WSTR kicked off its first Heartland of the year on January 22nd at the Circle T Arena in Hamilton, TX. Despite the cold weather, 171 teams entered ready to rope for big money in this #9.5 Heartland. Mike Bullock, Krum, TX and Tanner Lambert, Paradise, TX were the big winners of the day, taking home $33,700 along with trophy Cactus Saddlery Saddles and Pads and Gist Silversmith Trophy Buckles.
Mike and Tanner were leading the roping all day until the end of the third round when they were moved into the second high team back position. "I didn't want to be high call, I really wanted to be second or third going into the short round to put a little pressure on high call, so we got bumped down at the very end and that's just exactly where we wanted to be," Tanner said. With a clean run in the short round and a miss from the high team back, they were the champs with a time of 37.85 on 4 steers.
This is the first big event that Mike and Tanner partnered together. "Mike and I would go to all the weekly jackpots, we would be at the same place and would always rope together at those, and we do pretty good. We were at a round robin they have a few weeks prior, and Mike said, 'would you want to rope in the #9.5 Heartland,' and I said, 'I might could do that.'" Tanner trains horses and made it a goal of his to ride some of the colts he trains. "I thought, I'm going to start hauling them myself this year. I have been working on my heeling a lot. Riding colts, I usually switch ends a lot, but I really wanted to focus on my heeling." That Tanner did, not only winning first in this #9.5 Heartland, but placing second in the #10.5 Qualifier during the weekend as well.
Mike Bullock has years of team roping experience, but had to take a hiatus for a while. "I took 26 years off to raise kids. I started back about 6 years ago once they were all grown and raised." When it came to the Heartland, Mike says he came in confident, but added, sometimes it takes more than just confidence. "My definition of winning a team roping is, two fools getting lucky on the same day. We happened to be those two fools who got lucky four times that day." Congrats to all of the winners, the #9.5 Heartland paid out $136,800 dollars.
Here are future Heartland Roping opportunities in 2022:
Stephenville, TX Feb 17 Thur Heartland #14.5
San Antonio, TX Mar 5 Sat Heartland #10.5
Hamilton, TX Mar 27 Sun Heartland #8.5
San Antonio, TX May 29 Sun Heartland #10.5
Hamilton, TX June 3 Fri Heartland #12.5
Hamilton, TX June 24 Fri Heartland #13.5
Stephenville, TX July 16 Sat Heartland #11.5
San Antonio , TX Aug 6 Sat Heartland #12.5
Hamilton, TX Sept 4 Sun Heartland #8.5
Abilene, TX Sept 24 Sat Heartland #9.5
Las Vegas, NV Dec 5 Mon Heartland #13.5
Las Vegas,NV Dec 7 Wed Heartland #11.5
