The Caldwell Night Rodeo represents a crucial stop on the way to the NFR. With less than six weeks left to go in the regular season, this is when the World Title and NFR races truly start to take shape.

With $240,000 on the line, athletes will be fighting for every dollar as they try to secure one of the Top 15 spots in the PRCA World Standings. Here’s a look at some of the names and numbers to know as the Caldwell Night Rodeo kicks off Tuesday night.

Jacob Lees, the No. 2 bareback rider in the world, is coming off a finals win at the Farm-City Pro Rodeo, where he scored 92.5 points on Disco Party. Lees has also earned checks in five of his last six outs, placing sixth or better in each. Those five rides have averaged 85.8 points.

Lees hasn’t earned money at Caldwell since 2021, but he is riding well enough to make a run at another win.

Kade Sonnier, ranked No. 3 in the World, is the only bareback rider to place in the Average at Caldwell in each of the last two years. He finished third in 2024 and 2025, scoring 166 and 167.5 points on two head, respectively.

Sonnier has averaged 83.95 points per ride on 10 outs in August. He knows Caldwell well, but he may need to raise his scores if he’s going to win this year.

Holden Myers has earned just 17 checks since his $65,000+ win at RodeoHouston, with only nine of those checks worth more than $1,000.

Still, Myers won Caldwell last year, going 8.1 seconds on two head to post the fastest average time in the bulldogging in the last vive years. He enters Caldwell seventh in the PRCA Steer Wrestling World Standings, but he is closer to the outside of the Top 15 than he is to third place. A second straight win in Caldwell could give Myers some much-needed security as he tries to qualify for his first career NFR.

Four of the last five saddle bronc riding Average winners at Caldwell will be back in 2026: Ross Griffin, Kade Bruno, Ryder Wright and Stetson Wright.

Each Caldwell winner since 2021 has won at least one round, but Ryder is the only one to sweep, which he did in 2023.

Bruno is the one who has most recently cracked 90 points at Caldwell, which he did in 2024, when he was 90.5 to win the Short Round.

Shad Mayfield is less than $4,000 away from moving into NFR qualification territory after returning from dual hip injuries in June.

The two-time World Champion is entering Caldwell on his best run of the season, having made three runs of 7.5 seconds or faster last weekend.

Mayfield is coming off of a win at the Omak Stampede as well as a Short Round victory at the Farm-City Pro Rodeo, where he was 7 flat. Mayfield won Caldwell in 2021 and 2025.

Barrel racer Andrea Busby has finished in the money in each of the last three years in Caldwell. She was eighth in 2023, second in 2024 and fifth in 2025.

Since 2021, the winning bull riding score at Caldwell has been 92 points or higher three times. Stetson Wright has two of them and Trevor Reiste was 92.5 in his victory a year ago.

The other winning scores were below 90, but it is looking like another 90-plus score will be needed this year.

Wright and Reiste are both returning, while rookie Noah Lee will make his first appearance at Caldwell. Lee has scored 90 or better three times in his last six outs, including a 93.

Numbers to Know

The average round-winning score in bareback riding at Caldwell since 2021 is 87.3 points. .

The winning Average score in the bareback riding in that same timespan has been 171.9, just 85.95 points per ride.

That means average winners haven’t necessarily needed to win a round. Still, four of the last five Average winners have won a round.

Caldwell has been fairly forgiving in that regard. No round winner has scored higher than 87 points since 2023, and no one has reached 90 since Kaycee Field was 91 in 2019. That leaves an open field in Idaho.

Round-winning steer wrestling times, on the other hand, have been especially fast. Since 2021, there has been just one round-winning time slower than 4 seconds, with the average round-winning time sitting at 3.93 seconds.

The last five winners have averaged 4.36 seconds per run.

Round wins could matter more now that Caldwell has switched from a three-round format to two rounds, a change that was made last year.

The same format change had a major impact on team roping

From 2021-24, the combined average round-winning time in team roping was 4.72 seconds. After Caldwell switched to two rounds last year, the event produced its fastest times in more than five years.

Luke Brown and Trey Yates stopped the clock in 3.9 seconds to win Round 1, just one-tenth off the arena record of 3.8. Driggers and Nogueira won the Short Round in 4.2 seconds, the fourth-fastest time at Caldwell in the last five years.

Dawson and Dillon Graham won last year’s average with an 8.8-second total on two head. Their 4.4-second average per run was a full 1.19 seconds faster than the combined average of the previous four average winners, which was 5.59 seconds.

Saddle Bronc Riding has historically featured high-scoring rides at Caldwell, often with scores of 90 or better. Last year, however, Caldwell had its lowest-scoring saddle bronc event in the last six years.

It was the first event during that span to feature just one round-winning score of at least 88 points instead of two. Its 173.5-point winning Average was also the lowest in six years by at least 2.5 points.

Despite dropping from three rounds to two, tie-down roping also produced some of its slowest times in recent memory last year. An 8.1 and an 8.8 won the two rounds, marking two of the four slowest round-winning times at Caldwell in the last five years.

The 2025 average was the closest in event history. Mayfield and Hayden Ford shared the win at 17.6 seconds on two, while Preston Pederson finished third at 17.7, just one-tenth behind.

Barrel Racing produced its fastest round-winning times of the last six years in 2025. Anita Ellis stopped the clock at 16.83 seconds in Round 1, while Katelyn Scott posted a 16.76 in the Short Round. Those are the two fastest runs at Caldwell this decade.

Scott won the average by just one-tenth of a second, making it the closest average victory of the decade. She became the fourth Average winner in the last five years to also win a round and the third to win the Final Round specifically.

Barrel Racers have a history of saving their best for last at Caldwell, and that could matter even more under the two-round format.

The average winning bull riding score at Caldwell since 2019 is an incredible 91.17 points. Four of the last six winners have scored 92 or better.

More often than not, someone rises to the occasion.

Who that will be this year remains to be seen, but Caldwell has the talent to produce another memorable ride. The arena record is 94 points, set by Lee Akin in 2001, and riders have been knocking on that mark throughout the decade.