Team Roping


Winning Ropers earn $120,000 at BFI in Reno


Contributed Courtesy BFI, Photography by Olie’s Images


Middle America should be proud of the cowboys it sent to Nevada for the richest one- day team roping in the world. Jake Long, 33, of Coffeyville, KS, and his


best friend Coleman Proctor, 31, of Pryor, OK, have roped together since they were kids, part- nering professionally in five different seasons over the past 10 years.


Despite the fact that today Proctor was


partnered with fellow Oklahoman Billie Jack Saebens of Nowata, he was the first man to ride over and congratulate Long, horseback, after Long and Luke Brown bested Proctor and Saebens for the coveted Bob Feist Invi- tational championship. The two teams earned $204,000 in cash.


The 40th anniversary of the oldest, most prestigious invitational team roping in the sport paid out $800,000 in cash and prizes Monday over six rounds of fierce competition. Brown and Long headed into the final round with a collective time just one-tenth of a second faster than that of Proctor and Saebens.


The latter team applied some pressure at


the second call-back positon with a final run of 8.09 seconds, but Brown and Long respond- ed in kind, roping their steer in 7.61 seconds to win the aggregate championship with a to- tal time of 44.7 seconds over six rounds. The


Jake Long


Luke Brown (rt) and Jake Long (lt) bested 108 of the top teams in the world to win their first Bob Feist Invitational.


Luke Brown


win was worth $120,000 plus prizes including custom Coats saddles, Gist buckles, and Best Ever pads, plus Justin full-quill ostrich boots, Bex Sunglasses, Yeti coolers and other retail certificates. “This is my favorite roping; it always has


been,” said Brown, of Morgan Mill, TX. “As a little kid growing up in South Carolina, I was hooked on watching the video of the 1987 BFI.”


Brown has been close to the big win, and placed second here once, but the championship was a feather in the cap of one of rodeo’s all-


time great headers. The veteran, who in 2008 became the first cowboy from South Carolina in 31 years to qualify for rodeo’s Super Bowl, has roped at every NFR since then and gar- nered three NFR average titles. Long, a six-time NFR heeler who began partnering with Brown in 2016, said it was harder to know they could win the BFI with a nine-second run on their last steer than if they’d needed a six-second run.


“I’m not known for throwing my rope


conservatively,” said Long. “I’ve worked real- ly hard on those situations.”


Coleman Proctor & Billie Jack Saebens 10 SouthWest Horse Trader July 2017


It helps that Long was aboard “Colonel,” the defending PRCA/AQHA Heel Horse of the Year, and Brown was riding speedy “Cowboy” on the BFI’s fresh steers, which are given an 18-foot head start in a nod to old-school horse- manship skills. For Proctor and Saebens, it wasn’t just the $84,000 payday plus prizes for second place that had them smiling. A fan made his way down to the arena after the event to have them both autograph a one-hundred-dollar bill they had signed last December at the WNFR. He’d carried it all the way to Reno. Visit www.bfiweek.com for all results. w


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