Drew Horner – an introduction

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Hometown: Plano, Tx
Age: 24
Height: 6.1
Weight: 165 lbs

Hey! Well… This is the first blog entry I will have, so I wanted to give you guys a little taste of who I am and where I come from. This first post will be a little about my history in roping and somewhat about my life. I hope y’all enjoy this post and what is to come in the future.
First off, a little about me growing up and how I got into roping. I didn’t come from your typical roping background. I grew up right in the middle of the city. My hometown, Plano, Texas, is twenty minutes north of Downtown Dallas. I played every sport growing up. From football and lacrosse, to baseball and hockey, I loved playing it all, up until I was 15 and helping my dad while he was practicing roping. I was taking ropes off in the catch pen while he was practicing. I got bored sitting at the back end waiting on steers, so I decided to start to try and rope the steers on foot with one of my dads ropes. I really liked it! My dad showed me how to rope the dummy.
photo 5View from the catch gate, where I helped my dad take his ropes off.
The next day, I started to learn how to ride, only because my dad wanted me to warm his horses up. Then I started to saddle and unsaddle, and started to break away while horseback. Finally, I got to dally, then move onto turning steers. I wanted to learn everything about it! It seemed like a great, fun thing I could do and get good at.

I eventually ended up not playing any other sports and decided to stick to Team Roping. I practiced every day after school and spent the summers working and practicing at roping, trying to get better every day. I graduated high school in 2007, from Prestonwood Christian Academy, and decided to set out a four-year plan to becoming a Professional Team Roper. I wanted to Amateur rodeo, and jackpot for a couple years, and then eventually buy my card and turn pro by the time I was 22.

I set goals for each year to make some finals of a few associations and also to win some tours, which I fulfilled all of my goals. I ended up finishing amateur rodeoing, reaching all of my goals, and I felt like I was ready to rodeo full time professionally.
I bought my Professional Rodeo Cowboy’s Association(PRCA) card and turned pro in 2011. I was a rookie and wanted to win rookie of the year, and make the National Finals Rodeo in Vegas. I roped with Trey Johnson all year that year, a good friend of mine. I did not win rookie of the year. That was kind of a bummer. I had wanted to win that, and that was the first goal I had never reached. Needless to say, 2011 was a big learning year for me. I didn’t do really well, and finished 72nd in the PRCA world standings.
I spent a lot of time learning and gaining experience that year. The next year I switched partners and began to rope with Buddy Hawkins, another good friend of mine, that I had amateur rodeoed with and also won quite a bit at the lower level rodeos with. We did of for about 5 months, then we decided to split. We were currently inside the top 20 in the PRCA World Standings, so we were doing well, but we had some different opportunities come up. I began to rope with Justin Copp. We roped the rest of the season together. We had a decent summer. We did good. Our biggest accomplishment of the year for us two was finishing 2nd at the Daddy of ‘em all, Cheyenne Wyoming.
upra
 Me and Buddy Hawkins roping in 2009 at the United Professional Rodeo Association finals.  This is my horse Slick I still ride today. 

We ended up winning enough to be inside the top 30 which allowed us to get into San Juan Capastrana, California, and also the first Tour Finale, Puyallup, Washington. We had a pretty good year. About middle of the way through September, at Pendelton Oregon, we decided to come home. At that point we were 19th in the PRCA World Standings, and we didn’t have a chance at making the finals. We were ready to be home after rodeoing all summer long. We ended up finishing the year at 24th in the PRCA World Standings.
This year I am roping again with Buddy Hawkins, and we have been having a good year so far. We won the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo, and have done well at other rodeos throughout the year. We are currently 3rd in the PRCA World Standings and are winning the Wrangler Million Dollar Tour. We are excited about this year and the opportunity we have so far. We are looking forward to what is to come.

Well, I hope you enjoyed reading this first post and learning a little bit about my history. We will keep posting these to keep you guys updated on my rodeo life as much as possible. You can follow me other ways as well on twitter @drewhorner24 or also go like my fan page on facebook https://www.facebook.com/dhorner24?ref=hl. I am looking forward to be able to keep in touch with you guys and let y’all get a feel for what its like out here on the rodeo road and to maybe be able to bring yall in on what its like to be a Professional Team roper. Stay tuned for a lot more to come!

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PSN cover after this year’s win in San Antonio.
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May 21, 2013 |

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