Clint Summers and Jade Corkill won the 2026 American Rodeo on May 23 at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, stopping the clock in 4.83 seconds in the championship round to take the team roping title and $100,000 a man.
The win came on the back of two of the most decorated rope horses in the sport—Summers’ 22-year-old WSR Hesa Alive, better known as Transmission, and Kadabra King, the dun heel horse Corkill calls Turbo (or Lil Wayne, depending on the day). It was the second American of Transmission’s career and the first for both Summers and Corkill, who entered the weekend as one of the five invited teams off the 2025 world standings.
Summers, 34, of Lake City, Florida, and Corkill, the 38-year-old, three-time world champion heeler out of Fallon, Nevada, beat reigning World Champions Andrew Ward and Jake Long, who were 4.94, for the title. As invited teams rather than qualifiers, Summers and Corkill weren’t eligible for the event’s $2 million bonus—money reserved for the teams that came up through the regional qualifying system.
Full Results: The American 2026
How They Got The American Win
The American narrows a year of qualifying down to 15 teams across three regional finals, then sends the top five out of Friday’s semifinals on to meet the five invited teams from the previous year’s PRCA world standings Saturday.
Summers and Corkill rolled through Saturday’s Showdown Round with the fastest time of the round, a 3.69, to advance to the Championship Round as the No. 1 seed, roping last out. From there, the field cut to four—Summers and Corkill, Ward and Long, Cory Kidd and Carson Johnson and Dustin Egusquiza and JC Flake—for one final run at the title. Summers and Corkill’s 4.83 held off Ward and Long by just over a tenth.
The American money does not count toward the PRCA world standings. Summers and Corkill have $21,920.37 on the year, and they sit 32nd in the 2026 PRCA world standings as of May 24.
For Perspective
This win marked the single richest rodeo win of both men’s careers iconic careers. Corkill, who’s roped at 14 NFRs, has won nearly every major event in the sport, but this was his first American win. His largest single-day win was the George Strait Team Roping Championship back in 2009, worth $152,193 a man (plus the GSTRC truck and trailer). He repeated a rig-winning feat in 2011 with David Key, and then in 2025 with Kaleb Driggers when he won the CoJo and $72,000 a man. Corkill’s list of wins also includes four USTRC National Finals of Team Roping Open titles (including a few weeks ago in Fort Worth with Tanner Tomlinson), three WestStar wins, two Mike Cervi Memorials, one HorkDog title, a Wildfire Open to the World win, the 2014 NFR aggregate title, and wins from San Antonio to Cheyenne to Pendleton and everywhere in between.
Summers has also won the George Strait—on the heel side—and the NFR aggregate, on the head side. He is one of the few men to have roped at the Finals on both ends.
Transmission: From the Brink
WSR Hesa Alive—Transmission—is the highest-earning head horse in team roping history with $887,274 in documented earnings through QData, though they’ve only been tracking him since 2023. The horse is a product of the late Wes Adams’ Western States Ranches, by Hesa Sonofa Dun out of Smokes Alive by Smokin 45, and he’s carried Summers at four straight NFR head-side appearances and the 2024 NFR average title. And he won the American with Kaleb Driggers in 2023 on a loan from Summers.
That he was in Arlington at all is the part Summers can’t get over.
After the 2025 NFR—a Finals that saw Summers and Corkill win $186,736 each, place in five go-rounds, finish second in the aggregate and nearly win a gold buckle—the horse nearly died. Outlaw Equine’s Josh Harvey delivered the prognosis.
“We got home, and I thought he was going to die,” Summers said. “My vet told me, normally what he has, he’s going to be suffering, and we’re not going to make him do that. He’s been too great.”
The diagnosis was internal pigeon fever, on the horse’s liver.
“He said if it busts, he goes septic, and it’s not good,” Summers said. “Normally it’s outside, you drain it, it goes away. But this wasn’t the case. I accepted that it was probably the end… But in the back of my mind, I’m like, ‘no, he’s not done.’ And sure enough, he’s tough as can be, and he pulled through. I’m telling you, the other day in Corpus Christi I told Jade, ‘He feels as good today as he did two years ago. He’s got his strength back, his weight’s back’. At the Finals, it was a struggle. I didn’t want to admit it, but it was. And now he’s back, and he loves doing what he does. I’m just going to do my job and take him wherever he wants to go.”
Turbo: Just That Good
If Transmission is the horse Summers built his recent career around, the heel horse under Corkill is the one he’s still marveling at.
Corkill is riding Kadabra King—the 2010 dun gelding by Abrakadabracre out of Quixote Jessie by Holidoc. Patrick Smith—who the horse gained fame under—called him Turbo; WPRA World Champion Hope Thompson called him Lil Wayne when she had him. By any name, he’s a three-time PRCA/AQHA Heel Horse of the Year who carried Patrick Smith to the 2022 NFR aggregate title and record, and Wesley Thorp to the 2024 world championship before Coleby Payne picked him up in 2025.
Corkill bought him from Payne over the winter—and by his own account, he tried to talk Payne out of the deal.
“I ran five steers, and I told Coleby—and this is no disrespect to him, he’s a grown man who can do whatever he wants—I said, ‘The answer is yes, I want to own him, but as your friend, I’m advising against this,” Corkill said. “I don’t want to take this horse from you. I feel like I’m screwing you if I just buy this horse. You can renege on this deal. I’m acting as your dad. You ain’t selling this horse if I have any say in it. And he said, ‘No, I’m good, I want you to have him.'”
Corkill is quick to take no credit for how great Turbo is.
“The best thing that’s ever happened to me is I didn’t train that horse,” Corkill said. “I didn’t have anything to do with him until he was established. There’s never been a heel horse like that horse. I’m just giving credit where it’s due. There’s no skin in the game for me. I just get to ride him now, and I’m riding him until he dies. He’s getting every steer. He wants to do it, and he’s the best. When he tells me he needs a break, I’ll give him a break.”
Practice steers? Nope. Corkill hasn’t practiced on Turbo since those first five steers at Payne’s house. For now, Corkill’s son Kelton is keeping the horse legged up—and the gelding, Corkill said, behaves like a pony for the kid and like a different animal for everyone else.
The horse has $866,870 in QData earnings after The American win.
‘A Light’
Asked what a first American title meant after a career of three gold buckles and more than $2.9 million won, Corkill didn’t talk about either. He talked about a 3-year-old.
Corkill doesn’t wear pink. He made an exception Saturday—pink logos on his shirt—to honor Oaklynn Rae Domer, the daughter of WPRA world champion Kelsie-Chace Domer and her husband, Ryan. Oaklynn died earlier this year, and the Western industry has carried her family ever since, raising money through Rope Like a Girl’s Oaklynn Rae Domer Fund built on the little girl’s message to “be a light.”
Corkill got to Globe Life Field early Saturday to find Kelsie and tell her he wanted to rope in pink for Oaklynn. He was standing outside his trailer telling his mother the story when the parking attendant pulled a rig into the contestant lot and parked it directly beside his—Kelsie and Ryan Domer. Corkill and Kelsie had a cry together. Before they parted, Kelsie pressed into his hand a tiny figure of Jesus that Oaklynn had carried.
Corkill rode the rest of the day with Oaklynn’s tiny Jesus in his pocket. He said he never once doubted he’d win—that he felt only peace, certain God had handed him a platform to tell the story. When he backed into the box for the championship round, he had no nerves at all.
“I don’t know why he’s using me—I guess I’m the perfect example of why God’s using me,” Corkill said on the broadcast. “But if y’all don’t believe it now, I can’t help it.”
The video of Corkill telling that story went viral within hours.
Summers, for his part, kept it short and pointed up.
“This is a dream,” Summers said. “We couldn’t do it without the man upstairs. All the glory goes to Him.”
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