My Last High School Rodeo

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I took a deep breath as I walked my horse into the Greeley Stampede Arena. I told myself just to "relax." I loped a circle around the arena to make sure that my horse was warmed up and ready to go. He was ready but I was starting to get nervous. I stopped in front of the roping box to put my piggin' string in my mouth. I looked at my calf in the chute to make sure that it was number 33, which was one of the best calves out of the whole set. It was, and I was ready to ride into the box and rope my calf, or attempt to rope my calf. I began to get more nervous, more nervous than I ever had been at a rodeo. The reason for my nervousness was because it was the last rodeo of the High School Rodeo season. The last rodeo just so happened to be the short round of the state finals. The short round was the top 15 cowboys out of the entire state. I had qualified 15th out of about 45 other cowboys in the calf roping. That may sound like it was a great accomplishment, but it really wasn't because I knew I was better than at least ten of the other guys that qualified in front of me. I knew myself that I was someone to watch; even if no one else knew. That year I had already went to 31 high school rodeos. I had pretty much been all over the state of Colorado. From Cortez, all the way over to Lamar. The whole fall and spring season I accumulated points that went towards the year end State Finals Rodeo. I had some good rodeos and I had some very bad rodeos. I had a few first places and a few second places. Most of my points came from fifth or sixth place finishes. My goal at the beginning of the year was to have a good start to the season and a good finish to the season. I had a good start at Cortez, where I won the first rodeo and placed ... ... middle of paper ... ...elf making the perfect run. I put the small loop of my piggin' string over the front leg of the calf and gathered the back legs and stacked them as perfectly as possible. I heard many of the other rodeo contestants yelling "be smooth, be smooth." I didn't hesitate to slow my tie down. I started the perfect run so I decided to finish the perfect run. I made my hands tie as fast as they could. It was over in a flash as my hands shot up in the air to signal that my run was over. As I got back on Loopy I felt a sense of relaxation come over me. I heard the announcer say that my time was 10.1 seconds. I knew that this was a good time and could possibly win the short go at the State Finals. I sat through the other fourteen calf ropers to listen to no other times faster than 10.1 seconds. Not only did I win the short go but I showed everyone that I was someone to watch.

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