Jet Toberer didn’t originally plan to buy his rookie card this season, but the 23-year-old North Carolina native turned Lipan, Texas, header has $33,489.27 won and the lead in the Resistol Rookie heading race anyway.
He bought it because he thought he had to.
“I thought I didn’t have another year on my permit,” Toberer said. “It was the only reason I bought my card. I didn’t really plan on rodeoing.”
That plan changed in a hurry.
Toberer started the year roping with Casey McCleskey, picking up checks from Odessa to Denver, Corpus Christi and Homestead, Florida. They won Homestead with a 4.2-second run for $2,548 each and placed at Denver. By then, Toberer said, they had around $15,000 or $16,000 won and had decided to rodeo.
“My goal’s been just to win as much as I can, try not to go broke and go home,” Toberer said. “Stay out there as long as you can.”
When McCleskey decided to stay home, Toberer’s circuit-rodeo partnership with NFR heeler Tyler McKnight turned into the full-time plan.
The Texas team has steadily kept their name on the pay sheet. Toberer and McKnight split second at Driggs, Idaho, with a 5.0-second run worth $4,553 each, and they’ve also placed at Liberty Hill, Killeen, Vernon, Lufkin, Mercedes and Matagorda in Texas.
They haven’t needed to win first everywhere to keep Toberer in front of the rookie heading race—they just needed to complete the course.
“I feel like we catch a lot,” Toberer said. “We probably don’t win first very often, but we do catch a bunch. I feel like our catch percent is high.”
McKnight has handled plenty outside the arena, too.
“He does all the entering,” Toberer said. “I just drove my first two hours since we’ve been gone. It’s pretty simple for me—I just have to focus on trying to get out of the barrier and turn the steer.”
For all the money they’ve won together, Toberer and McKnight haven’t exactly spent months practicing.
“We practiced together one time,” Toberer said. “At Lufkin, I stayed at his house, and we went and roped a little bit that next afternoon. But no, we’ve never really practiced together.”
That hasn’t mattered, though.
At Mercedes, Toberer said they made one of their best runs together, running one in 4.6 seconds for $1,622 a man.
“That steer was strong,” Toberer said. “I kind of missed the barrier a little bit, and I got a neck, and Tyler heeled him fast. We finished really good over there.”
Driggs was another big one. It was only Toberer’s second rodeo outside Texas, and the $4,553 check was the most money he had ever won on one steer.
“That was just a really good steer,” Toberer said. “I just got a good start. It felt like it was an easy run. I just got out of the barrier, and he was right next to me, and I had him. I was just trying to handle him as good as I could.”
The Idaho rodeo also gave Toberer a better look at the kind of setup he likes. He grew up roping in North Carolina, moved to Texas at 18 because “there’s not much team roping in North Carolina,” and had mostly been used to the short scores in Texas rodeos before this year.
“I’ve never really been very good on the really short scores,” Toberer said. “The runs happen a little more in the middle of the arena out here, and I feel like I like that a little bit better. You use your horse a little more.”
Toberer has done most of the winning on Gooby, an 18-year-old bay horse he bought from Reno Stoebner earlier this year.
The plan only gets busier from here. After Nampa, Toberer and McKnight were headed back to Lipan before turning around for Springdale, Arkansas, then Pecos, Texas, Greeley, Colorado, and Prescott, Arizona.
While the rookie title is no small thing, Toberer isn’t pretending that is the only goal.
“The least arrogant, cocky way I’d say it, the main goal would be to have a good summer and make the NFR,” Toberer said. “But the rookie would still be really cool, too.”
Because unlike the NFR, the rookie race only comes around once.
“You only get one chance to win it,” Toberer said. “It would be pretty cool for sure.”