James Arviso has a new target on his back after his $22,099 Cowboy Christmas skyrocketed him to No. 1 in the 2025 Resistol Rookie of the Year heading standings.
Arviso, a 21-year-old from Seba Dalkai, Arizona, has $38,766.97 won on his rookie season, giving him a $9,280.82 lead over Riley Kittle at No. 2. If his lead isn’t impressive enough, his breakout Fourth run landed him amongst team roping’s Top 5 Cowboy Christmas money earners, which consisted of NFR regulars like Andrew Ward and Clint Summers and world champs like Tyler Wade.
“I guess it kind of shows that I could hang with them and that I do rope good enough against these other guys,” Arviso said.
Despite having numerous big wins to his name—like the 2022 NHSFR team roping title and the 2024 Patriot Reno Open—striking out as a rookie is often uncharted territory for the young guns.
“I bought [my PRCA rookie card], and then I really didn’t know what I was doing or didn’t know what I was getting myself into,” Arviso admitted. “But I’m glad I did. I’ve stayed around the house and then I jackpotted a lot, but I’m just trying to get used to the rodeo atmosphere and being gone four months out of the year.”
Rookie nerves didn’t show for the talented header from the Navajo Nation over the Fourth of July, however. Arviso and Logan Moore, the reigning Resistol Rookie Heeler of the Year who’s helped Arviso on the mental side of rodeo and learning the ropes of entering, kicked off Cowboy Christmas with a $2,703 check at the Greeley Stampede for fourth in the first round. They punched their tickets to the short round where they picked up another $915 a man for third and $2,317 apiece for sixth in the aggregate. And that’s when the roll started.
Team Roping's top money earners over Cowboy Christmas
“Logan says powdered donuts and Red Bull,” Arviso said with a laugh. “Honey buns, powdered donuts and Red Bull—that’s why we got on a roll. But honestly, I don’t really know. Just after we roped at Greeley, we drove all night to Mandan and it just clicked that one morning and then it clicked that night, and then it just snowballed from there.”
They won second at the Mandan Rodeo Days with a 4.4 for $4,796 a man, followed by $637 apiece out of Utah’s Oakley Independence Day Rodeo. A 4.6-second run pocketed them $2,811 a man at the Livingston Roundup Rodeo in Montana, but their biggest Cowboy Christmas hit came at the end at the World’s Oldest Rodeo in Prescott, Arizona. Arviso and Moore won the first round for $3,150 apiece and won the average with a 12.1 on two for $4,726 a man. Arviso credits his buckskin mare, registered Kit Kat Keeta, for the most part.
“Before that, I probably missed the last two, and then I got on my buckskin horse,” Arviso said. “My buckskin horse was already down there, and then it seems like when I ride her—she’s hard to ride—it seems like I win on her. First one, had just a good steer and then capitalized on him. And then all we really had to do was catch the second one, but I think it was more of my horse instead of me.”
Arviso’s big Cowboy Christmas also helped him achieve another, maybe even bigger goal for 2025 sitting No. 29 in the PRCA world standings.
“I said if I come out not in a negative off of money won this year, I’ll be happy,” Arviso said. “And the Top 35 is what my goal was, and then I cracked the Top 35, so now I guess keep winning.”
