As team roping's richest week was winding down at the South
Point Arena, the payouts continued to heat up. Friday, Dec. 10, marked the
richest divisional roping in history when the Ariat #9.5 WSTR Finale XV paid
out $2.26 million dollars. Bud Swagel, from Dewey, Arizona, and Mike Foster, of
San Tan Valley, Arizona, roped four steers in 35.65 seconds to finish first in
the average, worth $352,000.
"I've roped off and on for 40 years, so this is a long time
coming," said Foster, who was filled with a tidal wave of emotions as he took
the award stage. While he was surrounded with family and friends, it felt out
of sorts without his late wife, Delinda, by his side. "We lost her in August. If
you knew her, you loved her. We've been coming here to Las Vegas together for
33 years. But she was still with us here today."
Foster originally qualified for Finale XV in Buckeye,
Arizona, with his son-in-law. A subsequent number bump for his original header
would have moved them up a division, so he reached out to Swagel to keep his
position in the #9.5.
"I've watched Mike heel so much," said Swagel, an Arizona
Department of Transportation heavy equipment operator and part-time cow puncher,
who was thrilled to accept the invitation. "He makes wise decisions and takes
great shots. He waited them out today and it worked."
The Arizona duo first met at a jackpot striking up
conversation over a bit Foster had attached to the bridle with a rope
twist-tie. Swagel liked to give him a hard time about it until he tried to do
the same for one of his partners.
"I was about to rope with a guy, and he's over there
attaching the bit with a twist-tie and said, 'Absolutely not with my header,'" Swagel
recalled with a laugh. "I said, 'My header is not going to lose his bit going
down the arena.' He got kind of mad and said his had been on there for years."
They laugh about it now, and have since roped together a
handful of times, but this was the first four consecutive steers the team has
ever stretched tight.
"I'm not a guy who goes and makes 6- or 7-second runs,"
Swagel explained. "I told myself, 'Just go out and go to your spot.' Once we
made the short round, I decided I wasn't going to let any of this this bother
me—not the money, nothing. I'm going to go out there and rope every steer, look
at my spot and handle my cattle. I had turned three steers in the #10.5 [Finale,]
so I was confident in that."
"My youngest told me to go and throw," Foster recalled of
going into the short round. "That steer was 2-foot to the left of me when he
got done switching, but I took my shot."
An electrician by trade, Foster already had plans to phase
out of his full-time job as an electrician at the mine and move strictly to running
his own business, Diamond F Electric, starting early next year. His split of
the $352K will more than ease that transition.
"I'm the cowboy's electrician," he said, explaining that he does
a lot of arenas and barns in his region of Arizona.
On the back end, Foster was riding a lightning-fast gelding
he calls Boogie.
"You can check and see if I won the fast-time for the
victory lap," he laughed. "He's the best thing that's ever happened to me. I've
played that victory lap in my head so many times. It's unreal to be here now."
Swagel backed
in the box on a 13-year-old Sun Frost horse he calls Tuffy—a horse which has taken
him to the big paycheck window several times.
"The money is great," Swagel said. "But winning this with
Mike, the memories, that's what this is all about."
