Monthly Archives: February 2013

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story appears in the February issue of Women’s Pro Rodeo News, the official magazine of the WPRA. It is being republished here with the magazine’s consent. Carlee Pierce needed a dominant run at the Ram Texas Circuit Finals Rodeo if she were to reach another major goal in her ProRodeo career. Mission accomplished. Pierce won two of three rounds, posting the two-fastest runs of the weekend in the process, and earned the average championship at the Extracto Events Center in Waco, Texas. On the second night, the only round she didn’t win, Pierce and her veteran mount, Rare Dillion, placed second behind 2012 world champion Mary Walker. “I knew we had a lot of work to do when we got to Waco,” said Pierce, who trailed Brittany Pozzi by $2,767 heading into the finale. “I’m very proud of Dillion. He was amazing all three rounds, and it showed. Pierce blistered the pattern in 15.95 seconds to win the opening go-round and the $1,452 first-place prize. On the final night, she and Dillion circled the barrels in a rodeo-best 15.89, finishing the three-round championship in a cumulative time of 48.24 seconds. In all, she earned $6,171 in Waco, scooting past Pozzi in the year-end standings by less than $900. “My main goal this year was to win the gold buckle, and we came very close,” said Pierce of Stephenville, Texas. “But one of my other goals was to win the Texas Circuit, and we were close enough to make it happen.” Texas is chalk full of outstanding barrel racers. Qualifiers to this year’s championship read like a who’s who of qualifiers to the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo. That elite-caliber talent provides an avenue for top-level competition. “I knew in order to give myself a shot, we had to win the average,” said Pierce, a two-time NFR qualifier who finished second in the 2012 world standings. “In order to win the average there against those horses, we had to do well in the rounds.” That’s just what happened. In winning on opening night, Pierce bettered Walker by nearly three-tenths of a second. Still, the champ was in contention for the average title, her only shot at qualifying for the Ram National Circuit Finals Rodeo since Walker came in well down the money list. On the second night, Walker evened the score. Her 16.09-second run on Latte was worth the round win, and she bettered Pierce’s time of 16.40 and held a two-hundredths of a second lead over the 2012 reserve world champion. “It was a great barrel race,” Pierce said. “Mary and Latte proved why they’re world champions, but I was pretty confident in Dillion.” She should be and proved it on the final night of the competition, when she and her 13-year-old buckskin gelding posted the fastest time of the finale. Pozzi posted her fastest time of the competition; her 16.11 moved her to second in the round, just six-hundredths of a second ahead of Walker’s third-place run. “I really wanted to make it back to Oklahoma City this year,” said Pierce, who qualified for last year’s national circuit finals as the year-end runner-up in the Prairie Circuit. “I’m very excited to get to go back.” Pierce moved to Stephenville from Woodward, Okla., in October 2011, which is why she has changed her home circuit. By finishing second in the Oklahoma-Kansas-Nebraska region to two-time NFR qualifier Jeanne Anderson, who also won the average at the 2011 finale, Pierce and Dillion were part of the RNCFR’s field last spring. In Oklahoma City, the pair raced to second place – one of many they encountered in the 2012 campaign; Pierce also finished runner-up in Houston, San Antonio and Cody, Wyo. – finishing behind Pozzi. Now the two will take their elite class of barrel horses to ProRodeo’s national championship for the second straight year, both representing the great state of Texas. Since Pierce won the year-end and the average, Pozzi earns the right to compete by finishing second on the money list. The field will be made up of 24 ladies from all across the country. The year-end and average champions from each of the 12 ProRodeo circuits qualify for Oklahoma City. “This is a very prestigious rodeo, and I’m very excited to be part of it again,” Pierce said. “It’s one I want to win, and Dillion loves that arena.” Now Pierce will wait until the first weekend of April to see if she can a major ProRodeo championship. “After finishing second so many times last year, it felt pretty good for me to win the circuit finals and the year-end title,” Pierce said. “Let’s hope this is a good sign for 2013.”

MIKE OUTHIER, Utopia, Texas How in the world does a four-time Wrangler National Finals Rodeo saddle bronc riding qualifier get into the field for the Timed Event Championship? Well, he’d better be pretty handy with a rope and understand timed events well. That describes Mike Outhier pretty well. Yes, he was the 1998 PRCA Resistol Saddle Bronc Riding Rookie of the Year, but he grew up with a rope in his hand and a tenacity to do just about anything possible in the world of rodeo. He earned Linderman Award titles in 2004 and 2007, joining Trell Etbauer this weekend as the first Linderman winners to compete in the Timed Event. In 1994 and 1995, he competed at the International Youth Finals Rodeo in Shawnee, Okla., in all six events available for boys: tie-down roping, steer wrestling, team roping, bareback riding, saddle bronc riding and bull riding. He would’ve done so in 1996, but a broken left arm left him unable to ride bulls. Yes, those credentials make you wonder what he might be able to do with a barrel horse. No matter where he garnered his fame, Mike Outhier is a true cowboy, and he wants a solid performance this weekend to prove it to us all.

SPENCER MITCHELL, Colusa, Calif. Spencer Mitchell watched closely to the goings-on at last year’s Timed Event Championship. Mitchell was inside the Lazy E as a helper, the teammate in team roping for the bright stars in this game. This year, he’s taking a turn at riding in the championship himself. Mitchell, a header by trade, has qualified for the last two Wrangler National Finals Rodeos, roping this past December with Dakota Kirchenschlager after losing longtime friend and partner Broc Cresta last July. Mitchell and Kirchenschlager placed in three NFR go-rounds, including splitting first in the fifth round and winning the ninth round outright. They earned $43,876. Mitchell has been around the sport all his life and is the third generation of his family to compete professionally. As a youngster, he qualified three straight years for the National High School Finals Rodeo. As a member of the PRCA, he’s earned rodeo titles from events in California to Idaho to Wyoming to Kansas. Last spring, he teamed with Brady Minor to win the team roping title at the Ram National Circuit Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City. This is his time to shine, and Spencer Mitchell is ready for the challenge.

TRELL ETBAUER, Gruver, Texas The Etbauer name is etched deeply in rodeo’s lore. The family owns seven PRCA world championships – a telling tale in its own right. But those gold buckles come in saddle bronc riding, and nobody knows that any better than Trell Etbauer, the 28-year-old son of two-time world champion Robert Etbauer and nephew of five-time titlist Billy Etbauer. But championships are nothing new to Trell, a three-time Linderman Award winner for his exploits in both timed and roughstock events – he won his first Linderman in 2008, the year he was named the PRCA Resistol All-Around Rookie of the Year. Trell Etbauer is a three-time Prairie Circuit all-around champion, having won twice while still on his PRCA permit. In addition to riding broncs, Etbauer’s a pretty snazzy roper and bulldogger. In fact, he won the 2005 College National Finals Rodeo title in steer wrestling. Last year alone, Etbauer won 10 all-around titles – in six of those, he also won titles in steer wrestling, tie-down roping or both. Over the years, Trell Etbauer has proven he can handle many tasks. He’s ready to prove on a national stage that the Etbauer name is synonymous with cowboy, not just bronc riding.

DUSTIN BIRD, Cut Bank, Mont. Dustin Bird isn’t Canadian, though it’s less than an hour’s drive from his home in northern Montana to the Alberta border. Still, Bird owns one of the most coveted pieces of hardware ever issued by the Canadian Professional Rodeo Association – the 2012 team roping championship. But what made last season even more special was his first qualification to ProRodeo’s grand finale, the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo. Though he and partner Paul Eaves quickly learned the pressure that lives in Las Vegas in December, they also won the fourth go-round and left the City of Lights with nearly $30,000. But Bird has high expectations, and over the years, he’s proven why. You see, the Montana cowboy is a three-time all-around champion at the Indian National Finals Rodeo. Though he burst onto the national scene just recently, Bird has been around the game for some time. And those are a few of the reasons why he received that elusive invitation to be part of the field this weekend. Expect a lot of fireworks; Bird does.

GUTHRIE, Okla. – Susie McEntire-Eaton will host Cowboy Church in conjunction with the 2013 Timed Event Championship at the Lazy E Arena. McEntire-Eaton will perform with her husband, Mark Eaton, during the service, set for 9 a.m. Sunday, March 3, inside the arena. McEntire-Eaton, a country Christian artist, is well known for her spiritual and uplifting music; she also is co-host of Cowboy Church, which airs at 4:30 p.m. Central on RFD-TV. McEntire-Eaton grew up on a ranch in southeastern Oklahoma as one of four children born to Jackie and Clark McEntire. Her father was a three-time world champion steer roper, following in the footsteps of his father, who also won a steer roping world title. Rodeo has always been a big part of the McEntires’ lives, and Cowboy Church services are a way for McEntire-Eaton to combine her ministry with the sport. The Timed Event Championship is an invitation-only event in which the 20 contestants compete in all five timed-event disciplines. The top prize for best cumulative score will receive $50,000, but the overall purse is $150,000. This year marks the 28th year of the unique championship.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first of 20 biographies I will publish for this year’s Timed Event Championship, set for March 1-3 at the Lazy E Arena. The remaining 19 bios will be published over the next couple of weeks leading up to this year’s championship; this is how they will appear in the souvenir program. ERICH ROGERS, Round Rock, Ariz. The credentials are pretty solid for Erich Rogers: He’s qualified for the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo each of the past two years, where he and partner Kory Koontz placed third in the average race; Rogers finished fifth when the final heading world standings were released. But there’s a lot more to Rogers than that. Raised in Round Rock, Ariz., on the Navajo Nation, Rogers is a talented cowboy and can handle numerous tasks. In fact, he won the all-around title at the 2008 All Indian Rodeo Cowboys Association Championship Rodeo. Since then, he’s made quite a hand in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. Roping with fellow Arizonan Cory Petska, Rogers won a number of rodeos in 2009 and 2010, including the prestigious Rodeo Austin (Texas). While roping with Koontz in 2011-12, the pair won events in Tucson, Ariz. (twice); Colorado Springs, Colo.; and Lovington, N.M. They also won Round 7 at the 2011 NFR. Reunited with Petska, the duo has already earned one big win in 2013 in Odessa, Texas. Now he’ll put that winning history to the test inside this arena this weekend. It should be a great show.  

There are a number of ways to describe today: Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras Day, Shrove Tuesday and, for those from southwest Kansas, International Pancake Day. The latter comes from the annual event in which women race down the street flipping pancakes. It began more than 500 years ago in Olney, England, but in 1950, the race began between Olney women and those from Liberal, Kan. The fastest time wins. So contestants battle one another without having to witness the other’s run. It’s not side-by-side competition like most races, but it’s still the same distance and the same parameters. It’s a lot like rodeo, isn’t it? Though times in Jackson, Miss., aren’t counted against times in San Antonio or San Angelo, Texas, or any other rodeo going on this week, cowboys and cowgirls are competing against one another at different locales, trying to get the fastest times (or top scores in the roughstock events) at each stop along the way. This time of year features indoor events all across this country, with a pile of lucrative events in Texas and across the Southeast. We crowned champions in Fort Worth, Texas, this past weekend, with barrel racer Taylor Jacob earning the biggest payday with $14,796. We will announce the winners in Jackson  tomorrow night, and a week and a half later, San Antonio and San Angelo will pay out  their top prizes to the best of the best. This time of year doesn’t feature non-stop rodeo like we’ll see in a few months, but it is very important to a lot of people who make their livings in this sport. Ask Kaycee Feild, the two-time reigning world champion bareback rider who owns the last two titles at the Fort Worth Stock Show Rodeo. That will provide Feild with a dose of comfort and flexibility as he moves forward, allowing him to relax a little more and allow his classic spur stroke to shine at every rodeo in which he competes. That’s a distinct advantage that hundreds of others would love to experience.

The Super Bowl is sports’ biggest spectacle, and it has been that way for decades. Now in its 47th year, it proves each winter why the NFL is the biggest sports commodity in the land. But the Super Bowl reaches well beyond sports fanatics. Millions watch just for the halftime show, while millions more watch the telecast just for the commercials, which, this year, were worth $3.8 million for a 30-second spot. Each commercial provides a flair for comedy, storytelling and/or the dramatic. This year’s game featured a great bout between the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers, a 34-31 Ravens victory. It also featured a poor halftime show with Beyonce; hilarious commercials from Taco Bell, Bud Light, Doritos and Tide; and touching pieces from the Budweiser Clydesdales and Ram Trucks. The wonderful storytelling in the Clydesdales and Ram were absolute reflections of our Western lifestyle, highlighted by the raising of a young horse that becomes one of the most majestic creatures in marketing and the true workmanlike nature of farmers who feed the world, using the valuable words written by Paul Harvey. I applaud Anheuser Busch and Chrysler Group LLC for reaching into the core of our nation’s legacy and touching the hearts of millions of viewers. We got their millions of dollars’ worth of advertising deep in our hearts, and I appreciate it.