story by Ruth Nicolaus
Brothers Holland and Teagan Taylor are members of the Colorado State High School Rodeo Association.
The boys, who live in Bayfield, Colo., team rope with Holland as the header and Teagan as the heeler.
They also compete in the tie-down roping.
Holland rides Bullet, a six-year-old roan gelding who he started and trained. For the heeling, Teagan has two horses to choose from: Zee, a five-year-old gray that he trained himself, and Hollywood, a six-year-old that he got in May.
The boys shared their tie-down horse this year, an eleven-year-old bay named Mr. Jangles. Holland has a tie-down horse, Marvie, but she came to the Taylors too late for him to be ready to rope on her.
This fall, Holland will be a senior and Teagan will be a sophomore at Ignacio School. Holland plays baseball; Teagan plays football, basketball, and baseball, is a member of student council, and had a big role in the play Frozen, earning a standing ovation for his part. The Ignacio Bobcats qualified for the state basketball tournament, with Teagan on varsity. But because of COVID-19, after the first game, it was canceled and everyone was sent home.
The brothers’ favorite place to be is the roping arena. They enjoy roping with each other, in part because it’s handy to have your partner in the same house. They’ve roped together so much, they know what the other is thinking. “I know what he’s going to do, so that’s really good,” Teagan said.
They each have jobs this summer. Holland is riding colts, which are “coming along pretty good.” He is already able to rope on two of them. He also does tractor and irrigation work for local farms, sometimes leaving at 4:30 am and not getting home till 7 pm. “He works hard,” his mom says.
Teagan is doing lumber work, cutting down trees for fence posts and cleaning forests. His earnings go towards entry fees, but if he runs low on cash, his mom and dad are always willing to help pay, for which he is grateful.
For fun, Teagan likes to hunt and fish. Holland enjoys it, but not as much as his brother. The boys hunt for deer and elk and fish for walleye and trout.
When Holland is done with high school, he’d like to find a job that involves being outdoors. The brothers would like to try their hands at professional team roping.
The boys live thirty miles from New Mexico, but they chose to rodeo in Colorado in their junior high days, because New Mexico’s junior high rodeo only has a spring season. When their high school days rolled around, they stayed in their home state to compete because they’d made good friends there.
Colorado canceled its state finals, so the year’s champs were designated as to where contestants were ranked after the last regular season rodeo. They finished in tenth place in the team roping. In the tie-down, Holland finished in fifteenth place and Teagan in 24th.
They have three step-siblings: a brother, Chris Taylor, and sisters Trinity Taylor and Debra Abeyta.
They are the sons of Trent and Katie Taylor.
