Brady Tryan and Calgary Smith swept the Montana Circuit, taking home the 2024 year-end heading and heeling titles, as well the circuit finals average win Jan. 11, 2025.

Tryan and Smith won the Montana Circuit Finals in Great Falls with a 9.6 on two head and solidified the year-end titles with $32,834.12 won on the year. For two-time NFR header Tryan, the win marks his fourth year-end title but first average win. While it’s also a redemption win after just missing the year-end title the last few years, it’s also a win he won with his family–wife, Callahan, 4-year-old daughter, Oakley, and 1-year-old son, Tee.

“I didn’t really spend as much time in Montana because I kind of went out rodeoing more, so it was cool to be able to win it, going to not as many rodeos as normal,” Tryan, of Huntley, Montana, said. “It was fun. Everything’s just a little more fun when your family is going with you, and they’re getting older and my boy loves roping so much that it makes it even more fun.”

Smith, on the other hand, picked up his first year-end and average titles in his first year to claim the Montana Circuit. The 26-year-old from Adams, Oregon, has always claimed his home Columbia River Circuit, but after having much success behind Tryan in 2023, he made the switch.

“When I bought my card (in 2023), we hadn’t talked about roping, and then I had already claimed my circuit and stuff, so it was too late,” Smith explained. “But then we had a good year [in Montana], and he had a chance to win the circuit but it ended up not working out for him. So for me to come over there and not say I won it for him, but at least get to win it with him, was cool. Felt like it’s how it should be.”

Yearly balancing act

With Tryan being a circuit native but Smith being an out-of-state contestant, they had to strategize and prioritize the circuit rodeos a bit to make sure Smith hit the extra rodeo count.

“I got to mine fairly easy, but he had to go to a few more than I did,” Tryan said. “It took some work, and we maybe had to skip some rodeos that were better for one that wasn’t quite as good a couple times. But it wasn’t bad, and we spent a lot of time in Canada where there were a lot of co-approved rodeos. Not that those count for your count, but we won quite a bit of money up there that counted toward Montana.”

While also hitting the road all year with NFR dreams, they had to find the right balance. Luckily, the Fourth of July sees some bigger Montana rodeos, and August has plenty to choose from as well.

“Baker adds so much money, obviously that’s a good you’re not going to skip either,” Smith said. “Great Falls and Glasgow are two good circuit rodeos, and they are two-headers, so you can run them both the same day and that makes it nice. So you can get to quite a few of them those couple weeks, like Bozeman and Missoula and all those; it’s nothing too hard or wild. When I claimed the Columbia River and Brady had Montana, there was no way we could get both circuits. But having both of us in one circuit made it a lot easier this year.”

High stakes in Great Falls

Tryan and Smith went into the circuit finals with roughly a $5,000 lead over second in the standings. But with rounds paying $2,933 a man and the aggregate paying $4,400 each, the Montana Circuit Finals are one of the highest-paying finals of the year, meaning it was still anyone’s ballgame.

“My goal, we had a decent lead, but it does pay so good that we could have gotten beat,” Tryan said. “But I wanted to win. My goal was to win anywhere from $8,000 to $10,000, just because it pays so good.”

Tryan and Smith, both riding grade horses, kicked things off with a 4.9 for second in Round 1 for $2,200 apiece. Round 2 saw some tough luck with a no-time. Missing their second one didn’t take them out of the race, though. On the heel side, Smith had his focus primarily on the year-end, anyway.

“After I roped so bad at the Canadian Finals, I was just wanting to catch an animal clean,” Smith said with a laugh. “My goal was just to catch what got turned, and our run is usually pretty fast so I figured if we caught them all, we’d give ourselves a good chance to win the average. We had a little bad luck on one but luckily it still played in our favor. To say I had a plan on the average or the year-end, I’d say probably more the year-end.”

They came back with a vengeance in Round 3 and took the win with a 4.7-second run for $2,933 a man and the average title for $4,400 each. All in all, they left Great Falls with $9,533 apiece.

“I was pretty disappointed in myself when I missed the second one and took us out of the average, so I thought,” Tryan admitted. “And so I was probably the most shocked guy in the building when we were taking the victory lap for the average. We were very, very lucky that night.”

Staying out in 2025

Tryan and Smith are headed to all the winter rodeos to kick off 2025, but Tryan still plans to play the year by ear.

“We got into all the winter rodeos, so we’re going to go down there and hopefully have a pretty good winter,” Tryan said. “We have a pretty good start with how Great Falls went, but I’m still kind of a see how it goes guy. But we’ll probably rodeo.”

With their tickets punched for the NFR Open in Colorado Springs this July, Smith is also hoping that will keep them out on the trail longer.

“That’ll be a good incentive to keep [Tryan] going,” Smith said. “I know he has his family and likes being home, but hopefully we win enough this winter and have that going for us in the summer that he doesn’t have an option but to keep going.”