Clay Smith grew up in Broken Bow, Okla. “That’s where I’ve always been,” said the 24-year-old who will make his first trip to the WNFR, heading for Paul Eaves. “I’ve been thinking about this since I started roping when I was four. It’s all I want to do.” Clay ropes and rides – that’s it. “I don’t hunt or fish or anything, I just rope. I don’t get tired of it.” He is named after 7-time World Champion team roper, Clay O’Brien Cooper.
Clay’s day revolves around riding horses and roping. “We ride horses for the public, and there’s always some young horses that we are trying to make better for us or other people. We ride the younger ones first, and then start practicing and roping,” he explained. “You never know who is going to show up – friends, family, and anyone interested in roping. We rope until 9 or 10 at night – we don’t eat supper until 11. We’ve got about 40 head of horses that we rope on.” Clay likes having that many horses around. “You don’t wear a horse out that way. That’s helped us with riding by roping on different horses.” The only down side to the number of horses is the time it takes to feed and clean stalls. “It’s a lot of work, but we don’t consider it work, because it’s all we know.”
Clay has two brothers – Jake 22, and Britt 14. “Jake is two years younger and it’s been really good having him to rope with – he’s always wanted to rope as much as I do. It’s been a blessing to have such talented brothers. I’m lucky – I’ve got every single person in my family that loves to rope – it makes it fun.” The brothers keep it competitive by creating match ropings. “We’re always pushing each other. Whoever loses has to clean stalls, feed, do laps, pushups or whatever we can think of.”
The #9 header and #9 Elite heeler has been on a horse since he was born. “The day I got home from the hospital, dad (Mark) was holding me on a horse.” Mark started roping when he was in high school and he rode and broke horses for people, so the boys have always been around them. “Ever since we could ride, he’d put us on ponies and we’d take them and sell them.” Mark started entering the boys in roping’s as soon as they could ride and rope. “We had no chance of winning – if I could catch 4 in 50 seconds I was doing good.” He was pulling steers around for the boys before they could even get their feet in a stirrup. “My dad would wear a head horse out pulling those steers.” Clay won his first roping when he was five. “The association is called the OTRA and they had a roping every weekend. My dad would take us there every weekend.”
The success of the young brothers caught the interest of the Tonight Show when Jake won the World Champion Dummy roping in Las Vegas when he was five. “When they called, Dad thought it was an April Fools joke because they called on April 1. They wanted us to come out there and be on the show. They flew us out to Hollywood and picked us up in a limo. We went to Disneyland, and Universal Studios – we had a special pass that let us go to the front of the line – I was 7 – that was a pretty cool deal.”
The boys continued to compete together, eventually joining the Oklahoma High School Rodeo Association. “I never roped with anybody but Jake so I waited until he was old enough. We won fourth in the National High School rodeo my last year of high school.” They were home schooled through high school by their grandmother, a retired school teacher. Their mom, Tammy, was also a school teacher, and has recently retired. “Mom works more now than when she was teaching,” said Clay. “She’s the head cook and videographer. We’ve always got people looking for horses and people are always spending the week – we have a ton of people here all the time. And she still has to get up as early as she did when she was teaching, to take Britt to school every morning.”
The highlight of Clay’s career so far is winning the 2015 Wildfire with his brother, Jake. Clay also competes in the Timed Event Challenge, something he has done for three years now. “Jake always helps me there, he hazes, heels, and heads for me – that’s kind of cool. He can do it all. I’ve won second and fourth last year – I broke the barrier to win it two years ago. I like that event– it’s a lot of fun.”
Clay isn’t nervous about his first trip to the WNFR. “Right before I back in the box, I’m sure it will be a rush. I’m excited to go rope.” His family has been going there for 19 years in a row for the dummy roping. “Britt was too old last year, so we did not go. We said we weren’t going back until someone was in it.”
Since he qualified for the WNFR, he can’t rope in the World Series, but both his dad and brother are entered at the South Point. “I’ve never entered out there – they just started having the 15 so I haven’t had a chance to enter.”
Clay is engaged to Taylor Richey who he met after winning the Wildfire. “One of our sponsors set us up and ever since then I couldn’t run her off or she hadn’t left – she even cleans stalls.” Taylor traveled with Clay most of the summer, pulling more than 80,000 miles in the run for the WNFR. Clay likes the Rooftop Rodeo in Estes Park the best. “It’s a cool town and we got there a day or two early – it was cool to hang out.” They traveled with Paul, Clay’s partner for most of the summer then borrowed a living quarters trailer, but when that broke down; then ended up pulling a three-horse bumper pull. “We would sleep in motels or the truck. Moab Utah was interesting – we drove through town and the 30 motels were all booked, so we slept in the truck, because we don’t have a living quarters trailer, eventually we will have to get one. Some places we have people we stay with, but sometimes we have to rough it so having a living quarter trailer will take out some of the stress out of the travels.
As for the future, Clay doesn’t plan on doing anything different. He and Taylor will get married next fall. “I’m going to ride horses as long as I can – we have fun doing it and that’s what I know how to do. Ride and rope.”
