ProRodeo Sports News - March 29, 2024

TIME CAPSULE ANDREW JAUREGUI Close Up

Stock contractor Hall of Famer Andrew Jauregui also a two-time world champion

BY PRCA STAFF A ndrew Jauregui was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 1979 as a stock contractor who could identify with the contestants, since he had been one himself. In addition to having some of the top stock in his era, he was also a two-time world champion in two different events – steer roping (1931) and team roping (1934) in a colorful rodeo career spanning more than 50 years. This ranch-raised cowboy (originally named Leandro Jauregui) was born Feb. 10, 1903, in Ventura County, Calif., and started roping when he was 16 years old. Although he was known for his roping, Jauregui’s rodeo roots began with bronc riding when he was 15 years old under rodeo producer Jesse Stahl, who paid him $2 per ride. He continued to ride broncs for 10 years. Jauregui also won the calf roping at the 1938 Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo and the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago. At the 1935 Pendleton (Ore.) Round-Up, he won the calf roping with a time of 15 seconds – a full three seconds faster than the previous Pendleton record. His final calf roping title came in Phoenix, Ariz., in 1941. His gold buckle notoriety landed him on the silver screen as a stuntman in Western movies. Jauregui rode alongside Will Rogers, Clark Gable, Joel McCrea, William S. Hart, Richard Dix and John Wayne. At one point, Rogers offered Jauregui

$1,500 for a prized horse he wanted for polo; and although Jauregui valued the horse at $2,000, he sold it to Rogers without negotiating. Jauregui was quoted as saying, “He’d done so much for me over the years, how could I tell him it wasn’t a fair price? He used to buy my stock, use it for a while, and give it back to me for no charge.” Jauregui started stock contracting in 1933, at the age of 30, when he and Clarence “Fat” Jones co-produced a rodeo in Santa Ana, Calif. That year, he also leased a 5,000-acre ranch. His famous string of bucking stock included Cheyenne, a pinto gelding that took nearly every bareback rider who qualified on him to the pay window. Some of his more notable bulls included High Chaparral, Blue Bell Wrangler and Old No. 28. As for his work in rodeo production, one of his more extravagant endeavors was in 1939, when he took an entire rodeo to Honolulu, Hawaii – the cattle, horses, feed, “and ornery cowboys” – on an old Japanese

PRCA ProRodeo file photo Andrew Jauregui won world championships in steer roping (1931) and team roping (1934) and went on to be a renowned stock contractor.

freighter. “When we finally got there, you should have seen those cowboys when 18 girls came out and danced in grass skirts,” Jauregui said with a laugh in a 1981 interview. He served on many committees for the Turtles (the precursor of the Rodeo Cowboys Association, now known as the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association) and was member No. 32. In 1960, after 27 years as a stock contractor, Jauregui was asked by Rodeo Sports News (the precursor to ProRodeo Sports News ) how he thought the problem of finding enough bucking horses could be solved. His response was straight to the point – “I just keep looking and trying out until I get good ones.” Jauregui retired from the rodeo business in 1967 and died July 14, 1990, in Newhall, Calif., at the age of 87.

ProRodeo Sports News 3/29/2024

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