08/24/2026
Some Folks are just a little late to the Party!
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BRODY WELLS: MAYBE WE SHOULD START PAYING ATTENTION
There's an awful lot of noise in saddle bronc riding right now.
The Wright brothers. Zeke Thurston. Kade Bruno. Wyatt Casper.
Sage Newman. World Champions everywhere you look. And quietly sitting 6th in the PRCA World Standings is a 25-year-old Wyoming cowboy named...Brody Wells.
Maybe it's time we started paying a little more attention. Because Brody isn't exactly sneaking up on anybody anymore.
He grew up around Powell, Wyoming, near some of the most rugged country in America. He didn't start riding saddle broncs until he was 16, learning at bronc riding schools around Wyoming and Montana and getting on horses at the legendary Cody Nite Rodeo.
That eventually earned him a rodeo scholarship to Clarendon College in Texas, where he studied Animal Science, before transferring to Tarleton State University. And then the kid from Wyoming started climbing.
In his rookie season, Brody won both the Mountain States Circuit Saddle Bronc Championship and the Circuit Finals average. Then came 2024. His first National Finals Rodeo. And Brody didn't exactly arrive in Las Vegas just happy to have a back number. He won Round 2 with 90 points. Then he shared the victory in Round 5. By the end of his first NFR, Wells had placed in five of the ten rounds and finished 10th in the world.
Apparently he liked Las Vegas. Because he went back again in 2025, finishing the season with $269,064 and another Top-15 world finish.
Now it's 2026. And Brody Wells isn't sitting 14th. Or 12th. Or hanging around the NFR bubble hoping to get in. He's 6th.
And there's something else about Brody that we like. When rodeo season ends, he goes home to Wyoming and works in the mountains. He guides and outfits hunters in the backcountry near Yellowstone, starts colts, works young horses, brands cattle and packs into country where there aren't many paved roads—or people. In other words...he's not just playing cowboy on Saturday night.
Maybe that's part of what we're seeing when Brody Wells nods his head. Horsemanship. Balance. Feel. And the quiet confidence that comes from spending a lot of your life horseback.
At 25 years old, Brody Wells already has two NFR qualifications. He's already won rounds at the Thomas & Mack. He's already been 90 points there. And now he's sitting 6th in the world with September still ahead of him.
So maybe we've been asking the wrong question. It's probably no longer: “Is Brody Wells going to become one of the really good ones?” And maybe it's...“Are we watching it happen right now?”
PHOTO: ALAINA STANGLE
SOURCE: PRCA STANDINGS & BIOS, BRODY WELLS WEBSITE, WILD RIDES
