‘Everyone wants to win the Dad’: Tsinigine, Lowman capture titles at Cheyenne Frontier Days

WINDOW ROCK

The Daddy of ‘em All rodeo blessed the Navajo Nation with not only one but two champions on Sunday afternoon.

The Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo crowned Danielle Lowman and Aaron Tsinigine as the 2025 winners following the winner-take-all format in the final round.

“I’ve been trying to do this for 20 years,” Tsinigine said of winning the CFD. “This is the Dad and everyone wants to win the Dad. It feels good to finally get it done.

“It felt like I was never gonna get it done, but we got it done,” he added.

Lowman capped the annual event with a 4.3 run in the finals as she earned her finals qualification with some solid runs in the previous rounds.

The Gilbert, Arizona cowgirls finished in a two-way tie for fourth in the sixth performance to advance in the semifinals. She then added a 5.8 run in the semis before producing a 4.3 in the qualifier.

In Sunday’s finals, Lowman clocked in another 4.3 run to win the title as she collected $19,538 with $13,021 coming in the finals. As of last Friday’s WPRA standings, Lowman has amassed $23,770 and that total should go up significantly when the new standings are released.

“I really did enjoy winning this rodeo,” Lowman said. “It’s always a dream come true to go there and win it. It’s pretty much a drawing contest when you get there.

“Honestly, looking into it I was drawing strong (calves) every single time,” she added. “My first calf I drew pretty good, and my second calf was strong, but I advanced.”

In the next round, the rodeo advanced the top six ropers, and she ended up third to make the finals.

“I drew the same calf, so I knew what I had to do,” Lowman said. “You know, I had to sharper on the line and ride my horse better. It was something that you had to score good every single time. But on stronger calves it’s harder to do.”

Like Lowman, Tsinigine was looking to survive. The Tuba City cowboy teamed up with Jeremy Buhler and they produced a 9.3 in the finals. The pair collected $13,600 over the nine-day rodeo, which included $11,500 in the finals.

“Everybody wants to win a lot of money there, but my goal was to get to the last round,” Tsinigine said. “If I could get into the last round, I would give myself a chance because the Cheyenne buckle is a prestigious award and not very people have them. I didn’t care about the money. I just wanted to somehow get my hand on that buckle.

“That was my mentality the whole time,” Tsinigine said. “I just needed to keep surviving all the way to the last day, and everything went our way.”

Admittedly, Tsingine wasn’t expecting to be in the winner’s circle based on the steer they drew on Sunday afternoon. In fact, he said the steer they had was one of the two draws they wanted to stay away from.

“That steer ran hard for Luke Brown, and they ended up by a 12. 1 on Saturday,” he said. “When we drew him, I was thinking I had a chance to win third or fourth.”

Still, the duo produced a game plan.

“I had to try and get a good start on him, and my partner executed our game plan to ‘T’,” Tsingine said. “We ended up making a good run on him.”

Sunday’s finals was Tsinigine’s third one and that proved to be a charm for the Diné roper. The win moves Tsinigine to No. 21 in the world at $58,300 in the PRCA team roping heading standings.

“I’m not rodeoing as hard and I’ve been easing it up this season,” Tsinigine said. “I’m not going to go back to full time rodeoing until next year. I got some horses that I’m seasoning; I’m building my horsepower back up.”

As for future partnerships with Buhler, Tsinigine says that’s up in the air.

“I don’t know what we’re doing,” Tsinigine said. “We’re (playing it) day by day. I’m about three-fourths of the way there for a chance to make the (NFR) finals. I’m not forcing anything.

“If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be,” he added.

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