##Lessons learned from a career spent sharing the road with the right partner.

by Jake Barnes with Kendra Santos
January 5, 2026

A lot of people ask me for advice on how to build a successful partnership. For starters, you need to have the same goals and work ethic, like Clay (Cooper) and I did. Communication is important. While Clay and I didn’t always talk to each other a lot, we stayed on the same page and were both always dead focused on winning. 

The hardest thing for me my whole career was having good enough horses all the time to be worthy of the best partner. The headers with the best head horses naturally have an easier time attracting the best heelers, and it is not easy to maintain elite horsepower. 

You might luck into a great one here or there, but if he’s sidelined or quits working, you’re straight back to the drawing board. When you’re out on the road and run out of horsepower, it’s hard to instantly have another horse to continue the race. That was always my struggle, and I fought that situation nonstop in my career. 

When it comes to being a good partner, if you really want to get down to the Xs and Os of it, sit down together and talk it over. Find someone who’s on the same page, right down to the detail of what each partner’s going to take care of and where you like to eat. Clay didn’t mind entering the rodeos, so he did all the entering. I wanted to pull my weight, so I handled the trades. In the days before cell phones and access to any information online, we did it all from pay phones with pencil and paper, after getting each phone number from PROCOM. 

Every team needs to figure out if they’re going to travel together or take two rigs. How often are you going to stop and let the horses out? Who doesn’t like a home-cooked meal, but sometimes it’s not an option on an all-night drive. Can you stomach McDonald’s, or no? Clay and I found favorite spots to eat in most rodeo towns over the years, but time doesn’t always allow for that. 

We were compatible when it came to splitting up the driving. I was an early morning, all-day driver, and Clay was more of a night person. So when we’d leave the rodeo, he typically took the wheel until the next morning, then I’d get up and could go the rest of the day. 

As for partner don’ts, you aren’t always going to get your way, and you don’t always have to be right. It can’t just be your way or the highway, so you need to have some give and take between you. 

Don’t be a deadbeat when it comes to paying your way. To this day, Clay and I pay for every other meal and every other tank of fuel. If you can’t pay your part, stay home.

Don’t be the header who throws your head back if your heeler messes up, or pops the tail of your rope in the air riding out of the arena if things don’t go your way. That’s not good for your team, and will not turn things around for you. Heelers who head the steer when their header misses might want to rethink that move, too. They do it out of frustration, but it’s a no-no in my book and you might as well look over at him, call him an idiot and say, “Look how easy this is.”

If you put a magnifying glass on some of the most successful teams, like Speed (Williams) and Rich (Skelton), or Clay and I, we were neighbors who lived right there in the same town. That made a lot of practice possible. To this day, I’m baffled at how those guys managed to win eight championships in a row. That’s insane.

Not every successful team is going to have a perfect combination of personalities. But if you find that winning combo, ride that horse until the wheels fall off and put personalities aside, if you have to. Back in that box, make your run, win, ride out and ride on.

Being a good teammate takes a lot of effort. It’s grueling to maintain a spot at the top of the mountain. That’s what everybody wants, but nobody said it would be easy. What’s been proven over time is that the better partner you are, the more money you’re going to win.

—TRJ—


https://teamropingjournal.com/roping-tips/the-dos-and-donts-of-being-a-good-team-roping-partner/


Roping Partner Dos and Don’ts