He nearly died of strangles. He put a T-post through his jaw, nearly cut off his right front foot in a metal feeder and flipped over a neighbor’s fence, laying his chest open. He was stunted from being in poor shape as a 2-year-old and never grew up, only out, which meant Munsell was the only person small enough to ride him. She traded her dad mini-pony training to cover the $200.
He is what the rest of it was built on. In 2018 he carried her to the College National Finals Rodeo and won the Bob Feist Invitational breakaway, which bought her a spot at RFD-TV’s The American the first year the event ran breakaway. She was second there in 2019, won the CNFR the same season and cleared just shy of $100,000 in a single year. He took her to her first National Finals Breakaway Roping in 2021, where she won $21,421 on a $57,896 season.
“I tell people that Monster paid for everything,” she said. “I tell them he owns my rig, my truck, my place and the sorrel horse I ride now. I owe it all to him.”
Read more: Taylor Munsell Made a “Monster”
The next year she was reserve world champion at $90,844 and won her circuit, and she does not remember it fondly.
“I had a good year that wasn’t really honestly that good,” she said after the 2022 Prairie Circuit Finals. “I was struggling with horses. My bay horse was hurt for a lot of it, and I barely got to bring him out. My sorrel horse, we had him in the vet three different times. I was mounting out on other people’s horses.”
The rodeo she keeps coming back to is the Woodward Elks Rodeo, in the town where she learned.
“I grew up in that arena,” she said. “We had junior high finals there, high school finals and even had a college rodeo in that arena one year. My family went and watched the ProRodeo every year growing up and my Papa Dick Munsell won Woodward Rodeo when he was a saddle bronc rider.”
The sorrel horse Monster bought her came out of that same town.
Hotrod Song—“Colonel”—was bred by Pitzer Ranch, trained by Cudd Quarter Horses and sold as a 2-year-old at their annual Woodward sale, the one that runs during the rodeo. Tommy Johnson bought him there and heeled on him for years before sending him to Munsell in 2021 to make a breakaway horse and sell. She paid for him at the Woodward Elks Rodeo in 2021, leaning on a small hometown bank, and he never left.
“When I got him I couldn’t even lope a circle on him,” Munsell said. “He’s paid himself off so many times. The loan was nerve-wracking, but it was obviously what I needed to do.”
She won Woodward on him in 2023, with most of her family in the stands.
“He’s a freak of nature,” she said that night. “He’s one of the strongest, most athletic horses I’ve ever ridden. He reads cattle well and he’s got a crawl to him. He can rate on his butt, but still maintain forward motion.”
Read more: Home Field Advantage: Taylor Munsell Clinches Sentimental Win at Woodward Elks Rodeo
Colonel won Team Player of the 2023 NFBR. The next December, Munsell caught two of 10 calves at the Finals and finished sixth in the world.
“It takes time to get good, mentally,” she said in 2025. “I used to lose my cool pretty badly when things didn’t go well, but now, things don’t go well so often that I have gotten ok with it. And people are like, ‘You don’t want to be a good loser.’ And yes, I don’t want to be good at losing, but I want to be good at getting over a loss.”
The fix, in her telling, is not confidence. It is refusing to have a soft spot.
“I’ll rope with people, and they’ll say, ‘Don’t run this calf, he goes hard right.’ And I’m like, ‘What do you do when you go to the rodeo and draw one that goes hard right?’” she said. “I want to be good roping one that goes left, right and stops. I don’t want to feel like I have a weakness. And when one shows up, I go home and work on it.”
Three months later she won $65,000 in a single run at RodeoHouston, roping her championship-round calf in 2.7 seconds after a 3.3 in the semifinals. The week was worth $70,125, the most she had ever made in one building, and it put her on top of the world standings.
“Realizing I’d won was a lot to take in,” she told BRJ. “That’s the biggest amount of money I’ve won in one run. Now, I’m leading the World, and I plan to stay there.”
Read more: Taylor Munsell Leads the World with RodeoHouston Win, Earns $70,125
She stayed there, and the staying is the part she is proudest of. Munsell was the fastest breakaway roper ever to $100,000 by June 2, beating marks set by Jackie Crawford and Hali Williams, and she repeated at the Reno Rodeo later that month on Pals Star Shine, the palomino she calls “Ray.” She entered 71 rodeos and won a regular-season record $191,175.
“I took Houston out of the equation,” she said. “I didn’t just win Houston. I still needed to win money and stay as far ahead as I could.”
She went to Cowtown Coliseum in December sitting first for the first time in her career, which turned out to be its own problem.
“I’ve always been a come-from-behind person,” she said. “Being chased was different. I had to find a place to drive from.”
She won Round 6 in 2.1 and Round 10 in 2.0, both splits, and closed the season at $209,021—more money than any breakaway roper has won in a year.
“I would much rather go out swinging than go out being too slow,” she said. “Those girls put the pressure on me, and it made for a super exciting final round. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”
Read more: Taylor Munsell Earns 2025 World Championship, Sets New Standard with $209K Won
The defense started without her best horse. Colonel flared up before RodeoHouston this spring and Munsell gave him three months off to rehab rather than ride him through it. She advanced out of her bracket at Fort Worth and San Antonio anyway, went the wild-card route at Houston and roped a 3.8 in the Championship Shootout for $30,000, second behind Hali Williams. By the end of April she was No. 3 in the world on eight rodeos.
“I’m ready to get the summer run started,” she said in June. “My goal is the same as always: put myself in a position to win and capitalize as much as I can. I have a great set of horses and great hauling partners.”
Colonel came back at Greeley. In July, Munsell won the Pikes Peak or Bust NFR Open in Colorado Springs, Colorado, a rodeo she had entered every year and never won—she had broken a barrier to lose it once and missed a calf to lose it another time. She missed her second-round calf again, won the bracket average on 7.3 seconds anyway, then drew last out in the finals needing only to catch.
“Being last out and knowing you just need to catch is a whole new world of nerves,” she said. “I would’ve rather been first out again.”
She roped him in 1.9, tying Tiffany Schieck and taking the title on the tiebreaker for $14,875.
“I joked that I’ve never petted my horse for being too tight before,” she said. “The calf stepped across me, and my horse kind of shorted me out. I was like, ‘Perfect. I’m going to keep swinging and kicking now.’”
She was flying between Colorado Springs and Salinas, California, that week, where Maddy Jacobs had Ray for her. Her mother and her mother’s friend Jerry hauled the rig and got Colonel to Cheyenne.
“I couldn’t have done it without them,” Munsell said. “There’s a long list of people that make this stuff possible.”
“He feels as good as he has in a long time,” she said of Colonel. “It’s real exciting for the rest of the year to have him.”
Read more: Worth the Wait: Taylor Munsell Wins First NFR Open Title with 1.9-Second Final Run
Munsell is No. 4 in the world at $112,484.38 in 56 rodeos, $17,459.80 behind Rylee George in third and $1,365.40 ahead of Cadee Williams in fifth. The NFR Open title already settled the nearer question: its champion takes the 24th seat at Puyallup, Washington, Sept. 10-13, no matter where the points fall, and the top four out of Puyallup advance to the Governor’s Cup in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Sept. 25-27. She is No. 12 in Cinch Playoff Series points at 636.79, with the top eight not locked until Sept. 21.
The regular season closes Sept. 30, and the National Finals Breakaway Roping runs Dec. 18-19 at Will Rogers Coliseum in Fort Worth, where she goes back as the defending champion.
“Tomorrow’s a new day,” she said the night she won it. “The new season’s already started.”
