IVAN HERNANDEZ
Ivan Hernandez, Rifle, Colorado, learned how to handle a rope on the open ranges of his Chihuahua, Mexico, childhood home. As a teenager he moved to Denver, Colorado, to work with his uncle. Now 29, he’s worked a variety of jobs including his current occupation as a drywall installer. Whether he’s been ranching, farming or doing construction, he’s always found time to work with horses—adapting training techniques from anywhere and everywhere.
Although he’d always been around horses and cattle on his family ranch, Hernandez didn’t learn to team rope until 2010 when a trip to the National Western Stock Show & Rodeo piqued his interest.
“I started out watching team roping videos,” he explained. “I met Marco Aragon and some of his roping friends and they let me borrow their horses.
I started heading but I didn’t like it, so I switched to heeling.”
Hernandez struggled in the arena at first then trip to a local roping clinic changed everything.
“The clinic helped me improve a lot,” he said. “A few months later I won my first buckle and a few weeks after I won my first saddle.”
After a short stay in Idaho in 2011, Hernandez found himself on the Western Slope of Colorado, where he met his future wife, Noemi. He was keeping his horses at her family’s ranch in Silt and working for her brother.
The couple was married the following year an he still helps his father-inlaw on the ranch.
With three kids in tow, Miranda, 6, Miguel, 3 and Mateo, 1, Ivan and Noemi decided to vacation in Arizona during this year’s NTR Finals to escape the Colorado winter, visit friends and watch their family rope. Hernandez had no plans to rope himself, but when his cousin Manuel Vazquez and Manuel’s son, Edgar Aguilar, offered him a horse for the #8.5 Open to the World Truck Roping, he couldn’t resist.
Aboard the borrowed black mare, registered Sheza Hott Mess, Hernandez partnered with Aguilar and found himself with two callbacks.
“I didn’t think I had a chance,” Hernandez recalled. “There were some guys with more callbacks than me.”
When all the cards were dealt a second and eleventh place finish kept him good on points to win the new Ram truck.
“He was very shocked,” Noemi laughed. “We kept telling him to go get the truck and he just kind of stood there. I think he was shocked for a couple of days.”
The young Hernandez family had driven to Arizona with all three kids in a small extended cab pickup, so the full-size back seat is a huge blessing.
“The kids love the new truck,” said Noemi. “Miranda thinks it’s hers.”
Although quiet by nature, Hernandez has accumulated a solid group of friends in the team roping world and had an enormous fan section cheering him on for his big win. Wade Baize of Corriente Saddle Company first met him at some of the Colorado summer rodeos last year.
“He was a quiet guy and I could understand and speak enough Spanish that we got to be buddies,” Baize explained. “It was so cool to get to watch him win the truck in Wickenburg.”
“It’s mostly guys I’ve met along the way,” Hernandez explained of the camaraderie. It was a life-changing win for the Colorado cowboy who’s already planning to return to Wickenburg for the sixth annual NTR National Finals.
