Rodeo Round-Up Opportunities

^{By: Ruth Nicolaus}

South Dakota cowgirl leads breakaway roping at Red Bluff; credits the event for allowing her to compete fulltime.

Red Bluff, Calif. – Opportunities for women competitors in rodeo have grown with the addition of women’s breakaway roping, and the Red Bluff Round-Up was one of the first rodeos to include the event.

And for cowgirl Taylor Munsell, it makes all the difference in her career.

The Alva, Okla. cowgirl leads the breakaway roping at the Round-Up after two performances, with a time of 3.6 seconds during the Saturday, April 16 matinee.

Munsell had a strategy for her run in Red Bluff, factoring in arena conditions that were less than desirable, due to rain the night before, and the calf.

“I had a really good calf, they did well on him in the first round, and I knew I needed to be smart,” she said. “With the way the weather was, and the arena like it is, you have to be smart.”

A graduate of Northwestern Oklahoma State University in Alva, the 25-year-old cowgirl began her rodeo career about when breakaway roping broke onto the scene. She had just graduated from college and credits the cowgirls ahead of her for breaking ground.

“We have legendary cowgirls who have paved the way for us, like Jackie (Crawford), Lari Dee (Guy) and JJ (Hampton),” she said. “I feel like I’m sure blessed in this deal, because I’m at the top of my game. I’m the right age to do it. It was perfect timing for me to get into it.”

Full-time rodeo is her career; she rides and trains horses and puts on some breakaway clinics, when she can, but rodeo is her main gig. “It’s fun to actually get to do it.”

Last year, Munsell finished the rodeo season third in the world standings; she is currently ranked fifteenth in the world. The Red Bluff Round-Up has included breakaway roping as one of its events since 2018.

A famous bucking horse carried a Texas man to the top of the scoreboard in the bareback riding with a score of 87.5 points.

Virgil, a fourteen-year-old gray bucking horse owned by C5 Rodeo Co., is a two-time PRCA Bareback Horse of the Year winner (2018-2019) and has three times been runner up for the award.

And Bodee Lammers was the lucky cowboy to draw him for the Round-Up.

When a buddy texted him that Lammers had drawn Virgil, he thought his friend was playing a joke on him. “I thought he was messing with me,” he said. “Come to find out, it was true.”

Being an award-winning horse, Virgil is known to buck cowboys off but, if a cowboy stays on, the gray gelding give them the chance to make a high-point ride, and that’s what he did for Lammers.

“That horse is awesome,” he said. “He really hangs in the air and lets a guy show off (his spurring ability). He’s just an outstanding animal.”

Lammers didn’t start his rodeo career in the most conventional way.

The son of rodeo contestants, he and his siblings rode horses but during their middle and high school careers, played sports.

Lammers started on the Sul Ross State University (Alpine, Texas) football team for a year, but after attending a bareback riding school on a whim, he decided to switch to rodeo. “I fell in love with it, and I felt like the bareback riding was more for me than football was.”

He transferred to Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas and competed collegiately. But bareback riding is a difficult discipline to master, especially with Lammers’ late start.

“There were a lot of tough spills along the way,” he said.

He graduated from Tarleton State with a master’s degree in Ag Business and finished the 2021 rodeo season in the top thirty in the world standings.

This is his rookie year in the PRCA, so he’ll vie for the title of bareback riding rookie of the year. And he’s hoping to head to the biggest stage the PRCA has: the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo, the championship of pro rodeo, where the top fifteen in each event compete for a world title.

The money he’ll win in Red Bluff will help get him there. “That’s the goal this year,” he said.

In other events, the top saddle bronc rider for the Saturday matinee was Carter Elshere, Elm Springs, S.D. (82.5 points), and the bull riding lead went to Ruger Piva, Challis, Idaho (87 points).

In the barrel racing, Michelle Darling took the lead during the second performance with a time of 17.68. Out of the twelve barrel racers, she was the only cowgirl whose time was in the seventeen-second range.

The third rounds of the steer wrestling, tie-down roping and team roping wrapped up today, with the round win going to Stetson Jorgensen, Blackfoot, Idaho (3.9 seconds, steer wrestling); Zack Jongbloed, Iowa, La. (9.9 seconds, tie-down) and team ropers Zach Kilgus, Stephenville, Texas and Jake Edwards, Ft. Ann, N.Y. (5.3 seconds).

The third and final performance of the 101st annual Red Bluff Round-Up takes place April 16 at 1:30 pm. Tomorrow’s event is the annual Tough Enough to Wear Pink day, with funds raised for the Dignity Health/St. Elizabeth Community Hospital. In the last thirteen years, the Round-Up and other community activities have raised more than $550,000 for Dignity Health/St. Elizabeth.

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Results from second performance, Red Bluff Round-Up, April 16, 2022

Bareback riding

1. Bodee Lammers, Tolar, Texas 87.5 points on C5 Rodeo’s Virgil; 2. Keenan Hayes, Hayden, Colo. 84; 3. Seth Hardwick, Ranchester, Wyo. 80.5; 4. (tie) Cooper Cooke, Victor, Idaho and RC Landingham, Hat Creek, Calif. 79 each.

Steer wrestling

3rd round results; the 3rd round is completed and the top twelve steer wrestlers in the average will compete in Sunday’s performance

1. Stetson Jorgensen, Blackfoot, Idaho 3.9 seconds; 2. Dalton Massey, Hermiston, Ore. 4.4; 3. Levi Rudd, Chelsea, Okla. 4.6; 4. Caden Camp, Belgrade, Mont. 4.8; 5. Bridger Chambers, Stevensville, Mont. 5.1; 6. Justin Kimsey, Kennewick, Wash. 5.2; 7. Trisyn Kalawai’a, Hilo, Hawaii 5.3; 8. Taz Olson, Prairie City, S.D. 5.4.

Saddle bronc riding

1. Carter Elshere, Elm Springs, S.D. 82.5 points on Rosser Rodeo’s California Dreamin; 2. Damian Brennan, Injune, Australia 81; 3. Mitch Pollock, Winnemucca, Nev. 76; 4. (tie) Karson Mebane, San Luis Obispo, Calif. and Cash Wilson, Wall, S.D. 73 each.

Tie-down roping

3rd round results; the 3rd round is completed and the top twelve steer wrestlers in the average will compete in Sunday’s performance

1. Zack Jongbloed, Iowa, La. 9.9 seconds; 2. Brushton Minton, Witter Springs, Calif. 10.2; 3. (tie) Lucas Peres, Brazil and Hagen Houck, Henrietta, Okla. 11.1 each; 5. (tie) Riley Wakefield, O’Neill, Neb. and Reese Riemer, Stinnett, Texas 11.2 each; 7. Cooper Martin, Alma, Kan. 11.4; 8. Taylor Santos, Creston, Calif. 12.1.

Breakaway roping

1. Taylor Munsell, Alva, Okla. 3.6 seconds; 2. Tacy Webb, Midway, Texas 4.3; 3. Kelsey Nonella, Redmond, Ore. 4.4; 4. Jordi Edens, Gatesville, Texas 4.5.

Team roping

3rd round results; the 3rd round is completed and the top twelve steer wrestlers in the average will compete in Sunday’s performance

1. Zach Kilgus, Stephenville, Texas/Jake Edwards, Ft Ann, N.Y. 5.3 seconds; 2. Britt Smith, Broken Bow, Okla./Jake Smith, Broken Bow, Okla. 5.5; 3. Kaleb Driggers, Hoboken, Ga./Junior Nogueira, Presidente Prudente, Brazil 6.3; 4. Braden Pirrung, Hartford, S.D./Coley Nicholls, Kinnear, Wyo. 6.5; 5. Hayes Smith, Central Point, Ore./Cullen Teller, Ault, Colo. 6.7; 6. Rhen Richard, Roosevelt, Utah/Jeremy Buhler, Arrowwood, Alb. 6.8; 7. Jake Raley, Brush Prairie, Wash./Steven Gaona, Winkelman, Ariz. 7.0; 8. Jeff Flenniken, Caldwell, Idaho/Jake Minor, Ellensburg, Wash. 7.2.

Barrel racing

1. Michelle Darling, Stephenville, Texas 17.68 seconds; 2. Tarryn Lee, St. David, Ariz. 18.08; 3. Megan Champion, Ukiah, Calif. 18.25; 4. Katie Halbert, Ft. Lavaca, Texas 18.52.

Bull riding

1. Ruger Piva, Challis, Idaho 87 points on Bridwell Pro Rodeo’s Bailey’s Rozet Swag; 2. Boudreaux Campbell, Crockett, Texas 85; 3. Jordan Spears, Redding, Calif. 80; 4. Maverick Potter, Waxahachie, Texas 79.