Returning #10 Western Heritage Legends World Champion Craig Magedanz from Clear Lake, South Dakota, partnered with Wellington, Colorado’s Dave Wolfe to take home the 2025 Western Heritage Legends World Championship with 169.38 seconds on 20 head in 3 rounds, earning the team a $2,932 payday.
As the man who created the RSNC’s Western Heritage classes, which provide sorters the opportunity to prioritize reading cattle over speed, winning the championship felt like a full-circle moment for Wolfe, the organization’s founder. With two special rules—no sorting faster than a trot and no shouting or hollering—the class has exploded in popularity.
In this particular Western Heritage class, “Legends” indicates that riders must be 65 or older, which often makes for good watching. The class attracts not just those who participate in other cow events, but also the working cowboy and rancher who subscribe to the widely accepted rule that, when it comes to cattle, “slow is fast.”
“This is how we work cattle,” says Magedanz. “This is how it’s done. We don’t chase pounds off cattle when we’re working them; we work them easy to keep them settled and quiet.”
To get the job done, Magedanz relies on his horse, Flicka, who knows the work equally well.
“I’ve had this mare for about five years, and I rode her a couple years ago at the World Finals to win this same class,” he said. “I also won the Challenge of Champions that year. She’s 12, and just a fun little horse to ride. My granddaughter was riding pens on her the day before we came down here.”
Wolfe tapped Magedanz’s ranching foundation to develop a thoughtful game plan for their runs.
“Start slow, be steady, try to keep the herd quiet,” he said. “That was our game plan, and it worked. Craig is a rancher and competes just like he works cattle on the ranch. That class fits him, and it fits the people who’ve been doing this for years. It’s drawn a lot of new people to our sport, too.”
To win the class, the team sorted a clean 10 head in their first go run and picked up a fast time. Individually, Magedanz and Wolfe are top hands in the sorting pen and, when they compete together, they are a powerhouse team.
“We were lucky to be drawing last, so we kept track of numbers and knew the number we wanted,” Magedanz said. “Then we just went in and rode our game. Cattle worked well for us, and it all came together.”
Ironically, despite best-laid plans, their World Finals runs almost slipped through the cracks.
“We were at the Loveland event, and I said, ‘Hey, let’s ride at the Finals,’” Wolfe said. “And then I almost forgot to enter us! We’re just super happy and had a lot of fun.”
Then, Wolfe discovered his horse was missing a shoe the morning of the class. Luckily, his wife Mandy’s new horse, “5J,” was working well and available to sub in.
“We just bought him a month ago,” Wolfe said about the 14-year-old gelding. “My son Kason had him for sale from a client, and he called saying it’d be a great fit for Mandy. She rode him once before the Finals. The horse I planned to ride threw a shoe, so I turned to Mandy and said, ‘Honey, can I borrow your horse?’ She said that’d be alright, and I jumped on and rode him.”
Reflecting on the event itself, Wolfe had high praise.
“Every year it gets bigger and better, but this was the best produced World Finals we’ve had,” Wolfe shared. “Usually, you need a vacation after something like this, but this one was a vacation in itself.”
This article appears in the Summer 2025 issue of The Ranch Sorter, featuring World Champion stories, event recaps, regional results, and more.
This will open a pdf.
