Dakota Cowboys Win Cheyenne: Good, Jorgenson bring saddles back to South Dakota, North Dakota
Denton Good of Long Valley, South Dakota and Clay Jorgenson of Watford City, North Dakota emerged victorious at Cheyenne Frontier Days. The former won the steer wrestling while the latter clinched the bareback riding title.
Good, 20, is no stranger to Frontier Park, having steer wrestled there twice before and hazed all three years. “What a cool feeling to watch this rodeo as a kid and then grow up and be able to compete here,” Denton said. “This is one of the biggest dreams of my life.”
Good grew up practicing steer wrestling with a training dummy on an ATV, and watching his dad, Allen Good, and uncles, Darin Good and Chuck Kite compete, along with many peers.
Christmas Eve at 12 years old, Denton jumped a steer for the first time at his family’s arena. Even though he ate a lot of dirt, he said it’s something he’d never forget. His grandpa, Gordon, hazed for him and has hazed the first bull dogging steer for everyone else in the family, including his dad, uncles, and brother, Carson. “That was pretty cool,” he says.
His dad and grandpa started him young, not only wrestling steers, but team roping as well. The family has practiced all aspects of rodeo for as long as Good can remember. While the family is known mostly for their steer wrestling, they’ve also team roped, calf roped, and rode broncs. His very first saddle was won in 2015, heading for Jace Thorstenson in the junior team roping in the Little Britches Rodeo Association. In 2017, he won the National Junior High Finals team roping, heading for Rio Nutter. Good competed in chute dogging in junior high rodeo, and then went on to steer wrestling as he got into high school.
His dad and Uncle Darin were very successful steer wrestlers. “That’s just what we’re known for – bull dogging.” Grandpa Gordon was mostly a calf roper, but remains an avid hazer. While his Uncle Chuck Kite, (mom’s brother) could throw steers pretty well, he won Cheyenne Frontier Days in 1995 as a bareback rider, and later won the Linderman Award in 1996.
“Long Valley’s a bull doggin’ town up here, kind of like Checotah, Oklahoma is the steer wrestling capital of the world.” He says Long Valley very well could be second. “There are a lot of bull doggers in our country. That’s all we do out here. We have big group practices and we put on steer wrestling schools once or twice a year.”
Denton and his family (mostly Denton and Carson now) train all the horses they use for competition. A lot of them have to be multi-functional, as he also picks up at rodeos. He says he has a few pick-up horses they also use as haze horses, and some are pretty good team roping horses and tripping horses, as well.
While many professional rodeos have controlled setups where the most polished, well-practiced steer wrestlers prevail, Cheyenne has many uncontrollable factors. Horsemanship, Good said, was his winning edge. He borrowed his brother Carson’s horse, Mario, and his dad hazed for him.
“It’s a misconception that a bull dogging horse is just a broke runaway. That’s what everyone thinks they are. There’s a lot of them out there like that, but what we try to do is I want my bull dogging horses to be broke as anything I get on.” The Good family actually starts roping on their steer wrestling horses before transferring to bull dogging. Heeling introduces them to the box while teaching them how to stand quietly and score.
A member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association since 2022, this is Good’s biggest win so far. A full-time stock contractor, Good “snuck away” to Cheyenne to compete over the course of two weeks while he worked his way through the tournament-style rodeo. He is glad he did.
Denton drew the same steer for the short round on Sunday as he did for Wednesday’s quarterfinal, which he won. “It was a good steer and I was super excited to see I’d drawn him. My dad has hazed that steer four times now. I knew what I had to do on that one.”
During the short round, the stands were packed with both friends and family, (his grandpa included) ready to cheer and support. He and his brother swapped horses, as Mario was the better horse for Cheyenne. His uncles stood in the box with him before he nodded his head.
Good is grateful for his support team. His dad has hazed many a steer in that arena, and there’s no one he’d rather have help him. It meant the world to Denton to have his dad running on the other side of him. Denton says, “Words can’t express the huge accomplishment of winning this rodeo.”
“Cheyenne isn’t a rodeo for everyone, you either love it or hate it, but I’ve always loved it. It doesn’t matter who you are there – big guys or the underdogs – a person always has an opportunity to win something in Cheyenne, and that’s what I like about it.”
Jorgenson
Winning Cheyenne was a welcome break following a years-long sequence of hard luck and injuries for Clay Jorgenson. “It’s just an amazing rodeo. I’m still pretty in awe about it,” he said.
The only bareback rider to score a 90-point spur ride in Frontier Park this year, he drew his “pick of the pen” in a horse called Game Trail of Summit Pro Rodeo for Short Round Sunday. Game Trail is in the “TV Pen” during the National Finals Rodeo, meaning that he is one of the best bucking horses in the world, according to Jorgenson. “I knew I had a really good chance,” he said.
Jorgenson competed in Cheyenne during his rookie year in 2021. However, a broken jaw took him out of competition for seven months to round out that year. When he came back, he injured his wrist. He barely went to 15 rodeos in 2022. Last year, he tore a joint in his shoulder over the Fourth of July, which sidelined him for another two months.
Sitting out for virtually three years was frustrating, especially following a successful high school, college, and amateur career, which included a North Dakota High School Rodeo state championship, three qualifications to the National High School Finals, a qualification to the College National Finals Rodeo, and three North Dakota Rodeo Association titles.
In the meantime, Jorgenson kept busy helping on his family’s ranch feeding cows in the winter, haying in the summer, and operating his own fencing business.
Finally, in 2024, he is sound and healthy and rodeo is his main focus.
Since patience is a virtue he had been schooled in, the tournament style of Cheyenne was merely a game of longevity for Jorgenson. “It’s a long process to get to the Finals,” he said. When he got on his semifinals horse – scoring an 85.5 – it had been a week since he had gotten on his quarterfinals horse.
“It’s hard to make it out of the quarterfinals alone. You’re going against the top guys no matter what.”
Jorgenson ultimately won $11,359 for his efforts throughout Cheyenne Frontier Days, which bolstered him in the world standings. He currently sits in the 26th position, and his game plan for rodeoing has not changed. He and his traveling partner, Ben Kramer, will continue to “enter heavy and hope for good draws” to finish out their 2024 season.
Jorgenson’s win may only be starting to sink in. “It means everything. It’s such a prestigious, big rodeo that’s everyone’s bucket list rodeo. It’s kind of hard to put into words still. It’s surreal. It’s amazing to be the champion.”
