story by Lily Weinacht
Josh Siggins is leading the open team roping header standings in the GCPRA. The 29-year-old from Coolidge, Arizona, started off the season strong, and he and his two main heelers, Victor Aros and Junior Zambrano, haven’t let up since. “I’ve had good horses and good partners,” says Josh, who started competing in the GCPRA when he was in high school. “When it comes together at the end of the year and we’ve made the circuit finals and amateur finals, and we can look back on the year with where we started and how we finished, that’s what makes it worth it. Whether it’s the horses that year that needed to step up, or me, or my partner, at the end of the year I like to look back and say that was worth it.”
A rodeo competitor since childhood, Josh especially took to roping when his dad, a horse trainer, started taking in roping horses. “We got into it as a family and that’s what we’ve done our whole life is train rope horses and compete,” says Josh. “I was not one scared to ask questions. My dad, Ray Siggins, for sure helped me, and Brent Lewis has been there since I was a little kid. Victor Aros has helped me these last three years take my roping to another level. He’s been to the (NFR) Finals once, and he’s inspired me to take the next step. I was happy in my circle and he told me I needed to get out and go.”
Josh competes in World Series and USTRC ropings, as well as the Turquoise Circuit, while open rodeos take him beyond Arizona to New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah. His dad also puts on team roping jackpots in the winter. Josh college rodeoed for Howard College in Big Springs, Texas, then picked up with the GCPRA again when he moved back to Arizona. “I like the president and the people in the office, and the secretaries. They’re dang sure for the cowboys and always out there trying to get more money and sponsors—they work hard at it.”
Through college, Josh team roped and tie-down roped, but when he got in an ATV wreck and broke his leg, he decided to quit roping calves. “I enjoy training my roping horses. I enjoy starting them from scratch and going through the process, or watching them get with somebody and progress. And it’s a real friendly sport—it’s getting big and a lot of people are getting in to it.” His main rope horse is a 9-year-old sorrel gelding, Louis, that he started training 2-and-a half years ago. “He’s really taken a step up in the last 6 months, and he’s awesome. I’ve just started letting guys get on him at rodeos, and he’s dang sure making a name for himself.”
Along with rodeoing and training horses, Josh recently started a hay trucking business, with welding on the side. “I try to stay busy with everything, really. The business is headed in the right direction, and we also build buildings and horse pens—whatever people need us to put up for them.” Josh also enjoys golfing, or floating the river with his friends. “Roping is not all of life. You have to get out and do other things.”
But roping is definitely a passion, and one of Josh’s goals is to win the Turquoise Circuit and compete at the RNCFR in Florida. “If we get in there I know we can get to Houston and San Antonio. I want to win the GCPRA year-end—that was my and my partner’s goal at the beginning of the year—and this will be my first time going into the finals sitting first.”
