First Time’s a Charm for the Rocking P Cattle Co./S&P Cattle Team
There were a lot of firsts celebrated for the Rocking P Cattle Co./S&P Cattle team at the 2022 World Championship. Not only was it their first World Championship together, it was also the first World Championship win for all but one of the team members.
Chris Potter has twice been on a winning team. This time, however, was extra special. After competing in WRCA rodeos for more than 20 years, this was the first year Potter was able to compete under his own ranch name and brand: the Rocking P. And perhaps even more importantly, it was the first year his children competed with him: Colton, 21, and Carlee, 19.
“It was the first year we had our own team, but the best part was I had my son and daughter with me,” Chris says. “I have been taking them with me ever since they were little bitty, just packing them around. Then they started ranch rodeoing basically their whole life in the Junior Ranch Rodeo Association.”
Justin Peterson agrees this year was particularly special even outside of the win. His fiancé Tara Holland was there to support him, and in her arms was the couple’s 9-month-old son. “I have always went with my family,” Justin says. “It’s such a family deal and it was cool to see Chris with his kids winning the rodeo. Me and my brother being on the same team as well for the first time, winning the World Championship. And the first year with my kid there. It was all just pretty cool the way it worked.”
Rocking P Cattle
Chris and Amy Potter started Rocking P Cattle a couple years ago when they purchased 1,000 acres around Latham, Kansas. They had spent nearly 20 years working for others, dreaming of the day they could strike out on their own.
Today, the Rocking P consists of about 1,100 owned acres, with another 2,200 leased. They had been running yearlings on the lease portion, but recently converted that to cows. On top of that, after working for Drummond Ranch for 13 years, they continue to provide contract care for about 1,300 head of cows on land the Drummonds own near them. Add to that a contract deal for care with the nearby Broken O Ranch and the Potters are caring for more than 2,000 head of cows year-round.
Chris and Amy have handled the brunt of the work, with their homeschooled daughter Carlee helping out as much as she could. However, after winning the Kansas State High School Rodeo Breakaway Championship, she is now attending Vernon College in Texas on a rodeo scholarship.
Enter Colton, who returned to work for his parents after spending about a year working on ranches in Texas and New Mexico.
“We got to the point where we were bigger than we could get done in a day’s time without killing ourselves. The last two winters have been pretty brutal around here and it’s been a daylight-til-dark operation to get everything cared for,” Chris says.
Horsepower is an important part of the Potters’ operation, but Chris explains they don’t raise their own.
His philosophy is, “when you are buying them instead of raising them, you can buy what you like. When you raise them, it takes a while, maybe four or five years, before you really find that out.”
Most of their horses are purchased as prospects and then, “if they make good horses, we keep them; if not, they go down the road,” Chris says.
It must be working, as Chris has competed at the Championship for decades, placing multiple times and winning as a member of the Sweetwater Cattle/Tom Drummond Ranch team in 2009, then again in 2015 with Lonesome Pine.
S&P Cattle Co.
Justin Peterson, at only 27 years old, has also had a lot of success at the WRCA World Championship. In 10 years of competing, he’s made seven trips to the big show. Even more impressively, he’s been named Top Hand three times.
Justin and Jake’s operation, S&P Cattle Co., is based out of Welch, Oklahoma, just 15 miles south of the Kansas border. It’s more of a yearling-focused operation, although Justin says they trade some cows as well.
“Mainly we are in a partnership with some friends to turn out about 2,500 to 3,000 head of yearling calves in the Kansas Flint Hills every spring. We straighten them out here and then send them to grass in Kansas. We will either sell them off grass or feed them in the yard.”
Jake, 22, does most of the buying. He attends seven cattle sales a week. Justin and Jake had been competing on the Haywire Cattle Co. team. Riding the bronc was previously one of Justin’s duties on that team, but this year, with a fiancé and a baby boy, he decided he didn’t want to take that risk. With no bronc rider for the team, they disbanded. Then he heard from Chris.
“I had been around Chris growing up and known him for quite a while,” Justin says. “My brother and I wanted to stay together, and it just worked out to join up with Chris. The pieces fell together.”
There were some early growing pains with the newly formed team. Chris admits the first three rodeos were not good.
“We didn’t get along worth a damn,” he says. But luck changed with the fourth rodeo, where they got qualified. The young team only went to two more rodeos before heading to Amarillo, but things were clicking. However, Chris says at the start of the Championship, there was a little rough patch.
“First go, right off the bat, I missed three loops in the stray gathering,” Chris recalls. “I cost us a no-time there. But after that, we were solid in the rodeo. It came down to the final night, and we were chasing Singletons and Muleshoe. Neither one of them had a no-time all week, but I think they safety-ed up a bit in the sorting. The sorting cattle were really tough, but we didn’t have a reason to safety up. We went for it, and it worked out.”
Justin says, “I never really paid attention or asked anybody throughout the week, but I thought we were probably in the middle of the pack. I knew we had to just stay consistent, because a lot of things can happen, and things change a lot. Everybody did their jobs to the best of their abilities and the cards fell where they needed to overall.
“I have been wanting that for a long time,” Justin says of the win. “Winning Top Hand down there is great but winning the rodeo means a heck of a lot more.”
Congratulations to Rocking P Cattle Co. / S&P Cattle Co for taking home the 2022 World Championship Ranch Rodeo title! We look forward to many more years of them competing with the WRCA!
This article appears in issue 76 of The Hungry Loop. Want to stay in the loop? Become a member at any level to receive the newsletter! Join up at wrca.org/membership.