Before Tanner Tomlinson was a PRCA world standings leader (as of June 2025) and NFR aggregate record holder, he was a permit holder in Robstown, Texas, trying something new.

“The last year Corpus was a ProRodeo, I just figured I’d quit heeling and start heading,”  Tomlinson said. 

It was 2019. Tomlinson was 19 years old, entered on a permit, and had never roped anywhere bigger than a one-header amateur rodeo. He was heading for Ty Arnold, and that week, he and Arnold roped three steers and walked out of Corpus with the first round, the short round and the average.

“It was two outside in Robstown and one in the perf,” he said. “I’d never been in anything like it.”

He did it on Ivy, a tough little sorrel mare his grandpa brought off a Wyoming ranch as a colt.

“She was 4 and I was 8 when I won my first saddle heeling on her,” Tomlinson said. “I just put her down last year—she went a lot of miles.”

Ivy carried him through amateur ranks, from heeling to heading. Everyone roped on her, including his dad, who headed on Ivy at the weekend US ropings. When Tanner’s heel number got too high to enter the lower-number ropings, he switched ends and started heading.

That 2019 Corpus win set everything in motion. He bought his card in 2020 and never looked back. Tomlinson roped in 2020 with Brady Norman, and in 2021 with Arnold and Patrick Smith.  Tomlinson made the Finals in 2022, finishing as the NFR aggregate champs with a record 53.0 on 10 head. 

In 2025, Tomlinson is roping with Travis Graves, winning Fort Worth to kick off the year and rolling into summer first in the PRCA world standings.

—TRJ—