JC Flake will replace Jess Tierney in the 2026 Cinch Timed Event Championship after the 2017 CTEC champion was sidelined due to a back injury.
The 16-time CTEC competitor’s absence opened the door for Flake, a rookie who has been pushing to get on the list for the last three years.
“[Lazy E General Manager Dan Wall] called me probably three weeks ago, and he said I was second alternate,” Flake, 27, said. “(Tyler) Worley was ahead of me, and he wanted a guy to be ready if he got a call. And I said, ‘Alright, well I’ll start doing it.’ Then Worley got in, he called me again and he said, ‘Well, I can’t promise you nothing, but you’re getting closer.’ I started making some phone calls, getting some help and started finding a busting horse.”
Flake finished just outside the Top 15 in 2024 at No. 17 in the PRCA heeling world standings. He has an early jump on the 2026 ProRodeo season sitting No. 2 after the win at the Sandhills Stock Show & Rodeo in Odessa, Texas, this January. While the heeling is Flake’s priority these days, he’s made plenty of runs in multiple events. Flake bulldogged and roped calves through high school and college. While rodeoing for the University of Wyoming, the bulldogging was no joke under coach and NFR steer wrestler Beau Clark.
“Bulldogging was taken very seriously at the University of Wyoming,” Flake said. “I guess the last one was the college rodeo in 2021, that was the last one I bulldogged. I’ve thrown some on the ground, messing around at the house and stuff, and when he called and said I was first alternate, I got off and threw one on the ground at my house to make sure I could still do it.”
What will be new for Flake is the steer roping, but he’s rounded up some major help as he prepares.
“Actually I got really lucky, Justin and Denton Parish, they had a busting dummy and they brought it over and we’ve been working my horse in the busting,” Flake said. “I’ve been tying the dummy, and I got super lucky and Jimmy Brazile’s been helping me. He come over twice this week and taught me how to tie and right hand tie and left hand tie.”
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Four-time NFSR qualifier Brazile has been Flake’s all-around timed event coach for the Ironman, helping him with the calf roping as well. Horses have been lining up well for Flake, who bought some practice calves from Zane Kilgus. Flake bought a heel horse from Pablo Robles last year that was a calf horse once upon a time, and he proved in the practice pen that he’s still got it.
“When this deal kind of come about, we roped the dummy on him one time the other night, the tie-down dummy, and Jimmy told me to get off,” Flake recalled. “He said, ‘That horse is too good. Get off, don’t run anymore on him.’ So I said ok. I said, well, if he’s that good, Denton Parish was headed to the college rodeo at Fort Worth, I said if he’s that good, let’s run him for money and see if he’s going to be good enough to go if I get the call. Denton tied one in 10.1 at the college rodeo on him, so I got a calf horse.”
Flake will ride a tripping horse named “Rio” that came from 20-time NFSR qualifier Cody Lee.
“It’s a horse that Pedro (Egurrola) used to rodeo on when me and Pedro used to rope,” Flake said. “It’s a buckskin horse, and Cody Lee had him and they used to bust on him.I told my stepdad, I said, ‘Hey, send that horse to me and we’ll see if he still knows how to bust.’ And so he’s been refreshing, and I’m learning.”
Flake will enlist two-time NFR steer wrestler and fellow Ironman contestant Justin Shaffer for bulldogging help leading up to his breakout appearance. Though it’s been a few years since he’s ran a bulldogging steer, his nerves lie mostly in the tripping.
“I’m going to go jump a couple and just try to get the fundamentals back again. But I think I’m going to be ok in that event. I’m not going to say I’m going to go throw ’em in 4, but I think I’ll get ’em tipped over. But the busting, there’s a lot more to it than I thought. Like, the ways you get off and how you get your leg underneath the rope and everything like that. So I guess I’m more nervous for that. I think Jimmy will have me prepared, as much as we can be in a month.”
Flake will take some of his own head and heel horses to the Lazy E with his brother-in-law and eight-time NFR header Dustin Egusquiza helping him on both ends of the team roping. He’ll ride one of Shaffer’s bulldogging horses as well. Though this will be Flake’s first time experience Ironman competition, he has sent horses in years past.
“I’ve actually sent, when I owned a bulldogging horse, I sent one for Clayton Van Aken the year he went—he rode my bulldogging horse,” Flake said. “And then two years ago, Clayton rode my head horse and heel horse. So I’ve sent horses and always wanted to go, and I’ve always watched it with my dad and my family. Since I was 5, I’ve always wanted to go the Timed Event if I ever had the chance, and it kind of worked out this year.”
