4th of July

This is Matt Sherwood giving you the rodeo thoughts over the Fourth of July and on. The Fourth really starts about the middle of May when you start getting the ProRodeo Sports News with the rodoes. This is when you find out when slack is going to be at all the rodeos and start looking at the schedule to see what you can get to by driving or flying, and how many horses you have and will be able to get where.

Obviously, the bigger the rodeo the more important it is to have you good horse, but that good horse can’t be everywhere! So you got to pick and choose, plus you don’t want to go to so many all-nighters in the trailer that they won’t work that good when you get there. With all that garbage said, here we go…

Books start closing for everything on the first of June, and as you find out how you get up, then that dictates how much else you can enter. You get up bad, it’s like missing the loper. some guys who got up good will get to run 1st and 2nd round steers on the same day. Other guys will run one and then have to come back later in the week to run the 2nd.

So our schedule looks like this from here out: Pleasant Grove, Utah, Wednesday night the 18th - we were 5 2. Then Logan, Utah on Thursday night - we were 6 0, back to Pleasant Grove for the second round. Friday morning we were 5 2 again. Now we are driving to Reno where we will rope Saturday and Sunday in the World’s Greatest Roper four head. We’ll be at the BFI all day Monday, slack at Reno on Tuesday and Wednesday, and drive back to Salt Lake City and head up to Canada on Thursday. We rope in Ponoka on Friday afternoon, then Airdrie that night. The short round at Reno is Saturday night, if we are not in that then we are up in Lehi, Utah on Saturday night. Then we head to the first round at Greeley, Colorado on Sunday the 29th, and on to Cody, Wyoming on Monday. We fly to Window Rock, Arizona for slack Tues morning, head to Livingston, Montana that afternoon at 3:00 slack, then off to Oakley, Utah.

That night we’ll have to fly that night from Oakley back to Greeley (the PRCA is misguided or you would never have to go back to the same city twice - all 2 headers should be back to back). From Greeley, we fly back to Window Rock for that night, then Thursday night we will rope at the performance in Red Lodge, Montana at 6:00. Then in Cody, the second round at 8:00 and fly Friday morning to Prescott, Arizona to rope the 2nd steer at 7:30pm. That night we fly to Oregon to rope in Mollala - both steers that morning in slack, then drive to St. Paul for both steers that afternoon at 3:00. Then we fly to Oakley for the performance that night at 8:00 and we end there.

After all that, I’ll finally get to hang out with the family on Sunday and start again in Casper, Wyoming on Monday morning. That week will be super busy. I’ll keep you posted on how things go and who all is winning! Stay tuned!

Be sure to check out http://www.theamericanroper.com/ for the latest in team roping. Have questions about life on the road? You can email me at matt@theamericanroper.com!