The PRCA’s past and present are getting together for a roping event to benefit Shad Mayfield’s longtime friend Corey Carrington, who is paralyzed on his right side due to spinal stenosis.
Mayfield, the 2020 World Champion, will square off against 20-time NFR qualifier and six-time World Champion Cody Ohl.
The idea came about when Mayfield was working with Ohl to tune up his roping prior to the WCRA’s Rodeo Corpus Christi. Mayfield asked Ohl, who has put together two match ropings and raised $50,000 combined at them, when his next benefit would be and if he would consider holding it for Carrington.
“I didn’t know (Corey) very good, but just sitting there watching him be (Shad’s) right-hand man, I had drivers like that and it means the world when you’re on the road and you’re away from your family,” Ohl said. “I got to thinking about it after the fact and was like man, we kinda own the stage right here...So, I said ‘If you want to make this thing big, how about just you and I match.’”
Part of Ohl’s motivation to rope against Mayfield was that he never got to match against Joe Beaver while he was coming up and Beaver was on the way out.
Win, lose or draw, this will be the final time Ohl ropes competitively and while making it through the event without tearing anything is a priority for him, he also badly wants to win. Anytime he competes, the blood still gets pumping.
“I can feel the hair on my arm stand up,” he said.
The match will be eight-head and hosted at Mayfield’s property in Hico, Texas on Sunday, June 11. There were also be open 19 and under tie-down and breakaway events.