The WRANGLER Horse and Rodeo News is an equine and rodeo publication with circulation in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota, Utah and Idaho.
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opinion on the judging style," said Yates who has yet to judge a team roping event but has judged calf roping in prior years. "It looks di«erent from the judges stand than from any other part of the arena," he added, "until everybody has at least put the e«ort in trying to judge and figure it out I don't think they should have a pitch." Undoubtably there will always be discrepancies in any scenario where scores are left up to humans and not just the time clock, "I've had my own complaints with the marks," Yates said, "but I still believe that our judges are trying to be honest and do as good of jobs as they can do, it's their game and you play by their rules, if you don't like their rules you don't have to play and there's nothing wrong with that." The added money has grown since the start of the futurities, "It's almost doubled because they worked hard, found good sponsors, and you know now the sponsors come to them," said Yates. The money grew right along with the entries "I believe there's a lot more people showing their talents with a horse." When it comes to preparing for the futurities, to be successful a trainer has to be aware of the penalties, "the penalties are what kill you," Yates said. "Actually, catching four cows clean means a lot, you never want to have lower than a 71 on your card. That means you can't break a barrier and you can't rope a leg." "I have no idea what the industry will look like in 10 years, but if it grows as much as it has grown already, it's going to be huge. For years they bred for team roping horses, then they started breeding for something else and now they're starting to breed back for team roping horses." Although some trainers have a preference when it comes to riding bloodlines, Yates has had the opportunity to ride countless good horses, all bred di«erently, "I look at the individual when I go to look at them before I look at the breeding," he added. "I've had some horses that weren't really pretty that were good, and I've had ones that were pretty and weren't any good. Every individual has something di«erent they look for when they go to look at horses, I don't have anything that I believe automatically makes them good or bad. I think the best horse you've got is the one you can win on." Yates enjoys going to the futurities but not without a partner like his son Trey on his team as the field has gotten tougher, "there are teams in the futurities that rope together all year, you have to have those top guys on your team to compete." However, with the addition of the limited and intermediate ropings it gives an opportunity for more people to get in the money. "You've got to hand it to ARHFA for being the ones that started it all, they're the ones that got the ball rolling," said Yates, "they're the ones that maybe didn't make money in it for a long time and held onto the vision that it would work. And when it did work, other people jumped in to put on other futurities in di«erent ways, but I'll still credit them for having the guts to start it and as a team roper you have to acknowledge that they started it for everybody else." JD & DT Air Jordan winning the 2018 ARHFA. Photo courtesy of Kyle Hause.