Reno Stoebner Tops Permit Standings for Team Roping Heading
Team roping header Reno Stoebner’s 2020 permit season was so successful that the $20,285 he earned would have placed him third in the 2020 PRCA | Resistol Rookie Standings.
Meanwhile, he finished first in the PRCA | RAM Rodeo Permit Standings and 19th in the national college rodeo standings as part of the Southwest Texas Junior College rodeo team in Uvalde.
“It was like a warmup year for me to get my feet wet and see what it’s like rodeoing away from home before buying my card,” said Stoebner, 24.
That’s exactly what a ProRodeo permit is for. As with having a driver’s permit before earning a full license, ProRodeo has a permitting process before a cowboy is a full member of the PRCA. Permit holders compete alongside fully carded members until they’ve won $1,000 in a single event.
The experience turned out to be different from what Stoebner expected, but not because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s a lot different, the arenas were more of a diamond shape and there was so much variety,” Stoebner said. “In the Northwest the arenas were different. I like my steers coming to the left, but in those we had to keep them straight and the barriers were longer than what I’m used to.”
He spent most of the 2020 season roping with Colton Brittain, but about a month of the summer run was spent with Lane Siggins.
Stoebner’s biggest checks came from holding his own against some of the biggest names in ProRodeo at:
• San Angelo (Texas) Rodeo – $1,302
• Woodward (Okla.) Elks Rodeo – $2,030
• Deadwood (S.D.) Days of ’76 Rodeo – $2,500
• Jerome (Idaho) County Fair and Rodeo – $1,267
• The Annual World’s Oldest Continuous Rodeo in Payson, Ariz. – $1,548
Of course, the Bastrop, Texas, cowboy felt more at home competing in the Lone Star State.
“I know what the game plan is for those rodeos and what wins money in Texas,” Stoebner said. “But when you go to 65 rodeos, they won’t all be in Texas and you need to adapt. I wanted to see what it was like and what my game was missing before we went full time.”
Along the way, Stoebner picked up what he considers his most important lesson of the season.
“If I drew bad or anything happened out of my control, I would get mad about it and there’d be a snowball effect into the next run, but I learned to let things go if I can’t control it,” Stoebner said.
Having his first taste of ProRodeo life during the pandemic might sound like a bad experience, but not to Stoebner.
“I don’t know any different out west and up north, but everyone said we traveled farther so we were spending more money but weren’t roping for the same amount of money,” Stoebner said. “I haven’t known any different, but it was fun to me. It didn’t affect me much since I didn’t know what to expect.”
Stoebner keeps two American Quarter Horse geldings on hand, a 7-year-old called Bean Dip and a 12-year-old called Jumpman.
“Bean Dip’s name is a long story with an inside joke,” Stoebner laughed. “They’re different in their own ways, and one’s strength is the other one’s weakness. Jumpman is longer-strided and a little bit faster. He has some wheels and is better for the long-scored rodeos.”
Stoebner bought his card in September for his 2021 rookie season.
“The plan was always to max out this year and get my count in and see how it stacks up, and now it kind of reassured me I could do it and hang with the guys out there,” Stoebner said. “I made some adjustments with my roping and have some more to make still, but I plan to go to as many as I can.”
Courtesy of PRCA