Former BFI champs roping together this year, like Chris Francis and Cade Passig, have great odds to do it again. But did you notice the other champs with new partners?
Luke Brown, the fifth all-time BFI earnings leader who won the roping back in 2017 with Jake Long, will bring Trey Yates. His dad J.D. Yates has cashed BFI checks worth $171,148 and won the 2010 version with his uncle, Jay Wadhams. And Trey already won that other 10-head jackpot in Las Vegas – the NFR average – back in 2018.
Ryan Motes, who won The Feist back in 2009 in Reno with Caleb Mitchell, will heel for Tate Kirchenschlager. While Tate headed steers at the 2019 NFR on that year’s PRCA/AQHA Head Horse of the Year (that he trained), he’s best known today for perfectly spinning dozens of the hardest-running steers in America at rope-horse futurities.
Then there’s Manny Egusquiza who claimed bragging rights with Kory Koontz the second time the BFI was held in Guthrie, but this year has a guy named Walt Woodard on the backside. Woodard, a Hall-of-Fame heeler, won the BFI 17 years ago with Clay Tryan.
Another pair of former champs teaming up for the first time are Trevor Brazile and Billie Jack Saebens. Brazile tossed his hat in the Reno arena in 2013 with Patrick Smith, while Saebens won it all in Guthrie in 2022 with Jake Clay.
Earnings leader Clay Tryan is not entered, while the second-ranked veteran, Kory Koontz, will rope with Zach Kilgus. However, don’t count out Clay’s son Tyler Tryan and his partner Denton Dunning – they won the Mike Cervi Jr. Memorial just last month and The Capitalist in October.