BILLINGS — Holden Meged still looks like a wrestler.
Big, burly and strong. He still thinks like one, too.
Miles City’s Holden Meged poses for a photo during the slack round of the Yellowstone River Round-Up PRCA rodeo Saturday morning during MontanaFair at First Interstate Arena at MetraPark.
The two-time State A 285-pound wrestling champion was at the MontanaFair Yellowstone River Round-Up PRCA rodeo competing in the slack competition of tie-down roping Saturday morning at First Interstate Arena at MetraPark.
The competition at Metra was part of a summerlong burst of sports for the likable cowboy. Meged competed in tie-down roping and team roping at the Montana High School Rodeo Association State Finals in Kalispell in early June. He also qualified for the National High School Rodeo Association Finals in Rock Springs, Wyoming, in mid-July in team roping.
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And Meged was also a member of the East team in the Montana East-West Shrine Football Game at Wendy’s Field at Daylis Stadium on June 15.
“Right after the high school state finals in Kalispell, my parents dropped me off here in Billings for a week,” Meged said. “So I was gone for about two weeks before I event went home.”
The 6-foot, 265-pound Meged, who won back-to-back state wrestling titles for Custer County District High School in Miles City before graduating this spring, was one of the bigger cowboys on hand Saturday morning.
Meged explained that his build hasn’t slowed his rodeo ambitions.
“I’m still pretty quick on the ground and stuff. It doesn’t slow me down,” Meged said when asked how he worked with the frame of his body in a sport like rodeo, where he participates in tie-down roping at the PRCA level and has participated in team roping jackpot events.
Also a runner-up at the state wrestling tournament at 285 pounds during his sophomore season, Meged said his background as a wrestler has helped him with rodeo.
“Footwork, speed, agility, all that plays into calf roping,” he said. “I mean, there’s a lot to calf roping, scoring, roping, setting a good run up … really wrestling accounts for all that.”
Before his run Saturday morning as tie-down ropers were visiting and preparing to compete inside the cavernous Metra, Meged remembered wrestling at three state championships inside the arena.
The slack competition was held for the timed events of steer wrestling, team roping, and tie-down roping Saturday morning due to the high number of entrants in the events at the two-day Yellowstone River Round-up. While there were several spectators rooting for the cowboys on hand, it was relatively quiet in the arena without the music and crowd noise heard during a rodeo performance.
“It’s a little different being in this building now without the mats rolled out and the seats down. It’s not as full as it is during a state championship match, but it’s still a good rodeo. They put on a good rodeo here,” said Meged.
“I can remember just about every step I took this year my last year here in the Metra,” added Meged of the 2024 state tournament where he won four bouts, including two by pin, to claim his state title and help Miles City to a fourth-place finish.
Meged, who will be going to college at Cisco College in Cisco, Texas, and joining the rodeo team, was eager to get in one more summer rodeo at MontanaFair. Meged said he’ll be leaving Sunday night for Cisco.
He estimated that he’d competed in 10 PRCA rodeos this summer. According to his bio on prorodeo.com, a highlight for Meged was claiming fourth in the first round of tie-down roping in Glasgow in early August for $602.
Meged explained that part of the reason he hasn’t rodeoed as much as he could have is because he was competing with a new horse, Bailey. The horse belongs to his older brother Haven Meged of Miles City, the 2019 world tie-down roping champion and 2019 and 2023 Wrangler National Finals Rodeo tie-down roping average champion.
“My good horse (Turtle) got hurt, so I’m seasoning this one to get her ready for college,” Meged said.
“I got her after the Fourth of July, so I was kind of limited to the rodeos I was able to go to. … I didn’t have anything else and she just showed up one day and it’s all I had, so I hopped on her. It’s been a learning curve every rodeo. She gets better every rodeo.”
On Saturday, Meged didn’t record a time, but he had a time of 10.9 seconds in Circle on Friday.
“I placed at one and then I made a good run last night,” explained Meged. “But she’s just a young, green horse. This is kind of her first time time out and about. So it’s a learning curve for both of us. You can’t just go out and rope
