Korbin Rice and Cooper Freeman’s 2026 season has gotten too big to ignore.

After their second $50,000-per-man day of the season so far, Rice and Freeman now have $163,008 won midway through July—likely locking down their first qualification to the National Finals Rodeo in December.

For some perspective, the No. 15 guys in the world at the end of the 2025 season—Lightning Aguilera and Jonathan Torres— went to the NFR $116,864 and $111,680 won, respectively. On the opposite of the list, Kaleb Driggers and Junior Nogueira went into the Finals leading the world with $198,497 won.

For even more context, Driggers and Nogueira broke the PRCA regular-season earnings record in 2022 with $152,018.86 won by late July with 39 rodeos, before ultimately finishing the regular season with $227,878 each. Rice and Freeman are already ahead of that late-July pace with $163,008 won each, and Rice said Salinas will mark just their 50th rodeo of the 2026 season.

With that being said, the veterans of the sport had something to say about the season the young guns from New Mexico and Missouri are having.

Chad Masters

For two-time world champion Chad Masters, the best part of the whole run is not just the numbers— it’s that Rice and Freeman are doing it together.

Masters, who Rice lived with and worked under earlier in his career, also owned Papa Rock before the horse became Rice’s a-string. He has watched Rice grow into the No. 1 header in the world, but what stands out most is that Rice and Freeman stayed hooked after a year that did not go exactly how they wanted.

“The coolest thing to me about it is the fact that how good of buddies they are,” Masters said. “They did stick it out from last year. They didn’t have the best year last year, and they just kept roping. They didn’t change anything. They just kept staying hooked, and next thing you know, everything’s coming together.”

Masters said he is not surprised by what Rice is doing. He has seen the mindset for years.

“Korbin can hit 10 of them in the back of the head, and you can’t tell if he’s been winning or hitting them in the back of the head,” Masters said. “Missing doesn’t back him off.”

That aggression is part of what makes Rice dangerous, Masters said. It is also why Papa Rock became the horse he is under Rice.

“The reason the horse is what he is is because of Korbin,” Masters said. “That’s nice of him to say he got him from me. But when you watch Korbin ride the horse, he rides him 10 times better than I ever did.”

On the other side, Masters sees Freeman as the right kind of partner for Rice’s style—laid-back, dependable and unlikely to let the moment make him do too much.

“As laid back as Cooper is and as aggressive as Korbin is, if there’s ever any young rookies that can handle it, it will be them,” Masters said.

Jake Barnes

Jake Barnes sees the same big-picture opportunity, even if he is not ready to hand anybody a gold buckle in July.

For the seven-time world champion header, the numbers speak for themselves. He also knows what comes with being in that position: the attention, the opinions and the pressure of trying to turn a huge regular season into a world championship.

“The results talk for themselves, really,” Barnes said. “I remember when we were that age, and there weren’t rodeos that paid that well back then. We went to 100 rodeos to try to capture a sizable lead to try to win a world championship.”

Barnes knows there will be people who point to Houston and Calgary and say the season came from two huge rodeos. But to him, that is part of the sport now. The money is there, the opportunities are there and Rice and Freeman were the ones who capitalized.

“Everybody’s going to give their opinions,” Barnes said. “They were lucky or this or that or whatever. But the thing about it is that they’re the one that’s holding the ball—they’re the one that’s got the tickets.”

Still, Barnes is clear that the race is not over.

Rice and Freeman have put themselves in position to make their first NFR and possibly contend for a world championship, but there is a lot of rodeo between July and December. And once they get to Las Vegas, the Thomas & Mack Center creates a different kind of test.

“You got that kind of a lead, but the race has just barely started,” Barnes said. “Until they rope that last steer in December, the last night, it’s anybody’s game yet.”

Clay O’Brien Cooper

“They’ve roped good and especially done well at the right moments and capitalized on the two biggest payoffs in the year besides the NFR,” said seven-time world champion Clay O’Brien Cooper. “If I was them, I would be feeling pretty good.”

At RodeoHouston, Rice and Freeman won $70,750 each, giving the young team the kind of cushion that can change an entire year. But Cooper said a win like that can bring pressure, too. It is one thing to win Houston. It is another to keep winning after it.

That, to him, is what has made Rice and Freeman’s season stand out.

“Houston is the one that can really catapult you into the lead and kind of give you some cushion there,” Cooper said. “But also, for a young team, it can provide a little bit of pressure. Now, if you win Houston and you rodeo all year and don’t make the Finals, you still got the win. That’s what’s impressive about them is that they’ve just kind of kept their heads down and they’ve just kept doing their deal.”

Then, at Calgary, they handled a one-day, four-steer format that required them to be fast when they needed to be and smart when the Showdown Round turned into a catch-to-win situation.

“They kind of look like they’ve got what it takes to kind of do whatever they need to do,” Cooper said. “They can be fast or they can go catch, and that’s the name of the game.”

That may matter even more now.

The NFR is no longer just a dream they are chasing. With Houston and Calgary behind them, the next question is what they do with the lead they have built.

“Now with the second $50,000 in their pocket and way in the lead, the pressure of making the Finals is off,” Cooper said. “They’ve got it made. Now can they go in with a substantial lead and position themselves to battle it out for a world championship?”

From Making It to Winning It

That is the balance of Rice and Freeman’s season now.

They are young enough that many are still learning who they are. They are good enough that world champions are talking about them, and they have won enough that making the NFR no longer feels like the only goal but rather a step towards a gold buckle.

It feels like the starting point for the next question—can they win the world?

“They’re in a great position to have a chance to win a world championship,” Barnes said. “That’s how the game’s played.”