No. 1 | $95,655

Sitting No. 1 in the 2026 PRCA world standings with $95,655 won at 24 years old, it looks like the blueprint’s working.

Rice was a calf roper in the early years. He and his older brother, Jabin, hit the Joe Beaver jackpots and anything else they could find, taking it seriously for years before the switch to team roping happened—somewhere around Rice’s freshman year of high school. The reason was as practical as it gets.

“Both our parents worked, so we could team rope together pretty much most all day while nobody else was there,” Rice said. “It was just easy to practice together at home by ourselves.”

He and Jabin made trips to Texas for junior high and high school rodeos, because the roping scene in Hobbs only goes so far. They spent weeks at a time in the summers staying with Chad, Tygh, and Quade Hiatt—getting reps, getting better. Their dad, who roped but never competed professionally, paid close attention, watched videos and gathered information to help any way he could. And growing up, one header stood out on every tape.

“It’s hard to not say you’re a Clay Tryan fan,” Rice said. “Whenever I was growing up, watching who was kicking ass all the time — Clay Tryan was right up there for sure all the time. He was fun to watch.”

By his sophomore year, Rice had made up his mind—he was going to rodeo for a living. He just still had a lot to learn about how that actually worked.

He started at Cisco College, then transferred to Tarleton State in Stephenville, Texas. Being surrounded by guys who roped all day, every day, was something he’d never had access to growing up.

“I never got to be around people that roped all the time and really did it for a living constantly,” Rice said. “It’s hard to go over there and rope with people that rope better than you and get worse. You’re learning stuff all the time.”

The sheer volume of reps alone changed him. It was a whirlwind, and then it started to click.

The other thing that clicked was his relationship with Chad Masters, which started the summer of his second year of college. Rice was working for Lane Ivy, who was running his program out of Master’s place in Lipan. When Ivy shifted his focus elsewhere, Rice kept hanging out with Masters. When the winter came after that summer of rodeoing, Rice asked Masters if he could use any help.

“I didn’t care really what I did,” Rice said. “Just to get to be over there was going to be huge for me.”

“There’s a lot of knowledge there,” Rice said of the two-time world champion. “He’ll spread some of it every now and then. He’s kind of hard to get to talk about it, but he’ll chip in every once in a while.”

Through those years at Masters’, there was a certain sorrel horse that Rice couldn’t ignore. Masters had him—a gelding Rice now calls Papa Rock, registered LJ Jumpin Jack Flash—and let Rice take him to college rodeos and jackpots his junior and senior year. He rode Papa Rock at the college finals, at several big jackpots, and anywhere else he could get to.

Rice had been riding Papa Rock for three or four years before he ever owned him. The opportunity came when Masters pulled him aside in Arizona and said it was time. The money wasn’t quite there, but it was about to be.

In December 2024, Rice and Jake Edwards won the Ariat WSTR Riata Open Finale in Las Vegas, which paid $111,500 a man that year. Although Rice was on a differnt horse, that payday helped seal the deal to add Papa Rock to his string.

Beyond the check, that win told him something about his game.

“If you can win at a level like that, then definitely there’s something there,” Rice said. “You’ve got a chance.”

Flash forward to present day, where Rice and his partner Cooper Freeman have proved that yes, there is “something there” as they head into the first summer as a team in a sweet spot.

The team came together the same way most things have for most team ropers—someone was looking for a run at the next one. Reed Boos introduced them when Rice was transferring to Tarleton and Freeman was coming to Cisco. They roped together in college, made the college finals together in 2023, then went separate ways for a bit. When they reconnected, Freeman was needing a run at the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo qualifier in Uvalde, Texas, which Rice already had, but the opportunity presented itself for them to rope for the rest of the year.

As luck would have it, the pieces fell together.

“Neither one of us ever gets mad about anything,” Rice said of their dynamic. “We know we’re both out there trying to do the same thing and have the same goals. When we know we need to catch, we can go catch. We’re just on the same page all the time.”

The Texas Swing proved to be a special one for the boys. Their first trip to RodeoHouston ended with a $65,000-a-man payday after a 4.6-second run in the championship round—a life-changing moment on both ends.

Former RodeoHouston champion Derrick Begay gave Rice just the advice he needed before running that last steer, reminding them that they were right in the middle of “the fun part”.

“He reconfirmed me going into it with the mindset I already had,” Rice said. “This is the fun part. This is the best round that you can be in. Just relax, take it all in, enjoy the moment and go make a good run.”

For being at the top of the mountain heading into the summer, Rice said the pressure is nonexistent.

“I’ve always just been trying to get into the top 15, top 20, and that’s a stressful deal,” Rice said. “Having that much money won right now makes every run way less stressful. You can go out there and do whatever the steer lets you do on him.”

He’s quick to note the summer hasn’t happened yet.

What has happened, for the first time, is December looking like something other than a dream. For a kid from Hobbs who figured out the calf roping before the team roping, the team roping before the entering, and the entering before he really knew how any of it worked—the NFR has been the goal since he was a kid.

“That’s been the biggest dream ever,” he said of running a steer at the Finals. “I mean, if everything works out this summer and we get it done, it’ll be awesome. I don’t even know really how to explain it because I’ve never been there before or anything like that and don’t really know what to expect. But I mean, it would be a dream come true, no doubt about that.