Shad Mayfield took home top honors at the 2024 Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo with a 7.8-second run in the Short Go, worth $20,000.

The run came on the heels of Mayfield’s 7.5-second run during the Semifinals—a time that held out as fastest of the rodeo.

With the win, Mayfield sits No. 1 in the world by more than $40,000 with $63,633 in earnings.

Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo calf roping

“I love it in Fort Worth,” Mayfield, 23, said. “It’s a 45-minute drive and I got the last set here, which is what everyone wants. You rope here, get a day off and get to come back for the semifinals. It’s nice to keep that momentum in a building. I love these tournament-style brackets. They seem to be my setups because I like to go fast every round.”

In his short round run, the 2020 World Champion pulled his calf down at the end of the rope. According to Mayfield, the set was strong, and his mare “Lollipop” was game to catch the bovine off-guard and make it more cooperative on the ground.

“If I had spun my calf around [instead of pulling it down] I probably would have been 6-something,” Mayfield said. “Being second out, I had to set the pace. [Lollipop] taking the air out of the calf made it a lot better on the ground, and I was able to keep moving in the moment.”

From sour to sweet

Mayfield and Lollipop’s first building experience together came at the 2023 NFR, where they won Round 4 with a 6.9-second time. Later, they went 6.1 together, but the calf got up and negated Mayfield’s would-be NFR Arena Record.

“I took a big step riding her at the NFR, because when I bought her, the kid said she didn’t work in buildings,” Mayfield recalled. “I rode her all summer and the NFR was the first building I ran her in. I tied a lot of fast calves—even that 6.1 but it got up. It feels good to have that momentum behind us and we’ll keep riding through the winter.”

Despite their mojo as a team now, Mayfield admits that in the beginning, Lollipop—Registered as Figure To Fly—wasn’t so sweet.

“When I got her, we butted heads a lot,” Mayfield said. “I’ve never liked mares. When I bought her, she’d shut Andrew Burks out at Houston and was working bad. But I was desperate for a horse, and I took her to California. It wasn’t so great out there, and I almost sold her a couple of times. We finally started clicking and I treated her real nice. She loves her job now. I’ve won her over—she’s my girlfriend now.”

The two are headed to the Dixie National Rodeo in Jackson, Mississippi before heading to South Texas for the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo.