ProRodeo Sports News - July 10, 2020

COWBOY CHRISTMAS

Well-drawn Strategy Cowboy Christmas pays off for Wyatt/Lord, Thurston Hailey Rae photo Team roping heeler Levi Lord competes in the Cody (Wyo.) Stampede. He and his partner/header Nelson Wyatt split third place in Cody and earned $5,933.

BY TRACY RENCK L ittle did team roping heeler Levi Lord realize, his knowledge of South Dakota and North Dakota would pay dividends in 2020. World champion saddle bronc rider ZekeThurston found it a challenge deciding where to enter over Cowboy Christmas knowing there were fewer rodeos but mounting entries. Both were in the same boat as all the other cowboys hitting the Cowboy Christmas run in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lord, a native of Sturgis, S.D., made stops at four rodeos in those two states to help put together his most profitable Cowboy Christmas. Lord and team roping heading partner NelsonWyatt earned $16,333 each during the Cowboy Christmas run. Their totals were second only to fellow team ropers Erich Rogers and Paden Bray, who each earned $17,134. Wyatt and Lord’s Cowboy Christmas consisted of stops in Oakley

City, Utah, Prescott, Ariz., Cody, Wyo., Belle Fourche, S.D., Mandan, N.D., Mobridge, S.D., Killdeer, N.D., and Bigfork, Mont. Normally, cowboys compete in about a dozen rodeos over Cowboy Christmas, but 2020 was vastly different after the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the ProRodeo schedule. “I’m a younger guy, but it seemed like I was a 20-year veteran in the Dakotas,” said Lord, 24. “I had a lot of guys who maybe had not gone to those rodeos up there calling me and asking me where they could stay and-or how they should enter. So, it was good to go over there because it was where I grew up rodeoing. Even before I was entering rodeos, I grew up going to those rodeos with my dad (J.B.).” Wyatt and Lord won in Mobridge ($4,009), split third at Cody ($5,933), split fifth at Belle Fourche ($3,344) and took second in Bigfork ($2,265). “We were trying to go everywhere we could,” Lord said. “We looked where the rodeo was at, entered it and then looked how far it was. We dang

ProRodeo Sports News 7/10/2020

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