Central Oregon team roper Brandon Beers ranks among world's best despite rough '07

It began as nothing less than a magical, Cinderella season for Brandon Beers. The 21-year-old Powell Butte cowboy, who didn't break into the top 100 headers in 2006, spent much of this year as the No. 1 team roper in the land.

He was partnered with his father, former world team roping champion Mike Beers, and it seemed as though the father-and-son duo couldn't strike out. After a big-money win at the famous RodeoHouston in March that catapulted the team to the top of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association world standings, the Beers boys went on to set 11 arena records in 2007, including a new speed standard at the Sisters Rodeo and another at the Chief Joseph Days Rodeo in Joseph.

Then, the clock struck midnight and everything turned for the worst. Brandon Beers' three most vital assets in the rodeo arena — his heeling partner and both of his competition horses — were all sidelined with serious injuries in the span of one month.

"I've had a great year at some points, and at others it's been horrible," the younger Beers reflected this week by phone from Texas, where he was spending Thanksgiving with his mother.

Mike Beers, of Post, was bucked off a horse during a practice session in late July and suffered a broken pelvis. The season wasn't a complete loss, as doctors said the 1984 world champion heeler should recover in time to be back in the saddle come December's National Finals Rodeo.

"I was sick, I was worried," Brandon Beers said, recalling his reaction to his 49-year-old father's midsummer mishap. "He's made it so easy. If I did my job, we won. All I had to worry about was me, and that was a great feeling. He didn't make any mistakes this year, other than getting on that horse and getting bucked off."

Then, in August, Brandon Beers rolled his truck and trailer during an early-morning haul to Hermiston from a rodeo in northern Washington. The accident "just about killed both horses," Beers said. The cowboy was unhurt, but his two prized horses were badly banged up with head lacerations and other cuts.

"I was on a back road … and the front tire on my truck hit some deep sand and it just pulled me over," Beers recounted. "I went to open the windows (on the trailer) and all I could see was a lot of blood. It was a bad night. I wrecked at 1 a.m. and didn't get the horses out till 5 a.m.

"Those horses still haven't recovered," continued Beers, who praised the work of Bend Equine Medical Center, where his horses were eventually treated. "They'll be better, sooner or later, but not just at this moment."

Despite the setbacks, the Beers' lucrative early-season surge was plenty to secure a spot at the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas. The world championship rodeo begins its 10-day run on Dec. 6. There, Brandon will ride Cadillac, a horse lent to him by Riley Minor, a Washington team roper who narrowly missed qualifying for the NFR.

Father and son are meeting next week in Arizona — Mike Beers' part-time residence — for the first time since Mike's injury to get in a few practice runs before heading to Las Vegas. Brandon was initially concerned that his father might push himself too hard to be ready in time. But he said he has his dad's assurance that he's feeling good and ready to rope.

"He says there's not much pain," Brandon offered. "He thinks he shouldn't be a step behind, just where he was when he left off."

And it's not as though Mike Beers needs the practice. His professional rodeo career has spanned nearly three decades, and he has now qualified for the National Finals Rodeo 21 times.

"(His layoff) doesn't bother me. I'll be ready and I know he'll be ready," said Brandon Beers. "I'm excited, but I'm really nervous, too."

Brandon, a Crook County High School graduate, said he charted a course toward qualifying for the NFR back in 2005, when he was in Las Vegas to accept the PRCA's Rookie of the Year award for headers. But his results the following year brought little to call home about.

The difference this year, he said without hesitation, has been the horses. Beers purchased two new mounts for the 2007 rodeo season, a palomino he calls "Yeller," and "Blowfish," who recently earned runner-up honors for the PRCA's Heading Horse of the Year award. Blowfish, Beers noted, had never been to a rodeo before this year.

"My horses were phenomenal," he said. "They were as good as you can possibly have, (and) that makes a huge difference.

"They like what they do," Beers continued. "You don't have to go out and tune on them to make them do stuff. You never back into the box and worry that they're not going to do what you want them to. They just do it."

After his dad was sidelined, the younger Beers couldn't match his early-season success while continuing to travel the rodeo circuit with other roping partners. Since August, Beers has earned only a little more than $10,000 and fell from first to third in the PRCA world standings. He enters the NFR with $88,987 in regular-season earnings, trailing the world heading leader by approximately $20,000. Mike Beers remains at $77,500 — his total earnings as of July. He has dropped to fourth place in the world rankings and trails the No. 1 heeler by some $30,000.

"It hasn't felt the same," said Brandon Beers of competing without his father. "Him and I had kind of a chemistry going. We got on a roll; it was great. It didn't feel like we could ever do anything wrong. (Since then), it hasn't been horrible, but it hasn't been great."

Beers noted that coming back to Central Oregon last weekend for the Columbia River Circuit Finals — where he teamed up with Dean Tuftin of Prineville to win the team-roping average — was good medicine.

"Being home for the circuit finals was as good for me as anything," he said. "Everybody is so supportive. You got the guys in town who own the feed store, they know who you are and seen you grow up and are happy to see you doing good."

And with a tumultuous season behind him, Brandon Beers is glad December is finally almost here.

"Without the wreck and my dad going crippled," he said plainly, "there wouldn't have been nothin' wrong with it."