Seth Hall is making a habit of collecting Turquoise Circuit championships by the handful.
At the latest incarnation of the RAM Turquoise Circuit Finals Rodeo, held November 3-4 in Camp Verde, Arizona, Hall orchestrated a come-from-behind win for the year end title in the tie down roping on the strength of an average win in 29.2 seconds on three calves.
After adding $1,018 in the team roping to his $5,856 won in the tie down, Hall held off the challenge by World Champion Header Erich Rogers to also clinch his tenth year end All Around Championship.
“It’s all I’ve got to live for when I get old,” Hall, 33, joked of accumulating championships. “When we’re grey headed and all rodeoed out, we’ll know why.”
Hall’s ten All Around titles are the most any cowboy has won in the Turquoise Circuit and his streak of six consecutive wins from 2014 to 2019 is one better than legends Clay O’Brien Cooper and Brent Lewis were able to put together. His title in 2023 was third in a new streak.
How it came together for Hall
A late season push helped the Picacho, Arizona cowboy have a chance at his first circuit year end championship in the tie down roping to go along with those all arounds and a team roping title earned in 2019.
“I had a couple of good weekends at those rodeos up there around the Four Corners—Cortez (Colo.), Monticello (Utah)—they’re a ways up there but they’re good rodeos for us,” Hall recalled. “I got a couple of checks at Santa Fe, that weekend. Anytime you get to go to three in one weekend, you can get the ball rolling.”
As he does each summer, Hall left the circuit, choosing to rodeo in cooler country but once he came home from the road in August, he realized a title was within reach.
“I won Payson (Ariz.) in August, which is one of our good ones, and I saw that we had Poway (Calif.), Albuquerque and those and I thought I might have a chance to catch the leaders,” Hall said.
After taking third at Poway and picking up some money on the final weekend in Las Cruces, Hall had climbed to second, stalking leader Kalai Nobriga and trailing by just $337.
“I slid over there to Las Cruces and won $900, which ended up being huge to help me get closer to Kalai.”
Past circuit champ and Wrangler National Finals Rodeo (NFR) qualifier Joseph Parsons stood less than $2,000 back also, setting up a nearly sudden death finals.
“I knew it was neck-and-neck going into the finals,” Hall said. “I figured we’d all have to rope for the average but try to get a little in the rounds if we wanted to win it.”
Turned out that plan went out the window during the opening round.
“I had a really good calf and thought I needed to take advantage of him,” Hall laughed. “The round was softer than I expected and I jumped out there and put a wrap and a hooey on him.”
“I thought, ‘what am I doing?’” he admitted, still chuckling. “But it worked.”
Hall’s 9.5 second run won the go round and, despite Nobriga’s fourth place finish, allowed him to leapfrog into the leader’s position.
“It was just the calf and the situation that made me go for it,” Hall said.
Roping calves are something Hall knows all about. Besides what he’s able to do with his rope, Hall makes his living on his feed yard, and on leasing and selling roping calves around the southwest.
“We just started doing that the last four or five years and it’s turned into a pretty good side hustle,” Hall said. “I work to supply the best set I can. I’m a competitor too and I know how I feel when there’s a set that’s not good at a rodeo so I don’t want to do that.”
“There’s just a handful of us around here who really work hard and take the tie down seriously and I want everyone to have a fair chance to win.”
Back home in Picacho
He and wife Callie concentrate on ropings in the spring and fall and run the feedlot and ride horses year round.
“She’s riding every day and we’re always getting ready for something. Like now, we’re about to start tripping steers to get ready for the Timed Event [Championships, held in Guthrie each March],” Hall said. He’ll compete in that event for the fifth time in 2024.
“We’re always working at it, trying to be ready for these prestigious events. We have a slew of horses for every discipline and they’re eating every day so we ride as many as we can in a day and just work at it.”
For the circuit finals, Hall called upon the 12-year old mare he calls Miley, a horse he bought at the beginning of the year from fellow Turquoise Circuit roper Tristan Mahoney.
“I rode her all summer and she gave us a lot of chances to win.”
After a successful opener in Camp Verde, Hall dialed back to his original strategy for the first of two performances on Saturday.
“I knew I just needed to tie the next one down and I made a decent run,” he said of his 10.3 second run. He split fourth in the round and headed into the final go trailing average leader Bryce Derrer by four tenths of a second.
“It came down to that last round [Saturday night] and I think there were five of us who really had a chance at it,” Hall said, including Nobriga, Parsons, reigning Turquoise CFR champ Richard Newton and Derrer. “It was kind of crazy.”
“There was lots going on and just to run that last one was exciting,” Hall said.
Both Newton and Parsons made good runs and Hall knew that Derrer, who would rope last after him, had a good calf drawn.
“I tried to lay back and go as fast as I could,” he said. “I was off the barrier a bit but made a good one on the ground.”
His 9.4 set fourth and when Derrer took a no time, he clinched the average win by eight tenths over Newton.
“It just kind of went my way,” Hall said. He earned $17,148 for the year, just about $4,000 ahead of both Nobriga and Parsons.
With the win, Hall will now make another appearance at the NFR Open, held in Colorado Springs during Pikes Peak or Bust in July. He’s been a constant there thanks not only to the many year end titles but a slew of circuit average wins as well.
“This will be my sixth time,” he said of the national championship event for the circuit system which was formerly known as the Ram National Circuit Finals Rodeo. “I went the first time in Oklahoma City, then twice in Kissimmee, the year it was in Greeley and now twice in Colorado Springs.”
In fact, Hall has competed in every location except Pocatello, Idaho, the event’s original home, probably only because he had barely joined the PRCA when it left Idaho.
“Ya, that’s kind of cool,” he said of that unique fact. “This one, there in Colorado Springs, just really felt like a big event so I’m glad to go back.”
But first, back to work. On Monday after the circuit finals rodeo, Hall was back in the truck hauling calves south for another roping and adding that there’s always another event for which to prepare.
“We’re actually getting ready for the ranch rodeo world finals so we were practicing stray gathering,” he laughed. “We’re just jack of all trades, there’s no telling what’s in store.”