Garrett Tonozzi and Trey Yates won the 2025 Mountain States Circuit Finals Oct. 24-25, to clinch the year-end heeling title for Yates while Clayton Van Aken reigned supreme in the year-end heading yet again.
Tonozzi and Yates were 17.9 seconds on three head in Loveland, Colorado, to pocket $3,352 a man in the average, securing four-time NFR qualifier Yates his second year-end circuit title, this time with $40,214.23 won on the year. Van Aken, on the other hand, claimed his sixth year-end circuit heading title, finishing the 2025 season with $38,888 on the year.
Tonozzi and Yates control the average
Tonozzi and Yates controlled the Mountain States Circuit Finals from start to finish, collecting checks in all three go rounds. As the second-to-last team in the first round, they knew it was a “just catch” scenario. They tied for the Round 1 win with a 6.8 for $1,955 apiece. They came back the next afternoon in Round 2 to rope a steer that had been missed the night before.
“I could tell he was probably going to be heavy, so I was maybe a little too aggressive at the barrier and got a really good start,” explained two-time NFR header Tonozzi. “And he was big and heavy. Trey did a phenomenal job just getting two feet caught.”
Their 5.6-second run landed them third in the second round for $1,117 a man, giving them nearly a 3-second lead going into the third and final round. While Yates didn’t feel razor sharp on the backside on the first two, he felt dialed in on the third.
“I think that there’s something to be said about roping with somebody being able to do that, just having enough confidence in the team and in your partner to know that ‘Hey, this go round, second’s wide open,'” Yates, 30, said. “That was kind of our plan going in the last round. If the go round’s a little bit soft, we’re going to try to get another good go-round check. If it’s tough, we got quite a bit of time, let’s just go win the average. And to watch the go round go the way it did, be last out and call our shot and maximize was a pretty amazing feat, I think.”
Tonozzi and Yates closed out their run in Loveland with a 5.5 for second in the third round for $1,676 apiece. The win sealed Tonozzi’s third aggregate title, a feat Yates credits him for heavily.
“It was pretty incredible heading to what he did,” Yates said. “To get money on all three steers is a pretty amazing feat as a header, and I admire him for that and was just glad I held up my end of the bargain. It was a great start for the 2026 season. I’m looking forward to this year, and roping with him at the NFR Open is pretty exciting.”
Tonozzi made the runs aboard EPH Silver Fox, a 10-year-old roan gelding.
“He scores really good, and he’s super strong for those bigger steers there,” Tonozzi, 40, said. “So, it worked out good. He let me go do my job.”
Yates originally planned to ride a horse he calls Voodoo, which he cracked out at the COJO earlier in the month. But in the end, he called on his tried and true “Dude,” registered Romancing The Chics.
“I got to thinking, it’s 180 miles from my house and a chance to win, in my mind, $5,000 and get the year started off right,” Yates said of the horse who helped him win the 2018 NFR. “What a better place to ride your good horse? So, I took Dude, and obviously that was the right call. I have a different level of confidence on that horse. I mean, he’s been at our house since he was 3, and I’ve rode him since he was 7; he’s 1 now. Every steer at the NFR up to this point I’ve rode him on, pretty much any major.”
Though Tonozzi and Yates didn’t rope together during the regular season, the two Colorado natives have a fairly extensive history. Tonozzi and Yates have roped together at jackpots and a handful of rodeos over the years.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever placed in all three rounds before, something like that,” Tonozzi said. “And having Trey heel for me. I mean, he’s one of the best heelers in the world, and I’ve watched him grow up. We’ve been really good friends for a long time, and the Yates and the Tonozzis are two family staples there in Colorado. I know all them really well, JD and Dick and everyone; we’ve all been really good family friends, so I would say that for sure, getting to do that with Trey.”
Full circle for Yates
For year-end champ Yates, that connection between the Tonozzis and Yates is also significant having grown up looking up to Tonozzi long before they ever backed into the box together.
“When he was rodeoing, he would come stay and he just always treated me good as a kid there at the house,” Yates remembered. “I’m sure I was an annoying kid, just asking him a million questions. I was a team roping fan and obviously he was a great header, and I asked him about this guy and that guy. And he never acted too good for me when I was young. He’s just been a guy that throughout my rodeo career I could, like this summer, every time I went and roped with him, it was a confidence builder for me because he builds a guy up.”
Yates roped with 16-time NFR header Luke Brown in 2025, both with the common goal to get back to the Thomas & Mack. They started the year with the National Western Stock Show and Rodeo win in Denver this January, and they also had a $13,250-a-man trip at the Cheyenne Frontier Days. While he’s missed his circuit count before in prior years, making the Mountain States Circuit Finals is in fact a priority for Yates, and he thanks Brown for helping him reach his count even when he couldn’t.
“I guess a guy could say that you have to sacrifice a couple rodeos, as far as with your count, to get it done,” Yates admitted. “And Luke and I had full intentions of getting to all the rodeos for him, but we never kind of got ahead of the eight ball as far as the world standings to get to go to a couple of those smaller rodeos; we went to Steamboat once and we flew to Evergreen, Colorado, early in the year. But at the same time though, we never went anywhere that paid less than $1,800, and if a guy averages $1,800 a rodeo, you’re in more than good enough shape to make the NFR.”
The Mountain States Circuit is a blessing for NFR guys who also want to qualify for a circuit finals. Similar to the Wilderness Circuit, the Mountain States features some of the summer run’s premiere rodeos, including Cheyenne and the Central Wyoming Fair & PRCA Rodeo in Casper. Other big stops include Denver; Rooftop Rodeo in Estes Park, Colorado; Sheridan WYO Rodeo; and the Cody Stampede Rodeo in Wyoming.
“I mean, you look at the calf roping this year, you had Ryan Jarrett, his wife made it in the breakaway,” Yates said. “You had Brodey Clemons. Riley Pruitt lives in Nebraska–not far, but he chooses it over the Prairie or the Badlands Circuits. You look at the money won, the proof is in the pudding. I think Riley went to the circuit finals with like, $52,000 won. Was that obviously a record? Absolutely. But it’s doable with the money that’s in that circuit.”
Van Aken’s Sixth Year-End Victory
Now six-time Mountain States year-end champion header Van Aken headed into the circuit finals with $38,888 won and held onto the No. 1 position through the finals.
Every year is different and holds its own importance for Van Aken and can’t be compared to another.
“You start over every time, so I don’t know if one is better than the other,” he said. “I’m just pretty blessed to get to do it.”
Although the circuit finals didn’t go exactly as planned, the goal for Van Aken is always to handle the job at hand.
“We kind of stubbed our toe on one, but we still had a good chance,” he said of he and circuit finals partner Cole Cooper’s time in Loveland. “It just didn’t work out; that’s part of rodeo.”
Throughout the year, the Yoder, Wyoming, cowboy stayed consistent to climb his way to the top of the Mountain States standings. He kicked off the summer with a check in Cortez, Colorado, with Kory Bramwell for $2,180 a man.
From there, he paired up with young gun Reece Wadhams. Once they started, they won Grover, Colorado; won Brush, Colorado; won or placed at the Steamboat Springs ProRodeo Series nine times; were third in Laramie, Wyoming; fourth at Monte Vista, Colorado; third in Burlington, Colorado; second in Yuma, Colorado; and won both Rawlins, Wyoming, and Bozeman, Montana.
“We never got cold until the very end,” Van Aken said of he and Wadhams’ season. “We always fought pretty good and that turned into getting paid, but we didn’t do anything spectacular. The week of Casper, we didn’t do very good, but we still placed right along. It was a bad week, and we still won $2,500 in the circuit. If you’re just circuit rodeoing, it was really good for us all the way through.”
Most of the success Van Aken found this season was aboard the buttermilk buckskin he calls JB—registered as Jay Bad Ropn Ammo—that he got from Wade Hooker out in California about five years ago. JB got the call at most of the rodeos this year and ended the season being named the 2025 Mountain States Circuit Finals Head Horse of the Year.
