With the release of one "big nasty loop" Anthony "Rooster" Salazar went down in team roping history as the first to slick horn Rio—The Nation's Wildest Bounty Steer.

Anthony Salazar took to teaching himself how to team rope in junior high by riding out in the various pastures around his California home, with a half dozen ropes to track his neighbor’s cattle.

“I was out in the pasture across from our place and Bronc Boehnlein, who was working for Jeremy Gorham, saw me out there,” Salazar recalled with a laugh. "He came flying through the gate and chased me down in the truck. Jeremy just said, ‘Hey, if he wants to chase cattle let’s just hire him.’ I’ve been there ever since.”

Gorham owns and operates Euclid Stockyards in Ontario, California, that supplies a bulk of the roping steers throughout the state. Gorham also produces team roping events, and that’s where he first put Salazar to work—it’s also where he earned his very honest nickname.

“He showed up to one of our ropings with a hole cut out of his cowboy hat and a green mohawk sticking out of it,” Gorham laughed. “I told him you look like a dang rooster.”

Now, more people than not know him simply as Rooster.

“My uncle had a mohawk a long time ago. I was just goofing off and it stuck,” said Salazar, who still sports the look underneath his straw hat, though you won’t see him with it spiked nearly as often these days. “It’s a little hard to rope with it spiked. Plus, it’s a lot of work.”

Just before he got his shot at roping Rio during the January 19th Livin’ for Ropin’ Tour stop, Gorham pulled Salazar aside and offered (secret) advice on how to tame the beast. With his Classic medium heel rope, Salazar rode up on his little red roan mare he fittingly calls Roany Pony.

“I actually got this horse off of the reservation in New Mexico,” Salazar said. "She was headed to slaughter. I liked her size, so I took her.”

Although she’s not much taller than Rio, and certainly more narrow, Roany Pony never backed down as Salazar built a massive loop and slick horned The Nation’s Wildest Bounty Steer.

“Everyone told me to grab the hardest rope I could find,” Salazar explained. "It was pretty brand new. I probably had maybe four runs on it. I just built a big nasty loop, took Jeremy’s advice and then I closed my eyes. It’s kind of funny. Ty actually bought Rio from Jeremy’s sale there in Chino. I used to work the sale there all the time. I guess it all kind of came full circle.”

In addition to his mean, green mohawk, you’ll often see Salazar roping and working with a mask on due to his extreme allergies to dirt and horses. When he was 10 years old, Salazar was also diagnosed with Nephrotic Syndrome, a chronic kidney disorder. While both ailments occasionally affect his roping, neither will ever keep him from doing what he loves.

“My kidneys just kind of shut down, and I had to start dialysis about eight months ago.

It’s difficult to manage the dialysis itself, but I feel the best I’ve felt since I was 10. I could never do much before. Now, I can work out, and I’ve found I can actually ride more too. The allergies and the kidney issues, it bothers me sometimes, but roping is all I want to do so I just keep doing it.”