No. 4 | $140,165

Still, only a handful of Navajo ropers have made it all the way to the NFR: his uncle, Derrick Begay, along with Erich Rogers and Aaron Tsinigine. Arviso isn’t chasing an unheard-of dream—he’s chasing the one those three already drew up, and years after they proved it could be done, he’s not far from making it come true himself.

He didn’t have to look far to find it. Arviso’s mother, Jamie, is Begay’s big sister, and it was Arviso’s grandfather, Victor Begay, who taught both of them to rope.

“He’s always told me right from wrong, and he wasn’t scared to get after me when I needed it,” Arviso has said of his grandpa. “He taught me so much about horsemanship, and how to handle a steer accordingly.”

Arviso didn’t get serious about roping until his freshman year of high school—before that, he rode bulls in junior high and figured that might be his path—but once he committed to heading, the influence of his uncle and the Navajo Nation’s other NFR qualifiers was never far off.

“I know big things are possible, because they’ve proven it,” he’s said of Begay, Rogers and Tsinigine.

That lineage was on full display back in June, at the Home of the Navajo PRCA Rodeo in Window Rock, Arizona—a bucket-list rodeo Arviso had circled since he was a kid. He and Chris Young turned in a 5.4-second run to split the win with brothers Wawa and Brandon Ben, and Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren handed Arviso a Paving the Way Award on the same trip, a nod to the Resistol Rookie Header of the Year title he’d claimed the season before.

That rookie year, in 2025, taught him the rest. Heading for 2024 Rookie Heeler of the Year Logan Moore, he broke the arena record in Burley, Idaho, and clinched the Resistol Rookie Header of the Year with $54,037 won. The turning point came at Reno.

“After Reno is when I finally figured out it’s not that hard,” Arviso said. “You don’t have to go three on every steer. The good guys, you never see them not win. They’re always third or fourth, and when they do draw a good steer, that’s when they win first.”

He carried that patience into the back half of the season and hasn’t let go of it since.

“I’ll take third through eighth all year,” he said.

This year brought a new partner and a new set of lessons. Five-time NFR heeler Lord called Arviso in April and asked if he wanted to rope.

“I think anybody that follows the game has seen him climbing the ladder and coming up through the ranks,” Lord said. “He’s a really young guy that’s got some good horses and is full of talent.”

 “He texted me twice and you can tell he was trying to hint at it, but I kind of wanted to hear it all the way,” Arviso said. “I kind of wanted to hear him say, ‘I want to rope.’ But he called first.”

He’s leaned on Lord’s experience ever since.

“He’s probably the best at entering and finding trades when you need them,” Arviso said. “He knows a lot more, and I’m just going to try to take it all in.”

The new partnership paid off fast. At the 2026 Reno Rodeo, Arviso and Lord posted a 15.0 on three head to win the average and split $10,516 apiece in their first Reno together—the win that pushed Arviso to No. 3 in the world at the time with $99,990, his best position yet at the time.

The horse under him for all three rounds was a bay he calls Chili Dog—registered as Trauado Lena—the same one he and Rance Doyal used to tie the arena record with a 3.2-second run at Rodeo Austin back in March.

The story to Chili Dog goes back to Arizona. Two years ago, on his way through Wickenburg, Arviso’s mother called and told him to stop and watch a horse going through the Rancho Rio sale—he ended up getting him bought for $34,000, cheaper than anything in else in sale went for.

• Read more about Chili Dog

“Walked in there for one horse and then raised my hand the most times,” Arviso said. “That’s how it works.”

Chili Dog was green and spooky when Arviso got him, and by his own account still is.

“He’s still weird in the box,” Arviso said. “Expect the unexpectable.”

Whatever the standings say when the books close Sept. 30, Arviso already knows what the season has meant.

Back home in Window Rock, he pointed to his mother and family friend Carol Holyan, who put on the Navajo rodeo and moved its dates so more contestants could attend.

“I’m proud of how hard they worked to make the Home of the Navajo Nation PRCA Rodeo such a success, and a rodeo we can all be proud of on the Navajo Nation,” Arviso said.

“This is the best drawing up I’ve ever seen,” he said of the summer run.

For a kid who grew up watching his uncle prove it could be done, being the one carrying it forward — in front of the people who raised him, with a trip to Las Vegas now in reach — might be the biggest win of all.