Welcome to CraigSmithTeamRoping.com

The October wind in Wyoming can be brutal. But that didn’t deter my heeler and I from preparing for the biggest opportunity of our careers.

With no indoor barn for 100 miles, our only option was a family up the road who had an arena and four big, fresh roping steers. They agreed to exchange our manual labor around the ranch for the opportunity to practice.

Almost every evening, my partner and I would play out the scenario that would soon shape our lives. I’d manually release each steer from horseback, then quickly organize my rope and trail them in hot pursuit – imagining each steer was one of the same four we’d rope just weeks later in the Shootout.

Every time we brought the them back down the alley, there was one especially stubborn, but fast steer that was always last to load – my “short go” steer… and repeatedly in practice, I’d miss him. It was frustrating, and a little nerve-racking to stay the least.

I seemed to be roping everything else perfectly, except our “short go” steer.

Finally the time came for us to load our gear and horses and make the 1,200 mile trek to Oklahoma. We arrived early and roped in just about everything we could enter. In hind sight, we didn’t have the horse power for that. We did well, but at the end of the week we were exhausted.

Then, the moment of truth finally came. We had all three steers down penalty free and came back second high call in the short go. The music started blaring, and the lights got brighter as the announcer’s voices boomed across the sound system to build anticipation for the final round.

As I was swinging my rope in preparation to enter the box, I remember my horse – who was typically pretty reactive, was just hanging his head. As incredibly life-changing as I knew that last steer could be, I was so tired myself that I don’t remember nerves even being a factor.

It was time to go on instinct – doing what we’d done a million times, and see if all the miles, years, commitment, devotion and practice would carry us through.

I’ll never forget Reed Flake’s reminder of how fast we had to be, to guarantee no less than second place.

Although that final steer wasn’t particularly fast like the one back home, I took a high percentage throw and cracked my loop on his horns a few strides down the arena. My heeler was quick to take a shot and roped him deep around the belly.

That day my horse Gus helped me power through extreme exhaustion and any lingering doubt in my ability to perform under pressure.

Like the saying goes,

“You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have.”

When our ropes came tight, it was official – we were USTRC Reserve World Champions and had over $30,000.00 more in our pockets than when we arrived in Oklahoma City.

Looking back, I’m proud to have been consistent enough to secure a second place finish, but it’s also an accomplishment that left me confident I could rise even higher.

Since then, I’ve elevated my horsemanship and held on to the same consistency in the roping pen, but learned (and continually challenge myself) to be even more aggressive – especially when the stakes are high.

YOU have the ability to achieve more than you ever thought possible as well, and I created this site to help you believe and realize it.

Welcome to CraigSmithTeamRoping.com.

I invite you to follow my journey as a husband, horseman and header on Facebook and Instagram, plus take advantage of the free resources here on my web site.

If you’re anxious to up-level your roping starting now, Click Here to get Team Roping Tips, the book.