Andrew Ward and Jake Long’s 2025 ProRodeo season saw a late-season boost Aug. 24, with the Rocky Mountain Cup win for $29,440 a man.
After fighting the bubble for much of summer, Ward and Long’s Calgary payday pushed them to No. 9 and 8 in the world standings with $113,790.21 and $112,043.66, respectively. They also picked up $6,452 apiece between the Kitsap Stampede in Bremerton, Washington, and the Gem State Stampede in Coeur D’alene, Idaho, to give five-time NFR header Ward a sigh of relief.
“I roped pretty bad the week before, and if you’re going to keep up with everybody, you kind of got to win $10,000 a week because the rodeos have gotten so good,” Ward admitted. “I missed about every way you could miss the week before, so now I’ve got us behind again. So to go up there and do good, you don’t get many chances at that much money, late in the year; there’s Pendleton and maybe you could say Ellensburg—I don’t know how much it’ll pay—so maybe three big hits left, and once you fall behind, it’s just hard to have big hits. We just knew we were going to need to do good at something big. And then Calgary, we were able to do it. I think you hate to be behind, but that is a fun feeling to go and execute like that.”
*Note: Only 80% of the money won in Calgary counted toward the 2025 PRCA team roping world standings.
As the team roping portion of the Calgary Stampede, the Rocky Mountain Cup is a standalone event a month after the famous rodeo. And while the prestige of the win goes a long way, the separation it gave Ward and Long from fellow bubble teams took centerstage.
“We definitely were in a tough spot up there needing to have a big hit,” said 14-time NFR heeler Long. “And honestly, the eight-man round was filled with quite a few guys that were toward the bottom of the standing, so that to me, kind of added to the urgency of the situation. Somebody was going to capitalize on it, and I think you were definitely hoping it would be yourself.”
Ward and Long’s 2025 fight
When you think of a team fighting the bubble, you wouldn’t exactly picture Ward and Long’s year. After a slower winter, Ward and Long won $26,421 apiece over Cowboy Christmas, highlighted by the Greeley Stampede win. But not being as consistent as normal cost them, and they lost traction in the world standing as now, in 2025, weeks under $10,000 in the summer don’t shuffle the standings like they used to.
“That’s what makes it weird is if you get in them weird gaps, it’s like you could have a monster week and not even move up or do anything,” Long explained. “You just kind of hold, as far as on placement. But it is just crazy how there’s still so much money left between Puyallup, Pendleton, Mandan and Sioux Falls. I mean, there’s still some monster hits that could happen that could really shake things up. The guys that are up there in the top five are 100% safe; they could go home right now if they wanted to. But for the rest of us, you just never can take a deep breath it feels like until the end.”
They rounded out July with another $11,575 apiece following Cowboy Christmas and picked up another $11,745 a man for the Farm-City Pro Rodeo Aug. 9, in Hermiston, Oregon. But with the hits coming here and there, they were back dancing around the Top 15. Ward decided it was time to take things steer by steer.
“If I can just go out, execute and do my job, we’re good enough to win,” Ward said. “And that’s the way I try to think if I’m in a slump or not roping good—I basically start trying to do whatever I’m capable of and put catches on the board. Then catches lead to winning big things, and it kind of started for us at Kennewick (Washington the week after Hermiston). I told Jake, that’s one in a row, and now I’m going to try to go two in a row. And then I caught at Cour d’Alene, then at Bremerton, and then we caught four in Calgary.”
Ward and Long’s Calgary win
While the Nutrien Western Event Centre is set up for fast runs with a shorter barrier, when the steers are on the stronger end, things aren’t a walk in the park.
“Our first steer was really big—he was a huge cow,” Long said. “He was just muscly, and to have enough speed to get around him and shut him down is huge. And then our second one, they were both, honestly, a little bit stronger for the herd. Not that they were screamers or nothing, but they were dang sure on the stronger end of them.”
Despite the luck of the draw, Ward and Long were 5.1 in Round 1 for $185 a man, and they won the second round with a 4.3 for $4,255 a man. Fast on two head, they advanced to the eight-man semifinals high in the average meaning they got to rope toward the end of the round. While all they needed was a time on the board, Ward and Long turned in another 5.1-second run to punch their tickets to the four-man finals No. 1.
The first two teams faced trouble, and with their longest run of the day being a 5.1, they knew they just needed to keep doing what they were doing.
“Then [Clint Summers and Jade Corkill] went 5.7, and it felt doable because we drew good and we’d been fast all day,” Ward said. “We were just in a great spot where we got to see what was going on in front of us. It could have very well been that you had to be low four to win that rodeo. So, you never know how it’s going to fall. The guys are so good, you’re always thinking it’s going to be fast.”
Their 5.0-second run pocketed them $25,000 a man for the Rocky Mountain Cup title, a win Ward credits heavily to Cole E Man, the 14-year-old gelding better known as “Biscuit.”
“Those cows were fast and the barn’s kind of small, so if you have a horse that wants to be a little cheaty, they could get you like that,” Ward explained. “Biscuit was scoring and running underneath me, and he’s special. That’s probably the reason that I do good in the big spots like that. You got to give a lot of credit to him. He was outstanding, and to have been rodeoed on—he’s gone to however many rodeos, and it isn’t like he’s just fresh jumping out of the trailer. He’s special to us. He’s built our place at home, and Biscuit is an incredible horse.”
Long’s equine partner is in his rookie season, and he’s quickly been a standout. “Copper,” registered Hezaluckysonofagun, hasn’t even been on Long’s team for a year, yet the 6-year-old gelding helped them win the Greeley Stampede this July and now Calgary.
“I would’ve thought maybe in another year or something he could have overtaken the No. 1 job, but he’s honestly been flawless,” Long said. “Right at the beginning, just from being a little bit green and young, he would maybe travel through the stop just a little bit extra and maybe go through my throw just a little bit, if you were nitpicking. But really the last two months, in my eyes, he’s been flawless. Obviously I’m probably a little bit bigoted toward him, but to me, he’s working as good as any horse out here; he’s just absolutely been spot on and perfect, and he can really, really run. He just lets me do some really cool things that make my job easy.”
Day by day
Ward and Long currently sit fifth in the average at the Ellensburg Rodeo in Washington, with the short round roster still in the works. With one month remaining on the 2025 ProRodeo season, Ward is focusing on the basics.
“I keep it pretty simple: I just want to catch steers and turn them,” Ward said with a laugh. “I mean, I’m not worried about what Jake does. He’s a great heeler, and if I can keep turning cows, that’ll be the goal to the end of the rodeo season. You’re always wanting to do good at the NFR, everybody is. But I just want to keep catching.”
Ward and Long will also head to Puyallup Sept. 4-7, for the Cinch Playoff Series where $20,000 and a ticket to the Governor’s Cup in Sioux Falls are up for grabs. While Long has a rough idea of what monetary amount he needs to hit to make this year’s NFR, he’s also taking it run by run.
“Throughout the course of the year, they’re going to give you plenty of chances,” Long said. “It feels worse if you haven’t maybe performed great, and then towards the end, you’re not drawing good. But if you look at it, there was for sure plenty of steers along the way that you maybe didn’t capitalize on that were plenty good enough steers. So, we tried to change our perspective on that of we’re just going to make the best run we can on whatever cow they put in there. And if that wins 30th at the rodeo, then it wins 30th. But if we feel like we were happy with the run, then that’s really all we can do.”
