Jake Smith and Douglas Rich are rolling into the 2026 ProRodeo summer run with confidence and momentum on their side after the Music City Rodeo win May 30, in Nashville, Tennessee.
Smith and Rich topped the three-head average with a 15.1, taking home $7,982 a man between a round win and the aggregate. Now second in the PRCA team roping world standings with $66,382.26, Smith and Rich have a strong foundation built for the busiest time of the season.
“Not saying that we’re even close to where we need to be or like the end goal—we still need to do good this summer—but it dang sure helps to where we’ve been catching and got some momentum going,” Rich, 31, said. “We’re home for a week right here and then we leave and go to Woodward (Oklahoma) and start going a bunch, and then we’re gone from home so no more practicing, really. So being on a roll dang sure helps your confidence and everything with being gone for a few months right here.”
Smith and Rich have been on quite the roll, too. Smith recently won $6,770 with Paul Eaves for third at the World Series of Team Roping Qualifier in Hamilton, Texas, and they also split second at the Danny Dietz Memorial. Smith and Rich rolled into the Cody NesSmith Memorial and won second for $30,000. Smith rounded out his jackpot roll with the Priefert Ranch Open win with Eaves for another $15,000.
“It’s huge as far as financially because we leave, but we still got to pay bills at home,” Smith 33, said. “So, it’s huge for financial reasons for that to kind of help kickstart that. And for one, I hadn’t gotten to ride that horse Chavez at a whole lot of rodeos and stuff like that, so even if you really like a horse, to ride them at a rodeo and do good and have success on them at a rodeo, it’s great confidence for that. That’s huge to get going and to know that you and your partner’s run is good enough. That’s all huge to going into the summer.”
Letting it sing in Nashville
Different in 2026, Nashville was a three-head aggregate with two rounds followed by a progressive third round. Smith and Rich were early in the slack and had watched few 4.0-second runs before them. With over half the field still left to rope, they set the pace with a 4.5 to win the first round for $3,193 apiece. It also set them up for the rest of the week in Nashville.
“You don’t really know for sure, but I mean, we had a great steer and then you go 4.5 and at the end of the round, you win the round and you can kind of see where everybody’s at,” Smith said. “Then now we’re toward the end of the second round, so then you have a pretty good idea of what you need to do to be in certain spots. We had another decent cow, and then we’re right there in the middle of it. The first run set that up huge.”
Smith and Rich were 5.3 in Round 2 to put them third in the average and bring them back to Saturday night. When Saturday came, most of the teams around them in the average had traded to a different performance, so they knew, for the most part, what they needed to be.
“Sometimes we don’t always execute it, but we talk about what we’re trying to do anyway,” Rich said with a laugh. “But a deal like that, we didn’t try to be aggressive in the first round, necessarily, because it is an average. Like, it’s what you’re shooting for at the end, but it is nice. We had a good steer and was able to maybe not make a crazy run but was decently fast. We already had a little money won, and so that made it nice. Then if we just caught, we could win something good on the average and win a little more. So, luckily our game plan worked out this week.”
With another 5.3-second run, Smith and Rich jumped to the lead in the average with a 15.1 on three head to take home the Music City Rodeo title for $4,789 a man.
The format wasn’t the only new aspect in 2026. The Music City Rodeo started with a slack round Tuesday, May 26, in Franklin, Tennessee. The top 30 teams then roped in the progressive round inside Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena. Comparing Franklin’s arena to Bridgestone, however, is almost like comparing apples to oranges—Franklin was a larger arena while Nashville was smaller and more reminiscent of the Thomas & Mack. Not knowing exactly what to expect on the barrier setup, Smith knew his horsepower would fit either way.
“My friends Ben and Sarah Nelms own that horse, his name’s Chavez,” Smith explained. “I knew if it was a faster setup or if it was a little bit longer that I would be able to do either one at Franklin. So, I took him for that very reason because I was like, well, if it’s fast, I can still ride him. If it’s a little longer, I can still ride him. It wouldn’t be terrible either way.”
Chavez first came to Smith nearly three years ago after Ben asked him to try the horse and sell him for him. With no pressure from the Nelms, Smith was able to keep riding and developing the horse, using him at jackpots, amateur rodeos and the preliminary Kid Rock Rodeo in Fort Worth in 2025. But the trajectory of the horse’s future changed that January. Smith cracked Chavez out for his ProRodeo debut in Denver, and he helped Smith and Rich win the semifinals and second in the average. With plans to take him on the road that summer, things changed.
“I was super excited to take him with me that last summer, and I took him with me to California and I’d kind of jackpot on him a little bit here and there,” Smith said. “I was excited to take him, and then he got hurt, so I wasn’t able to ride him all summer. Whenever I got home, he was good, so I rode him a little bit. I rode him in three rounds at the NFR last year. So, it’s nice to have him, and like I said, they’re great friends to let me take him and ride him. It’s hard to beat people like that who want to see a guy do good and help you out. A huge thanks to them.”
Rich was also sporting a new equine counterpart on the heel side. Smith rode TRR Big Hustler, better known as “Kid Rock.” With one of his horses not feeling the best, he borrowed the 15-year-old Tongue River Ranch horse from JC Flake. But prior to Flake, Kid Rock was first made famous by two-time World Champ Paul Eaves, followed by Colter Todd. After their Nashville outing, Rich is working toward making Kid Rock a permanent member of his team.
“For the summer, he’s a really good horse,” Rich said. “I rode him pretty much everywhere last week: Hamilton, the Danny Dietz. I rode my other horse off and on, but I had both of them. Then I took him to the Cody NesSmith, rode him at the Cody NesSmith, in Nashville and the Mount Pleasant roping. He can really run and is a lot of horse, and he’s really free rolling down the arena; he wants to get over the steer, and I almost need something like that because I don’t kick very good; I kind of like a horse to carry me down the arena and want to get over the steer on their own. I think that just makes it a pretty good fit. He feels a lot like my other bay—the bay that I rode at the BFI. Them two horses feel very similar, so I’m pretty excited to have both of them this summer.”
Mindset moves Smith and Rich to the top
Over the last several years, Smith has worked to stay more even-keeled through the highs and lows of rodeo, a shift he believes has contributed to some of the best success of his career. Rather than tying his happiness to results, he’s focused on keeping competition in perspective and letting his peace come from outside of the arena.
“It just seems to be way less stressful on me, too,” Smith said. “Like I said, don’t get too high or too low because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. Everybody wants to win. Everybody loves this and that. But I mean, the roping deal is definitely not priority No. 1. It’s what we do and it’s what the good Lord has blessed us and let us get to do. As long as that’s first—as long as Jesus is first—then everything else don’t matter. It’ll fall in where it’s supposed to be.”
His mindset isn’t the only thing that’s even-keel throughout the year. Smith and Rich remain steady and consistent throughout most of the ProRodeo season, rocking along through every quarter. While they joke that they may not be the quickest guys in town, their high catch percentage and ability to stay in the money has brought them to the top of the 2026 world standings.
“If you can win a lot of thirds, fourths and fifths, but you’re catching a lot every week, it seems like it’s easy to get in a rhythm where then if you happen to draw the best steer, you might be fast enough to win first at some of that stuff,” Rich said. “We don’t win a lot of ropings, but we place a lot, it seems like. And I kind of like that, knowing that you got a guy up there that is going to get out of the barrier and turn a bunch of steers and let me kind of get in a rhythm back there where I’m getting a lot of looks and heeling a bunch of steers. Seems to have worked pretty good for us so far. Even if we might not be the fastest team, we seem to catch a bunch, and I like that.”