Big Show veterans Spencer Mitchell and Cody Cowden might have a lock on the 2026 year-end California Circuit title, but few teams are more fun to watch than the father-son duo of Daniel and Eli Green.
Daniel was handy even as a teenager. The national high-school all-around and steer wrestling champ (and reserve tie-down roping champ) went on to win the Timed Event Championship of the World three times, and it was in heading that he made the NFR 10 straight years.
Around 2004, though, his heart was home with his family. So, at just 31 years old, he parked his rig and started working construction. Eli was born soon thereafter. Two decades later, the pair from Oakdale are taking names on the West coast – highlighted by a fifth-place finish at Salinas that paid them $6,915 a man.
“We’re just having fun, you know? Enjoying it,” said Daniel. “To place at Salinas was a cool deal. It’s not easy to place there, even when I was full-time and had the best partners and the best horses. I do have a really good head horse, but our heel horse is not easy. Eli did an unreal job just to complete the course on him.”
True enough, Eli said he was amazed he made it through the first four rounds without cutting up his fingers. In fact, that particular hard-to-ride heel horse is why they actually switched ends from when Daniel was heeling for Eli.
“I heel more in the front of my saddle, while Eli gets in there and sets back when he ropes,” said Daniel. “So, he gets by the horse way better than I do.”
Eli, who just turned 21, had actually been heading for Daniel at amateur rodeos until he got his PRCA permit at 18. He got his heeling chops both from his dad and Clayton Grant, for whom he helps guide hunters. Then the first pro steer the pair ran was right there in Oakdale.
“My horse was green and I was a little late, but we made a good run,” recalled Daniel. “I waved it off the second one. But when it was all over, I thought, ‘You know, I could like this again.’”
In 2024, they won their first rodeo together and made the California Circuit Finals. Then last year, Eli decided he wanted to head again. But with Daniel having lost his good heel horse and Eli inconsistent at quarterback, it didn’t go well. So this spring, Daniel started out heading for Walt Woodard at circuit rodeos. But after watching his son continue to struggle heading, Daniel finally said, “Hey, just heel for me again.”
Eli cracks up now, realizing it’s because of Daniel that he ever decided to try the other end, anyway.
“I was sitting there the other day just watching him head, and realized he makes heading look so easy – that’s what made me think I could do it,” said Eli.
Daniel said he’s blessed to ride Sven, a gelding his daughter bought as a colt five years ago, but wasn’t using.
“She can rope the horns really good, she just doesn’t do it a lot,” he said. “And she’s getting married on Sept. 5.”
With just a month to go before this year’s California Circuit Finals Rodeo, Daniel, 54, ranks fourth in heading and Eli sits sixth in heeling. And this spring they came oh-so-close to making it to The American – where they could have roped together for a potential $2 million.
In Las Vegas at the Western Regional Finals, they made the smoking run that should have sent them to Arlington in the top five – but they never got the flag because Sven started bucking as Daniel tried to face. That was thanks to a painful tweak from the horse having hung a leg in his hay net that morning. Stuff happens, as they say. But it’s all part of the fun for this dad, whose wins with his son are extra sweet.
“The rodeos are good now,” Daniel marveled. “When I started, they paid four monies. A thousand dollars added was a big one. Now, a lot of rodeos pay eight places and some pay 10 and 12. So, you don’t have to draw the best steer to make a run and get a check.”
With the success these two are having, has he thought about venturing any further?
“I didn’t miss my shot at rodeos,” says Daniel. “I got to go out there. But it’s cool to do it with my son. He does some stuff sometimes that just amazes me. That first rodeo we won, nobody could have heeled one and come tight faster than he did. It was awesome to be part of that.”