Dixieland Delight

Less than a year ago, in July 2018, team roping fans had a scare when they watched Chuck Jenkins’ horse go down in the arena at JX2’s USTRC Tennessee Championships in Franklin, Tennessee. Always a bad deal when a horse stumbles, the risk increases exponentially when the horse is carrying Jenkins, who lost the use of his legs in a 1998 car wreck and now straps his legs down to the saddle. Following the fall, a band of east-of-the-Mississippi ropers got together and decided Jenkins needed a new horse and mobilized. Jenkins, unaware of the effort, showed up again the next day to compete.

John Johnson, the producer behind JX2 Productions and many of the East Coast ropings has known Jenkins for a long time and has seen a horse go down with him more than once.

“I’ve been doing this for about 22 years,” Johnson explained. “[Chuck] was a really good team roper before the accident, and he had a special saddle made with a board in the back from the cantle up and strapped himself in. It’s very dangerous, of course, and I have personally