BFI Week
GREAT FOR PETS GREAT FOR EQUINES GREAT FOR HUMANS
FEEL BETTER. PERFORM BETTER. GET BETTER. BIOFEEDBACK PULSE ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD THERAPY (PEMF) RED & BLUE COLD LASER THERAPY EQUI-RESP NEBULIZATION ACUPRESSURE & ESSENTIAL OILS THERAPLATE & MORE! THERAPL 904.536.8988 ELITE-ENTERPRISES.NET CONWAY, AR. MAIN OFFICE WITH MOBILE UNITS THROUGHOUT THE SOUTHWEST!
10
SouthWest Horse Trader May 2021
Egusquiza & Koontz split $154K at 1st-ever spring BFI
Kory Koontz & Manny Egusquiza, Jr. MO ropers take home $135K in #11.5 Chris Pomeroy, 44, and Cody Stutenkemper, 34, of Bolivar, Missouri, caught four steers in 31.70 seconds to place in two rounds and win the #11.5 Businessman’s Roping for $118,500 cash.
Darwin McGowan & Scott Seiler
Fans watched the greatest jackpot team roper in history extend his record of wins and break the all-time earnings record at the world’s richest pro roping Sunday night in Oklahoma. Kory Koontz, 49, of Stephenville, Texas, clinched victory at the Wrangler Bob Feist Invitational (BFI) presented by Yeti for the record third time, riding a horse he raised and nursed back to health after a horrific auto accident a year ago. Exactly 25 years after Koontz won back-to-back BFI titles with Rube Woolsey and Matt Tyler, he and Manny Egusquiza Jr. roped six steers in 46.48 seconds to earn $150,000 cash plus epic prizes. They bested more than 130 teams at the 44th BFI, held this year at the Lazy E Arena in Guthrie three months prior to its traditional June date. “It felt like there was a lot of energy in this building for me and Manny to win this,” said the characteristically humble Koontz, who’s a grandfather now and has earned $2.5 million with his rope at rodeos alone. “I’m just a guy trying to rope for a living. In my career, I’ve truly been blessed.”
Performance Horse Photography
Primo
“Gunners” – or the first team out at the 44th edition of the $700,000 Bob Feist Invitational (BFI) on March 14 – will be two of the wiliest veterans in the game. Not only has each man already won the BFI, but each has also ridden at least one horse awarded as the best of the event. Hall-of-Famer J.D. Yates, a 21-time NFR roper who won the BFI in 2010 with Jay Wadhams, will turn the first steer for eighttime NFR heeler Cody Cowden, who won “the Feist” in 1997 with Bobby Hurley. The world’s richest Open roping rides into Guthrie, Oklahoma, on Sunday for the second straight year but in March instead of June, thanks in part to Covid-19 restrictions in the BFI’s traditional home of Nevada. This time, the BFI will showcase exactly 133 of the world’s best professional teams competing over six rounds. It will again anchor Wrangler BFI Week presented by Yeti, March 15-18.
Performance Horse Photography
Wrangler BFI Week Named Champions
McGowan & Seiler win #10.5 for $70K In just its second year as part of Wrangler BFI Week presented by Yeti, the 130-team #10.5 Over 40 roping on March 16 paid a couple of grandfathers a healthy $70,000 cash plus saddles, buckles, and a host of other prizes. The team of Darwin McGowan and Scott Seiler made a business-like run of 8.86 seconds on a good steer at the fourth callback position and watched as the top three callbacks missed. Old friends win #9.5, $55K at BFI Week A team of New Mexico natives bested 115 other teams to split $54,500 cash plus epic prizes for the win in the #9.5 Over 40 roping on March 16 at Wrangler BFI Week presented by Yeti. Andreas Sanchez, a 43-year-old air traffic controller who grew up in New Mexico but lives now in Boyd, Texas, and his old friend Lee Knox, a rancher from Costilla, made $27,250 per man for roping four steers in 40.29 seconds. All 21 teams Continued on page 13
