Derrick Begay and Colter Todd won the first round of the Pendleton Round-Up in 4.8 seconds for $7,179 a man, and with it Begay went from No. 18 in the world to No. 16—$651 behind the last man inside the NFR heading line.
Brenten Hall and Wyatt Cox split third with Clayton and Chase Hansen at 5.0 for $4,838 each. That moved Hall past Nelson Wyatt to No. 17, $1,478 back, and moved Cox from a $743 cushion at No. 15 heeler to a $5,581 one. Neither Summers nor Wyatt placed.
Editor’s Note: Standings figures are TRJ math on PRCA data current to Sept. 14 plus money since, including Salt Lake City. Projections are simply that—and we do not know rodeo counts.
The Round
Bryan Reay and Garrett Jess were second in 4.9 for $6,243. Riley Kittle and Trey Yates were fifth in 5.1 for $3,433. Lightning Aguilera and Kaden Profili split sixth with Denver Eng and Calgary Smith at 5.2 for $2,029. Haven Meged and Cole Clemons were eighth in 5.3 for $624.
Pendleton pays two rounds, an average and a short round on the grass. The first round paid $7,179 to win—more than any Puyallup round and $3,800 more than the Ellensburg rounds two weeks ago—and the average will pay more.
The Heading Line
With Round 1 added to PRCA figures current to Sept. 8 plus Puyallup, Lewiston and Fort Madison money, the heading line runs: No. 12 Dawson Graham $107,278; No. 13 Ketch Kelton $106,785; No. 14 Coy Rahlmann $105,106; No. 15 Clint Summers $104,507; No. 16 Begay $103,856; No. 17 Hall $103,029; No. 18 Wyatt $98,548.
That is eight headers inside $4,250 for six spots. Three rounds of Pendleton money, Mandan, the Governor’s Cup for those with a berth and the Stephenville jackpot on Sept. 30 are still to pay. Wyatt, who has not won a check since Filer on Sept. 5, is $5,959 out with no Puyallup money and no Governor’s Cup path.
The first-round grid is the part of this story the payoff list doesn’t show. Summers and Corkill were a no-time. So were Dustin Egusquiza and JC Flake, Brye Crites and Ross Ashford, Tanner Tomlinson and Wesley Thorp, Kavis Drake and Denim Ross, Shay Dixon Carroll and Landen Glenn, and Tee McLeod and Jake Edwards. None of those teams can win the Pendleton average; the second round is the only Pendleton money left for any of them.
Among the headers at the line: Wyatt and Torres were 6.9, alive. Dawson and Dillon Graham were 8.4. Rahlmann and Medlin were 11.2. Kelton and Dunning were 20.5—a time, technically, but not one that makes a short round. Summers is the only man in the eight-header cluster with no path to Pendleton average money, and the four men below him—Begay at 4.8, Hall at 5.0, Wyatt at 6.9—all have one.
The Heeling Line
Cox’s $4,838 puts him at $111,653—$19 short of the entire 2025 NFR heeling cut, on Sept. 15—and $160 behind Coleby Payne at No. 14 and $280 behind JC Flake at No. 13. Below him: No. 16 Logan Medlin $106,072, No. 17 Jade Corkill $104,507, No. 18 Trent Vaught $103,326, No. 19 Wesley Thorp $101,074, No. 20 Jonathan Torres $98,548. None of the five placed.
Medlin’s margin to the line went from $743 to $5,581 in one round. The heeling side has three men—Payne, Flake and Cox—inside $280 of each other for spots 13 through 15, all with Mandan and Stephenville ahead of them, and Cox with a Pendleton average still in play.
On the heeling side, Cox is third on one head with Hall. Payne, with Clay Smith, was 6.6 and alive. Vaught and Cash Duty were 6.5, alive—and for a man who needs $20,000-plus, a Pendleton average is one of the few checks that size still on the calendar. Medlin’s 11.2 with Rahlmann is a long shot at best. Corkill and Thorp no-timed. For Thorp, that leaves Mandan on Friday and Stephenville on Sept. 30 as the only rodeos that can pay him what he needs; the three-time world champion has gone from No. 25 to No. 19 in ten days and has just lost one of his three remaining shots.
Snow and Mitchell were 6.2, alive. Their third at Salt Lake City for $2,352 puts Mitchell at $114,693 and No. 11, and Snow at $117,396, $429 behind Crites at No. 10. Jake Smith and Douglas Rich were 16.0, Andrew Ward and Jake Long 12.3—both effectively out of the average, which matters more than it did a week ago for two No. 7–9 heelers who are not yet at the projected cut.
Kittle and Yates’ $3,433 moves Yates to $121,469, No. 8 heeler, past Jake Long. He is $1,531 short of TRJ’s projected $123,000 finish for the heeling cut, with Pendleton’s remaining rounds, Mandan, the Governor’s Cup with Garrett Tonozzi and Stephenville still to rope. Since Friday morning he has won Fort Madison, the Puyallup semifinal, fourth in the Puyallup final and fifth in a Pendleton round — $15,290 in five days — and gone from No. 13 to No. 8.
What It Means for the Cut
TRJ’s working projected cut after Puyallup was $119,000 for the heading and $123,000 for heeling, with ranges of $116,000–122,000 and $120,000–126,000. One Pendleton round moved the heeling line $4,838 and put three headers within $1,500 of the heading line. Both are now tracking to the top of their ranges—roughly $121,000–122,000 heading and $125,000–126,000 heeling—before the Pendleton average, Mandan’s $11,000 one-header, the $166,667-a-side Governor’s Cup and Stephenville have paid.
Against $125,000 heeling: Cox needs about $13,300, Payne and Flake about $13,100, Medlin about $18,900, Corkill $20,500, Vaught $21,700, Thorp $23,900. Against $121,000 heading: Summers needs about $16,500, Begay $17,100, Hall $18,000, Wyatt $22,500, and the four men above Summers $13,700–15,900 each.
Begay and Todd, who were 11th and 12th in Playoff Series points in late August, do not have a Governor’s Cup berth. Neither do Hall and Cox or Wyatt and Torres. For those three teams the road is Pendleton’s average, one steer in Mandan and four rounds in Stephenville.
Pendleton’s second round begins Wednesday. Mandan is Friday.
The Sioux Falls math.
The Governor’s Cup takes the Puyallup final four plus the top eight in Playoff Series points at the Sept. 21 cutoff, and points spots held by Puyallup qualifiers roll down. With Kaleb Driggers and James Arviso in from Puyallup, the heading points field runs through No. 10 Cody Snow at 968.13; Coy Rahlmann is first out, 25.43 back, with Clint Summers at No. 12, Ketch Kelton No. 14 and Derrick Begay No. 17.
With Junior Nogueira and Levi Lord in from Puyallup, the heeling field runs through No. 10 Nicky Northcott at 935.63—which puts Logan Medlin in at No. 9—and Jade Corkill is first out, 28.00 back, with Denton Dunning No. 13, Lane Mitchell No. 14, Wesley Thorp No. 15 at 868.75, Wyatt Cox No. 16, Trent Vaught No. 19 and JC Flake No. 20. Luke Brown, Garrett Tonozzi, Hunter Koch and Trey Yates are in on their Puyallup finish regardless of points.
Two points rodeos remain before the cutoff, and both pay points to the top 20: Pendleton on the average, Mandan on one head. That makes Pendleton’s average worth something beyond money for Rahlmann and Medlin at 11.2 on one head and for Nelson Wyatt and Jonathan Torres at 6.9; it makes it worth nothing for Summers, Corkill, Flake and Thorp, who no-timed. Whoever holds the last spot on Sept. 21 ropes for $166,667 a side on Sept. 25–27, four days before Stephenville.