Breaking it Down by Speed Williams – July 2026
My wife and daughter left on June 9th, headed out to the summer rodeos. They stopped in Abilene where Hali joined Trey Johnson in giving a talk to over 500 people. I had to remind her it wasn’t that long ago she was there competing.
On this summer run Hali is still dealing with fundamental issues of when her foot was hurt a couple of years ago. She’s created ways to compensate for that pain and that becomes habit. I’ve seen a lot of people do the same thing when they rope injured. Your body hurts and tries to protect itself. It’s very common for people who compete at a high level.
Hali’s had a rough year of competition except for winning the biggest rodeo of the year in Houston. Her horses are healthy, and we’ll see how the summer plays out. Her first five runs didn’t start out well because she drew some tricky calves. She pulled off a great shot at Nampa, ID, on a calf that took a hard left. She took another swing and was 2.7, good enough to be in the top 50 and a chance to make another good run and the finals.
Most people don’t realize just how tough the Breakaway really is. There are 100 or more girls entered at most rodeos, and a 2-flat sometimes splits first five ways. And a 2.3 or 2.4 might win a couple hundred dollars. So, there’s a lot of gambling that happens in the Breakaway.
Despite drawing calves that make it tough to place on, I told Hali her horses are working well, she’s scoring good and just needs to keep firing.
Now my son, Gabe, has had a little bad luck. We have six head horses and five of them have tweaked something that will keep them out for 30 to 45 days. He quit heeling because his arms hurt when he heeled. A couple of months after he quit, I grabbed a heel rope out of his bag and realized I had made a mistake. He had heard me tell stories about how big and stiff the heel ropes were that Clay and Rich used.
I swung his rope and said, “Son, here’s your problem. These ropes are too big and heavy and you’re not going to be able to use them with your unique elbows.” The last six months he’s been heeling at the slides. I have to admit, he heels really well. He has spent hours and hours on his heeling and there’s not much I can critique on his heeling.
He asked if I thought he should go back to heeling. I told him when you’ve got horses here you can compete on, I think that’s the simplest solution right now. The videos of him heeling at the rodeos and jackpots have been impressive. We’ll see how this summer goes. He and Rance Winters are entered at some of the summer rodeos like Shawnee and Gallup.
He needs to be nice to his sister because two of the horses he’s hauling belong to her. One is a young breakaway horse and the other used to be his that she bought to be a breakaway horse.
I’ve been heading and heeling some. It’s sad it took almost a year for me to feel somewhat normal in my reaction time from my injury last year on June 7th. Hali got a young horse from Robert and Connie Rust that I’ve been roping on. His name is Jewel Thief, and we have another named Razor. Both are enjoyable top ride, and we’ll see what their future holds.
This is the time of year, when everyone’s gone on the road, that I think how nice it might be to sell our place and downsize so I could go with them. This place has been our dream for a long time, a nice home, covered arena with an apartment, 74 acres and no neighbors on top of us. I would miss it, but at this point in life I think I could be persuaded to downsize a bit.
When I was younger I had quite a few Border Collies. So, Hali thought I needed a companion and got me a Border Collie puppy so I wouldn’t be so lonely while they’re gone. His name is Split, and he goes everywhere with me. I treat him like a kid.
I’ve been teaching a lot of lessons in breakaway, heading, and heeling. Between rodeos, jackpots, futurities, truck ropings…. It’s very busy and there’s so much going on in our industry. Very exciting to see what the future holds in the roping world.
