Jake Smith and Nicky Northcott split the 2025 Wilderness Circuit year-end titles following the Heber City, Utah, finals Nov. 7-8.
Smith finished the year with $39,671.64 heading for Douglas Rich, and Northcott closed the season at $40,258.40 heeling behind Smith’s older brother, two-time World Champion Clay Smith. Heading into Heber City, Smith led the pack, but only $1,379 separated him from second place. On the heel side, Rich entered No. 1, with Northcott trailing him by just $968.
Circuit finals shake-up
The fight for the year-end title was a tight brawl that ultimately came down to what happened inside the Wasatch County Events Complex.
Placing in a round and the average, Smith added $3,730 to his year-end earnings. Northcott, on the other hand, pocketed $5,285 between the rounds and average—enough to push him into the driver’s seat in the year-end standings.
For the newly crowned Resistol Rookie Heeler of the Year, the win is Northcott’s first circuit title. But for Smith, it marks his second Wilderness Circuit title in just two years of claiming the circuit.
“It’s just try to do the best you can,” Smith, 32, said. “That’s a great circuit; we love that circuit. Everybody in that circuit loves rodeo—Utah, Idaho and Nevada. And we like that. We’ve had pretty good luck, and I keep wishing that Doug would get it done with me, but we hadn’t got that done yet. I told Nicky he would have a good partner for a week, and Clay told Doug he would have a good partner for a week. But there ain’t no trick. I mean, it’s just the same story. It’s hard to win anywhere, and that’s not an easy circuit by no means. There are a lot of great rodeos in that circuit too.”
Big hits in the wild
For Smith, momentum hit early on the circuit front with the $7,753-a-man Clark County Fair & Rodeo win in Logandale, Nevada, in April.
“Logandale was really good to us, and that kind of got it kicked off,” Smith said.
Their biggest break, however, came in Nampa, Idaho, hitting all cylinders from the circuit front to the Top 15 race and even the PRCA Playoff Series tour.
“That one was huge, especially that week,” Smith said. “I hadn’t caught anywhere else except at Nampa. That was for sure big. Then Ogden was another big hit for us. We had a pretty good lick at Ogden.”
They left the Snake River Stampede with $7,823 each. They won another $5,312 a man at the Oakley Independence Day Rodeo in Oakley City, Utah, over the Fourth of July, as well as $2,075 a man out of the Ute Stampede in Nephi. They followed those hits with $5,714 a man at the Ogden Pioneer Days and $2,080 apiece out of the The War Bonnet Round Up in Idaho Falls, Idaho.
As for Northcott, his Wilderness success also kicked off in Logandale, picking up $2,923 with 2025 Resistol Rookie Header of the Year James Arviso. Northcott started roping with Clay at the start of May, and they won $2,920 a man in Elko, Nevada, not long after. Their biggest circuit punch came out of the Reno Rodeo for $10,833 a man—the biggest rodeo in the Wilderness Circuit and one of the summer’s major hits. They won $2,442 apiece out of Nephi, $2,790 a man from the Spanish Fork Fiesta Days Rodeo, and they won Filer, Idaho, for $4,406 a man in August.
Wilderness Works
Though Oklahoma and Texas cowboys, the Wilderness Circuit works best for both two-time NFR header Smith and Northcott. They aren’t alone in that revelation, either, as the Wilderness Circuit Finals featured eight NFR qualifiers in the team roping field.
“There’s so many dang rodeos that are in Utah, Idaho and Nevada, and they’re all really good,” Smith said. “And it’s easier to get to those rodeos than it is to the ones in our own circuit it seems like. There’s just so many rodeos in that circuit that everybody goes to anyway that are that good. There’s Reno, Nampa, Ogden and Spanish Fork—there’s so many good rodeos in that circuit. If you’re gone anyway and going to do that circuit, then heck, you just leave a couple weeks earlier than you would to go to Reno and you knock out several of ’em right there. It seems like you’re in that part of the world for all of June, July and a little bit of August too, so it just seems way easier to get to those, and I think more and more people are starting to see that.”
Smith and Northcott have jackpotted together before, and they’ll team up for the NFR Open in Colorado Springs next July. Smith knows firsthand just how important the NFR Open can be on one’s season after walking away from the 2025 rodeo $10,750 richer.
“Especially since I’ve done good,” Smith said with a laugh. “That helped me get to the NFR, for sure. I don’t think I could have done it without it. That deal at Colorado Springs is amazing, and it pays so good that, man, it’s hard to miss it. So, I want to definitely try to get that done every year that it’s possible.”
