Derrick Begay and Colter Todd sit atop the 2025 PRCA World Standings after a massive $71,750-a-man win at RodeoHouston, providing these two homebodies a comfortable cushion on a potential NFR qualification with six months remaining in the regular season.
Begay and Todd have $89,182.85 a man won on the year, as of Monday, March 24, with six months remaining in the ProRodeo season. This marks the first time Begay, 41, has led the PRCA world standings since 2011 when he and Cesar de la Cruz won the regular season, and it’s the first time Todd has in his career that spans back to 2003.
Full RodeoHouston Team Roping Results
“Not that long ago, I only needed a few thousand to have the NFR made and I didn’t make it,” said Todd, 41, who finished 16th in 2024 while his partner, Begay, made the cut. “Unless it’s like $200,000, it’s not like I’m thinking we’ve almost got it made or anything like that. It’s more of, ‘Wonder what we’re going to do now?'”
How Derrick Begay and Colter Todd Won Houston
The duo started the tournament-style Houston off on a hot streak, roping the first steer in their Super Series in 6.0 to win their set and $3,000 a man. They placed in the next two rounds to win second in their series with $5,750 won, and they were 5.1 to win third in their semifinals to advance, too. They repeated that 5.1 to win second in the Championship round to advance to Houston’s Shootout Round, roping third out in the sudden-death Round of 4.
“Well, Erich Rogers was first team out, so he’s naturally kind of like family, so I just pulled for him more than anybody else,” Begay said. “Then he had a steer that we had in one of the earlier rounds, so we kind of talked about it a little bit and he got a good go and couldn’t dally. So there went that. And then the next team was T-Wade, and then he broke the barrier. So when we went in, the guy pushing the steers told me, ‘Hey, these steers are not going anywhere. They’re are slow.’ So I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ So the only thing that went through my mind was don’t break the barrier.”
Todd—who headed at three NFRs from 2006 to 2008 before returning once more in 2023 to win the average heeling for Begay—was trying to quiet his mind as they rode into the box.
“I almost have to fight all the thoughts, if that makes sense,” Todd, who rode his 5-year-old mare Barbiiedoll, said. “I try to just keep telling myself, ‘You only have one job. Your job is to heel him as fast as you can by two feet.’ I actually have to tell myself that so I don’t start thinking or trying to make a plan or whatever. The header in me wants to, and that’s I think the battle that I fight. I have to make myself fight that and not all I’m going to do is heeling whenever he turns him and whatever it is, catch him by two feet.”
Begay, with his don’t-break-the-barrier plan, most certainly did not break the barrier on the 5.8-second run aboard his 15-year-old sorrel, Caseys Glory.
“When I was leaving the back of the box, I already accepted second because I was so late,” Begay said. “So when I was going through the run, I was thinking, ‘Well, okay, I’m just going to win second. I already missed the barrier. There’s a barrier winning it. I’m just going to make clean run.’ So when I faced up, I was actually pretty bummed out. Riding down the arena, following the steer out, I already just expected to win second. I was just bummed out enough that I didn’t really didn’t care to watch just because I already knew. Tanner, he’s been roping good all week, and they had a good steer, and that horse of his works so good and finishes so good. And TG? He wasn’t going to miss. So I already expected all that to go how I was supposed to.”
Rogers, though, was sitting at the back end watching too, and he let his home-state buddies know they got it done when Tomlinson and Graves also got the barrier on a 5.1-second run that went to 15.1 for second place and $30,000 a man.
The Aftermath
Begay and Todd had to ride up different sides of the arena to the bucking chute where they swung off their horses and stood behind their new RodeoHouston saddles for their interview, so that viral handshake behind those saddles was the first joint acknowledgement of what they’d just accomplished—one of their biggest single-rodeo wins, another bucket list accomplishment and enough money to make 2025 a little easier.
“The money is hard to think about,” Begay said. “That’s hard to think about because I know exactly how much it is. So on one hand, it’s a lot. On the other hand, that’s not really why we do it. So I don’t know. I can’t explain it. It’s not worth more than that. It’s not less than that. But just when you’re on the other side of it, the side that you don’t win or when, I remember when I was younger and if somebody gave me 71,000, I probably, it would’ve been a very unbelievable amount of money. But when you get older, it’s just money. It comes and it goes.”
Begay and Todd left RodeoHouston with a load of 19 replacement heifers to take back to Arizona right after the short round, and they drove all night to spend a week with their families before the Feist.
“I’ve drove away from this place empty handed lots of times,” Begay said. “I guess Houston was probably the most out of all of the rodeos I wanted to win, and it probably came to last.”
For now, Begay and Todd are focusing on the drought in the Southwest and taking care of their cattle. The Arizona Drought Monitoring Technical Committee has most of the state, including Seba Dalkai and Willcox, listed as in a severe to extreme drought.
“We got rain a week ago, so we feel good right now,” Todd explained. “But in another month and a half, two months when all of a sudden we’re back to sure enough drought, and I have no control of that either. At the end of the day, that’s going to be more on my mind than rodeoing.
“Last year was pretty hard on us,” Todd said. “It was really dry. And let’s just say, maybe I was a little grumpy at my kids whenever I either came home or talked to ’em on the phone. I wasn’t a good dad or a good boss with my attitude. So I got that to think about, too.”
They’re entered in Cave Creek, Arizona, the Bob Feist Invitational and the San Angelo Stock Show and Rodeo. Books haven’t closed for most of the California rodeos, so they’re not sure yet what their plan is for the spring beyond making sure their cattle are cared for.
““I’m always going to rodeo,” Begay said. “I’m going to rodeo as long as I can.”
—TRJ—
