounds in the North Texas roping community before finding his way to Rich. Rope horse trainer Jordan Allyn, who lives in Brock, Texas, was the first one to crack him out.
“I found him in Iowa with 30 days of riding on him,” Allyn said. “I bought him and he was supposed to be 4, but when I got the papers, he ended up being 6. And he was not gentle at all. I called him Night Train because if he wants to do something, get out of his way. But he was good—the first day I had him, I knew he had the timing.”
Allyn got the horse jackpot-ready, and somewhere along the way, three-time World Champion Junior Nogueira noticed him.
“I roped on him a bunch,” Nogueira said. “He was patterned and beautiful. He was going good, and Phoenix Everano really wanted him to rodeo on, and he rode him and loved him. He was looking for a good, younger horse. He took him and was rodeoing on him, but then I bought him back. I kept him for a while, and Doug was looking for a horse. He likes them big and strong, and I had surgery and had a lot of heel horses, and I thought that horse would be a perfect fit for Doug.”
By the time Rich got the horse, he had the heeling thing figured out. But he still wasn’t exactly kid-safe.
“He can be so gentle sometimes, but you take him to the vet and he’s instantly mad when you unload him,” Rich said. “Like, to give him a shot. He hates shots. But to shoe him, you have to give him a shot. And so there’s a little trick that we do to get it done. He’s getting better, but he’s still, he might try to kick the vet. He might, but they know him up there. Thankfully the horse is so tough, he’s sound, so they don’t have to do anything really to him. And so we can get by him pretty easy.”
This is Allyn’s first horse to make a trip to the Thomas & Mack, though he’s trained horses to hundreds of thousands in earnings in the futurities. Nogueira, for his part, has had plenty of them end up at the Finals under others. He trained Docs Gunslinger Chic, the horse Paul Eaves won the world on in 2020—the same mare Colter Todd won the average on in 2023 and Rich won a go-round on in 2021.
