'Bronc riding always looked classy' to NFR qualifier Chase Brooks of Deer Lodge (2024)

BILLINGS— Chase Brooks always kind of knew he would one day be riding saddle broncs for a living.

The 29-year-old, whose hometown is Deer Lodge, will be competing at his sixth Wrangler National Finals Rodeo Dec. 7-16 at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas.

But before Brooks was finishing a career-high second in the average in saddle bronc at the 2021 NFR and a personal-best fourth in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association world standings with $259,354.73 that same season, he had participated in athletics at Powell County High School in Deer Lodge.

A 2012 graduate of Powell County High, Brooks— who now stands 5-foot-7 and weighs 155 pounds— said he wrestled for a year and played football for two seasons for the Class B Wardens.

It wasn’t too long before he found his passion for saddle broncs, though.

“Most of it, I kind of gave up once I started rodeoing in high school,” Brooks, who is ninth in the saddle bronc world standings with $139,220.98, told The Billings Gazette and 406mtsports.com in a phone interview. “But, I played some football and wrestled. I only wrestled for a year as I wasn’t very good. In middle school, I pretty much played every sport they let a guy. Not much in high school, though, as I got hooked on bronc riding and that was kind of it.”

Brooks, who placed ninth in the world last year with $204,126 in winnings, was drawn to saddle bronc riding by the challenge of the sport. At one point Brooks, who has qualified for six consecutive NFRs and who also finished third in the saddle bronc average in 2020, thought he would be a bull rider. But, his dad Matt Brooks rode saddle broncs and he always thought the sport was “classy and when the good guys did it they made it look easy and I soon learned that wasn’t the case for the not good guys.”

“I got on a bronc my freshman year and that was kind of it. I wasn’t a superstar by any means, but I was fairly athletic,” said Brooks, who also spent time on the Montana State rodeo team before pursuing other options. “I feel like all kids who grew up on a ranch are and most sports came sort of easy, and I got on a bronc and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I think that challenge kind of enticed me. I don’t like not being good at something. Once I figured out I was not good at that, I had a long ways to go.”

“The bronc riding, dad did it when he was younger and I had seen pictures of him. Bronc riding always looked classy to me. I liked it. When a guy rides, it looks smooth and there is like a flow. I thought that was kind of cool. You could turn sort of mayhem into a rhythm. I always thought that made it look pretty sweet.”

A proud dad

Brooks currently lives in Brock, Texas, with his fiancée Cara and their 18-month-old daughter Charlie Jo, whom the couple call CJ.

“She is getting to talk,” said Brooks of his daughter. “She is running around. She’s the sweetest little thing ever.”

Living in Brock is a good fit for the family. One of the plusses is that Texas is home to many rodeos and that allows Brooks to spend more time with Cara and CJ. And, the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport is approximately an hour away so when Brooks does need to fly to a rodeo or event, that makes things easier for the family.

“It is nice. I definitely miss all the open country and stuff, but I get to be home a lot,” said Brooks of living in Brock. “We are in Texas all winter for the winter run anyway. It is nice when I drive to Houston and do my winter set and drive home. Every one for the major rodeos is like five hours. It makes it easier to run home and spend more time with the girls.”

“Cara is a veterinarian. She did an internship down here and she liked working on equine and stuff and it is a good location for that, too. It kind of worked for both of us when we moved. Being home, it’s a crazy change. I used to love the traveling and loved being on the road. Now every time I’m gone, I’m itching to get home.”

Brooks explained that Cara is originally from Florida and he met her at a rodeo in 2019.

“She was Miss Rodeo Florida in 2019 and we met during the RAM Finals. She was the queen and I won the National Circuit Finals when it was in Kissimmee,” Brooks said. “We met there through that and didn’t see each other until Calgary that year and she came up to do queen stuff and we started talking there and hit it off and it’s been pretty perfect ever since.

“It was God’s plan. It is perfect.”

‘Go and win a gold buckle’

Brooks heads to Vegas— along with traveling partners Sage Newman of Melstone and Tanner Butner of Daniel, Wyoming— ready to compete for a world title. Fellow traveling partner Kolby Wanchuk of Sherwood Park, Alberta, just missed out on the NFR, finishing 17th in the year-end regular-season saddle bronc standings.

Stetson Wright of Beaver, Utah, leads the saddle bronc standings with $251,626.41 in earnings. Newman is second with $247,263.50, Brooks is ninth with $139,220.98, and Butner is 11th with $135,288.54.

“It is cool when you can find a group of guys that have that same winner’s mentality. We are all trying to be better and do better. We all want the same thing,” said Brooks of the group. “We are all doing what we have to do and putting the work in and it makes it easy when you have guys that have that same mentality and drive. It helps push you, too. All those guys ride so good, you are traveling with three of the other best in the world and that pushes you even harder to do better. You kind of build off each other.”

The purse at the NFR is more than $11.5 million. Cowboys and cowgirls who win a round will earn $30,706 and average winners will take home $78,747. Each round is worth $99,053 and the average payout is $297,159 in each event.

With as much money that is up for grabs in Vegas, Brooks believes he is in the running for a world championship.

“Same as every year, go and win a gold buckle,” said Brooks when asked what he hoped to achieve at the NFR. “Honestly as good as the Finals pays anymore, I think it’s paying close to $30,000 a round, if you make it to the Finals you have a chance to win if everything goes right.”

“If you go down and do your job, you have a shot. That’s about all you can do.”

Brooks remembers watching the NFR on television when he was first dreaming about becoming a professional rodeo cowboy. Now, once again he’s an NFR qualifier.

“It’s a cool setting if you see the kids at autograph signings,” he said of the NFR. “I remember being a kid and you’d look up to all the guys at the Finals and seeing how cool it was to see all the guys down there. It is sweet to pay it back. And with all the history there in Vegas, it’s cool to be a part of all of that.”