Heath Sanders Enjoys the Cowboy Life

Wednesday, December 30, 2009
By REVIS BLAYLOCK

Heath Sanders started riding horses at the age of four, fell in love with the rodeo and travels far and near competing in team roping.Sanders, a cowboy who has won a lot of buckles and saddles for his team roping, loves the competition. On display with some of his buckles is a Cowboy Bible he also won.When he was younger he rode the bulls but horses were always his love and he now competes in team roping. He also trains horses at his ranch in the rural community of Vail. He shares his knowledge and skills teaching young people the art of riding and roping. He especially enjoys watching the kids ride and learn…(read more) 

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FREE GIFT!!!! Were you Naughty or Nice???

 Let us know what Santa brought you for Christmas! If we get more than 10 comments we are going to pick a random person and send ya a free gift!

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Jess Martin raising, not riding, bucking horses

JOE KUSEK Of The Gazette Staff | Posted: Wednesday, December 30, 2009 12:50 am

Jess Martin got a package in the mail a couple of weeks ago.

The large box came all the way from Spain. It included Martin’s hand-crafted saddle and other rodeo gear.

When the package arrived, he muscled it through the front door of his Dillon home and tossed it in a closet. The box will be gathering dust for a while.

“I’m done,’’ Martin said……(read more)

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Gaylene Fasselin Buff, barrel racer… First in the North

A few years ago Gaylene Fasselin Buff was at a rodeo watching professional barrel racing. She had done it as a kid and on the Carbon High Rodeo team back in the 1990’s, but had never done it professionally.

“I told my husband I wanted to do it again, but professionally the next year,” she said. “And so I did.”

More importantly, within a few years of starting into competing with professionals, she won the Canadian Ladies Barrel Racing Championship this past November. It was one crowning achievement for someone so new to the sport professionally. But she thinks she could have done even better than that if the circumstances had been different, and her horse Vador had not been injured.

“I would have liked to win the American championship too,” she said with a light in her eyes. “And I like to think I would have if I could have competed.”

In the world of barrel racing there are superstars, just like in every sport. In the case of barrel racing two of the best are Brittany Pozzi and Lindsey Sears. They both competed in the Canadian Championship and Buff out did them, taking the crown.

Pozzi went on to take the American nationals a few weeks later. The record, based on the Canadian competition, says that had Buff competed she could have won. (read more)

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Calf roper Andy Martin lassos pro rodeo championship

SIERRA VISTA, Ariz. – In his finest season as a touring calf roper, Andy Martin is looking to diversify what it means to be a professional cowboy.

The 33-year-old, who is in the process of moving from Colorado to Hereford, wrapped up the Grand Canyon Pro Rodeo Association’s all-around championship earlier this month.

“Midway through the season, I was looking at the standings and I had about as many points in calf-roping as the all-around (leader),” Martin said.

Dani Meador, of Huachuca City, was Martin’s traveling partner throughout the season and suggested the idea of team roping to bump up Martin’s all-around total. The GCPRA’s women’s breakaway champion decided she’d take the heels and leave Martin to the heading.

“It was fun team-roping with her and that put me over the top,” Martin said. “The heeling part is really challenging, you’ve got to have a lot of timing. I’m glad she heeled, because I’m not that good at it.”

Martin’s specialty is in roping the heads of steers and getting inside the heads of horses. This season, he rode 18-year-old Nora to the championship, a horse he’d competed with since 1999 in collegiate rodeos.

“Last winter she colicked real bad,” Martin said. “She had surgery and we didn’t know if she was going to live. Especially being 18, we weren’t sure if I’d be able to use her again.” (read more)

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Attention Ladies… Guinness here!!!

Well I think every woman out there, has that one pair of jeans that says it all! It is that pair of jeans that you wait lifetimes for.. you crave them.. and then every once in a while you find that one pair that is IT! The perfect FIT!

 The only difference is, with western style jeans, they have to have more going for them, then the average pair of everyday jeans. So add in, length, butt fit, and now you are asking for a WHOLE new level of jean. I must admit, I am a perfectionist when it comes to my jeans, some may say I am OCD, but I don’t care, I know what looks good on me and I am not going to stop until I find it. So… yes, my closet may be FULL of jeans, but that is okay, they are all bought and paid for… but some of them just aren’t that jean! They are the jeans you throw on when you are going to the barn to ride, and you won’t be seeing anyone. Of course at one point, I thought they were my IT jean, or I wouldn’t have bought them, but somewhere along the way, they turned into a barn jean.. so I am back at step one.

Well recently I was at a show and a lady walked by with the CUTEST jeans on and being that I am jean freak, I followed her around, until I memorized ever stitch of them (yes, I am that girl, and I stalked her) and knew that I had to try them on. Lucky for me (but not my checking account) there was a western store at the arena! I mean what are the chances.. so off I skipped over there to see if they had these special jeans. Wouldn’t you know it was my lucky day, they had an entire rack of them! So after grabbing my size and testing the length (I have to have them LONG), I was off to the dressing room. My two best girls in tow were right there to be truthful about these new jeans. As I pulled them on, I thought “oh wow, now these look cute”, the true test was to see what the girls said!

So as I stepped out, I heard the words every girl wants to hear, “those jeans make you look skinny and your butt looks great”

SOLD!!  Yep, that sealed the deal, I had to have them.. I came home with two pairs of the new vintage looking style of Cowgirl Up jeans!

What jeans fit you the best?

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Rodeo a rip-roaring success

“That was so awesome,” Stephanie White enthused after competing in the second division barrel race at the Waimate rodeo yesterday.

Miss White (24), a teacher at Fenwick Primary School in Oamaru, is in her first season of rodeo competition.

At last year’s Omarama rodeo – held as part of the Christmas rodeo circuit – she was a spectator.

Today, she will be competing in the event at Buscot Station.

It was while she was watching the rodeo at Omarama that she decided she really wanted to try barrel racing.

While she had always loved horses, Miss White said she had only ever “hacked around” and barrel racing was a completely new experience.

She had been very grateful for the help and support from Waianakarua rodeo couple Graeme and Henrietta Purvis.

“I went out [to their property] one day and said I was keen. I’ve been out there just about every day since. They can’t get rid of me,” she laughed yesterday. (read more)

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Judge, William Hallman, goes from robes to rodeo

William “Bud” Hallman III stands 6-feet-2-inches tall, lives on a sprawling 20 acres, and has the large, callused hands of a native Floridian cowboy. 

He’s at home on the wide, open range, having been raised in a cattle-ranching family whose ancestors were among the early pioneers to Florida in the 1830s. It’s the pull of these roots that lured the 56-year-old judge, 15 years after quitting the sport of rodeo, to return to it, even while enmeshed in a completely new career.

By day, the Webster resident oversees the felony docket as one of two circuit judges in Sumter County. He retired from the rodeo at age 40. But last year, he made his comeback, following a visit to a friend’s local steer wrestling school.

Hallman has competed in events around Ocala and all over the state. Over Labor Day weekend, he made his fifth trip to the Dodge Southeastern Circuit Finals Rodeo in Davie, winning the steer wrestling event. In April, he’s headed to the National Circuit Finals in Pocatello, Idaho, where the winner’s purse can reach $100,000.

“Having that background and being that ranch cowboy, you miss all that,” Hallman said recently from his Webster home, where a large dirt pit is used for training. “The practice of law is an entirely different world. I was missing it.” (read more)

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Merry Christmas On The Rodeo Road Fans……………..

Drifter playing in the snow

Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.  ~Author unknown

Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Rodeo to offer rare shot at film

This is the inaugural year for the Cowboy Christmas Youth Challenge, Sunday through Dec. 31 at the Kirk Fordice Equine Center on the Mississippi Fairgrounds.

Paramount Pictures will have an open casting call there Sunday through Tuesday for the lead role of Mattie Ross in a Coen Brothers remake of the famous John Wayne Western True Grit.

The movie, to be shot next spring, will star Jeff Bridges in Wayne’s Rooster Cogburn role, as well as Matt Damon and Josh Brolin, said Rachel Tenner, a casting director for the film….(read more)

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