Slack Competition at the Sandhills Stock Show and Rodeo

ODESSA, Texas (KOSA) - Today was the slack competition at the Sandhills Stock Show and Rodeo and the competition was high.

“It’s always tough here all the best guys in the world are here this weekend kind of to start the year. This is kind of the one that kind of gets the year kicked off so every guy is here to try and get some money won to try to get qualified for Las Vegas,” said Clay Smith a team roper competitor.

However, Smith is no stranger to the National Finals Rodeo, he’s been there seven times and he hopes to return again this year.

There are a lot of entries in this rodeo. The slack competition is for those competing who will not be in the rodeo performances that start tomorrow.

“They have enough teams to fill the performances then the rest of these guys run in the slack today,” said Smith.

Smith said there are around 80 teams competing in team roping and it’s been very competitive.

“Winning that’s probably the toughest part. There’s a lot of guys that rope really good. Out of 80 teams here, out of those teams half of those are really good teams it seems like and it’s hard to win. They don’t pay 40 places so you have to rope pretty good,” Smith said.

The rodeo gets everyone involved. Student athletes from the Odessa rodeo team were on site to help out.

“Our college rodeo is held here and the Sandhills people that put it on are a big help to us so we like to come out here and help as well,” said Korben Dezurney, a student athlete at Odessa College.

Dezurney said he got to meet a few cool people during the rodeo as well.

“It’s really cool because yesterday the current NFR team roping champion and his partner were roping here yesterday, so that was pretty cool to see some of the greats,” Dezurney said.

This rodeo not only brings great competition, it holds a special place in some of the local’s hearts too.

“I love this rodeo. It’s a hometown rodeo and I love it and want to make sure it goes good,” said Tommy Zant, a team roping committee member.

Copyright 2022 KOSA. All rights reserved.