2025 Breakaway Resistol Rookie of the Year Haiden Thompson had a ProRodeo season complete with broken earnings records, five-figure weeks, and the loss of her No. 1 mount, Foxie.
In all, it was a rollercoaster that resulted in Thompson rounding up a total of $64,624, priceless knowledge, and partnerships and the heartbreak that can only come from losing a heart horse.
“As I reflect back on the year, it was pretty cool to see what I did and where I [finished] in the standings considering I didn’t have the building rodeos,” Thompson, of Yoder, Wyoming, said. “Most of the money I won was in the month of July. It makes me wonder where I would have been if Foxie hadn’t gotten hurt. Would I be in the Top 15?”
Foxie and Thompson’s other gelding “Tom” were the force behind a majority of her earnings, including a tremendous week of earning in mid-July, where she earned $21,041 with strong finishes at the Rooftop Rodeo in Estes Park ($4,249), Sheridan WYO Rodeo ($2,239), Central Wyoming Fair and Rodeo in Casper ($7,122), Gunnison’s Cattlemen’s Days in Gunnison ($3,290) and Cheyenne Frontier Days ($4,141).
Shortly after, Foxie, registered as Foxie N Fancy, suffered a freak injury in her pen at Thompson’s home in Wyoming.
“The vets said I’d never ride her again,” Thompson told BRJ in September. “We tried surgery, and at first it looked good, but then it went downhill so fast. My eyes were swollen [from crying] for a week straight. She made everything so easy, and suddenly I didn’t know what horse I was going to ride.”
Foxie wasn’t just another horse. She was the kind that only got along with Thompson, and together they regularly posted times faster than 2 seconds on short scores.
“I’ve never been so close to falling off a horse so many times,” Thompson laughed. “She gave me so many bruises, but she taught me everything about breakaway roping. She really only worked for me — we were meant to be together.”
What remains are bittersweet memories of Thompson and Foxie together, and the Resistol Rookie of the Year title to commemorate the red mare’s ability.
New teammate “Dingo”
And sometimes, people around you know what you need even more than you do. Childhood friend Rance Bowden had been calling Thompson to come try out a small gelding he had even before Foxie passed away, but she was lukewarm.
Finally, when she was home from the summer run, Bowden drove the gelding, called “Dingo” from South Dakota to Wyoming.
“He was like, ‘You need to ride this horse,'” Thompson recalled. “Dingo is a short setup horse all the way. The first time I rode him somewhere, I won the jackpot, and it was a fairly big jackpot. I think I may have cried at that jackpot, we were 1.6 and 1.7, and I hadn’t ridden a horse that felt so much like Foxie. Him and Foxie are spitting images of each other. Little, pony-looking things.”
Needless to say, 13-year-old Dingo was staying with Thompson.
“I haven’t felt like I have really needed to get with him, we just clicked,” Thompson said. “He has yet to make a mistake, and it makes my job easy. It’s crazy how God works, the things he puts us through. But I think he has a pretty cool story written up for Dingo and I.”
