When the dust settled at the First Frontier Circuit Finals, held Jan. 15-17 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, T.J. Smith and Scot Brown were crowned year-end champions after placing in every round and winning the average.
Their 24.4-second time on four head, along with four go-round checks, shot them straight to the top of the standings in the First Frontier Circuit, where they started fourth on the board before running that first one in Pennsylvania.
“It just all fell together good,” Brown, the 48-year-old from Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, said. “We didn’t draw anything that took us out of it, and we didn’t really draw a steer that we could just go try to win the round on. We drew the middle of the road and was able to use them.”
“We needed to place some rounds, but we weren’t necessarily on that first one going to try to win it,” Smith, the 54-year-old San Mateo, Florida, native, said. “We just treated it like an aggressive first-round jackpot run and let it work.”
That game plan paid off immediately. Smith and Brown snagged the Round 1 win with a 5.5-second run, good for $2,512 a man.
“We saw that steer in the run-throughs and knew he was good,” Smith said. “It really just worked out.”
Their second steer was not playing for the home team. They got him down in 7.3 seconds for a fourth-place round check of $628 a man.
“That steer was a really tough steer,” Smith said. “He was low-headed and wanted to go to the right really bad, and we just went and caught him.”
By the third round, Smith and Brown were clean on two but wanted to put the pedal down to give themselves more of a chance at the year-end and average titles.
“We tried to step it up a little bit in that round to put us closer,” Smith said. “That was really the only steer we tried to step it up on, and that one really put us in the driver’s seat for the short round.”
They did just that, and their 5.4-second run was good for second in the go-round and $1,884 a man.
“They were already 3.9 on a steer, and T.J. came to me and said, ‘Hey, we’re not running it first,’” Brown said. “We were in position at that point. We just needed to keep catching.”
Last out in the final round, Smith and Brown had to both place in the round and win the average to secure the year-end title.
“We had nine seconds to win the average,” Smith said. “That steer was probably our best steer of the whole week. We drew the right steer at the right time.”
Their 6.2-second run, tying for second in the final round and earning them $1,570 a man, secured the win in the average — and the win in the circuit.
“I really didn’t know exactly what first had,” Brown said. “I think they had a little over $15,000, then it went to $14,000, and then two or three of us had about $10,000 won. I knew we had a good chance just as long as the cards went right and we could keep placing.”
Horsepower was key to the team’s win as much as anything.
On the head side, it was “Blondie,” the 19-year-old gelding Smith trained before selling him to his uncle, Bob Harrington, who later retired him and gave him back.
“Having that horse and Scot calling to rope kind of happened all about the same time, which is what got me to switch back to heading,” Smith, who has spent the last several years on the heel side, said.
Smith also notably had two horses he owns win Horse of the Year honors in the First Frontier Circuit. Blondie was named Head Horse of the Year, and “31,” the 13-year-old home-trained gelding Britt Bockius and Darren Morgan rode at the rodeos this season, was named Heel Horse of the Year.
“At one rodeo this year, he went three times on the heel side, one time in the calf roping, and one time in the breakaway,” Smith said. “I bought him as a two-year-old and have done everything on him myself.”
For Brown, it was “Tank,” registered as Jimi Goldseeker, the 15-year-old gelding he’s owned since the horse was 5, who has taken him to several circuit finals, seen success and made the trip to the NFR Open.
Throughout the season, the team just steadily placed along and made the finals count. Once their run came together, it was lights-out for the Pennsylvania-Florida team.
“The first rodeo we roped at together was the first rodeo of the year,” Brown said. “We placed along at dang near everything we went to.”
That list includes wins in Gerry, New York, for $1,084 a man and Levant, Maine, for $1,227 a man.
“Once our run came together, it really came together nice,” Smith said. “I just tried to get a good start, catch for him and set him up, and let him do the best part.”
Smith and Brown’s work at the Circuit Finals has qualified them for the 2026 NFR Open in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
