Munsell found a passion in breakaway roping and is breaking barriers

Taylor Munsell may as well have been born carrying a rope.

When one is raised in the western Oklahoma hamlet of Arnett and in the Munsell clan, it’s just a way of life.

“Team roping is what my family’s known for,” said Munsell, a 28-year-old Cinch endorsee now living in her intercollegiate hometown of Alva, home of Northwestern Oklahoma State University.

So, she roped, and she got pretty good at it. It wasn’t just team roping, either. She roped just about everything, but she expanded her punch while in school. Athletes tend to do that, especially at a small school where there are fewer young men and young women to field teams.

The Arnett High Wildcats needed someone, anyone like Munsell, but she was having issues that affected her work in roping and basketball. It was her right shoulder, the one she used to shoot balls and catch cows. Her right hand would go numb; doctors diagnosed her with thoracic outlet syndrome, a condition in which the nerves and blood vessels pinch off between the top rib and pectoral muscle.

She had MRIs and X-rays, injections and physical therapy. She worked at everything experts offered, but the trouble reared its head during her second year in high school. Surgeons removed the top rib and conducted rotator-cuff surgery

More than a decade later, Munsell’s medical issues seem to be resolved. She’s proven it over time, from winning the 2019 intercollegiate breakaway roping title to her four straight qualifications to the National Finals Breakaway Roping. As of mid-July, she was the No. 1 lady in all the land with nearly $120,000 in the bank.

“The year’s been pretty good,” Munsell said. “I definitely can’t complain, but I’ve let some slip away. I should have probably executed a little better, but I feel that’s always the case.”

It is, because that is sports. Baseball players can win Gold Gloves with errors, and football players are still elite after dropped passes. Even the greatest to have ever played a game have failed to execute from time to time. Munsell has succeeded more times than not, and she has some big wins in 2025 to account for her financial windfall.

The first came in March, when she took advantage of the tournament-style format to win the lion’s share of the RodeoHouston money. She finished in Super Series 1 to advance to the semifinals, where she placed in a tie for third to sneak into the 10-woman field for the final day. There, sheposted a time of 3.9 seconds to be one of four ladies chasing the biggest prize with just one run each.

Munsell stopped the clock in 2.7 seconds to win the championship and the $65,000 first-place prize, accumulating more than $70,000 over her run inside NRG Stadium.

“It took me a while to figure (tournament-style rodeos) out,” she said. “I struggled advancing at first. In the first couple of years I rodeoed, I never made the semifinals at the winter rodeos, so it took me a little bit to figure stuff out. I do like them now. It’s just a little different format, and you just try to advance, then it’s a one-header at the end.

“I’ve been working really hard on figuring out how to be smart at those things but still make the best runs I can so that I’m winning enough to advance but also putting myself in a place where I feel like I was competitive enough to win at the end, too.”

It’s safe to say she’s got it figured out, but she’s still able to rope in a consistent manner throughout a multiple-head rodeo. Take Reno, Nevada, where she’s won the last two titles and collected a couple sets of spurs in the process. This past June, she placed in the second round, won the championship round and took the aggregate crown with a three-run cumulative time of 8.0 seconds to pocket just shy of $12,000.

Yes, that means Houston and Reno have accounted for $82,000 of her 2025 earnings. That’s a nice average.

“Winning Houston is very important,” Munsell said. “I think it’s on everybody’s bucket list and one of the biggest rodeos of the year. To start your year out that early and that well, it’s definitely huge.”

And Reno?

“I will say that averages are the rodeos I tend to do good at,” she said. “Last year, I went the first half of the summer, and the only rodeos I placed at were average rodeos where there are two head are more. Those are definitely more my strong suit.”

Consistency plays a role in how she performs. She won the average titles in Reno with the same aggregate time of 8.0 seconds.

“I actually didn’t realize that until after I’d roped that it was the exact same time both years,” Munsell said. “I was like, ‘That’s crazy.’ Reno’s been great to me. The BFI in Reno was the first big roping I ever went to, and I won it and made The American the first year they had breakaway roping at The American.

“I’ve made the short round every year they’ve had breakaway roping at the ProRodeo at Reno.”

 Big rodeos mean the big time, and Munsell has left her mark. While fellow Cinch endorsee Shelby Boisjoli-Meged rightfully owns the crown for being the first $50,000 breakaway roping winner at her hometown Calgary Stampede, Munsell was the first to win the title in Calgary, having done so in 2023, when Canada’s biggest rodeo featured team roping and breakaway roping in a special section separate from the actual performances.

This year changed, and Boisjoli-Meged won the showdown round to claim the big bucks. It’s another grand opportunity for the women who rope calves for a living. The Canadian-born cowgirl pocketed $64,500 in Calgary. Munsell, though, settled for $9,625 but didn’t advance out of her pool. The opportunity is something, though, and she’s hoping to be back in the mix next year.

Of course, having a resume that boasts of titles in Calgary, Houston and Reno is something special.

“They’re really nice,” Munsell said. “They are super big rodeos that are definitely ones that I really looked forward to. I’m super thankful we got the opportunity to rope at that, and then it’s even more exciting since we get to rope in the (performances) at Calgary.”

It’s a full circle back to her life growing up on the Plains of western Oklahoma. She didn’t rope calves much before arriving at Northwestern, but she took to it. She found success and built on that momentum. Her college title coincided with the breakout of breakaway in ProRodeo. She failed to qualify for the first breakaway finals during the COVID year of 2020 but hasn’t missed one since.

“My college title really gave me the confidence to pursue it,” said Munsell, who owns a health and science bachelor’s degree along with a master’s degree in education. “I rode the wave perfectly on breakaway roping. The first year I decided I wanted to go because I had the money and the horsepower, and they started adding it to ProRodeos. The next year when they added it to more, I was full-send just coming out of college. I rode it perfectly.”

She’s roped it perfectly, too, and it’s why she’s continuing to build her loop toward a world title.