The Utah Days of ’47 Rodeo in Salt Lake City could be renamed ‘the gunslinging matches,’ with Justine Doka topping the field of quick breakaway ropers with a 2.0-second run on Monday, July 24, 2023, to win the rodeo’s coveted gold medal.
“I went into the short round with the same game plan: Go as fast as I can,” said Doka, the 31-year-old wife of nine-time NFR roper Derrick Begay. “I’ve done this a million times in practice and at rodeos; I was ready. I thought, ‘Go fast, and you’ll be in there somewhere.’”
Doka, of Fountain Hills, Arizona, calls herself a barrier-pushing breakaway roper. Her tenacity was on full display with a 1.8-second run in the go-round on Wednesday, July 19, and a 2.0-second run in the Gold Medal Round. In all, she won $12,000.
Find full results for the Utah Days of ’47 Rodeo here.
“I don’t think I could have been any closer on the barrier than I was on my two runs,” Doka said. “I am either right there on the barrier or a little early,” Doka said, laughing. “That’s what this game is, everybody is trying to be the one on the top of the podium.”
Doka entered The Utah Days of ’47 Rodeo on a whim after she saw it was a WPRA rodeo—a changeup from the past many years of being a WCRA-sanctioned event. It featured two rounds of slack to determine who would advance to performances and, from there, the top two times from each performance advanced to the short go on Monday night.
“My whole mentality at these things is, ‘You’re there for a reason.’ The announcers will try and say you’re an underdog, but you didn’t get randomly pulled out of a hat. We had to work our way there. All my competitors went through the same process I did to qualify.”
— Justine Doka
Making it work with mare “Hannah”
Doka’s mount was “Hannah,” the bay mare she stole from Begay a few years ago. Approximately 13 years old, Hannah had been used as a head horse and a barrel horse before being turned on to the breakaway.
“She’s a good, solid little mare I can get by on,” Doka said of the horse that helped Begay tie the 4.1-second arena record at Greeley in 2021. “Not a lot of people can ride her, but I can. We don’t have the greatest stop, but we get things done. She’s quick from the corner and when the pressure is on, she’ll shut it down.”
Turquoise goals
Doka finished No. 2 in the average at the 2022 Turquoise Circuit Finals. She’s sitting No. 5 in those standings currently with $4,306 and big hopes of advancing to the 2024 NFR Open. She plans to hit more circuit rodeos but, first, she’s competing at Idaho’s Caldwell Night Rodeo and assorted Indian rodeos.
