Trevor Brazile Getting Closer To Number 8 All-Around Gold Buckle
Courtesy PRCA

With his second-place finish in the steer roping at the Pendleton (Ore.) Round-Up, two-time World Champion Trevor Brazile moved ahead of Vin Fisher Jr. into second place in the world standings with $51,708. Brazile’s total earnings of  $248,654 entering Omaha this week – where he is qualified in both team roping and tie-down roping – gives him what is close to an unassailable lead in the standings as he chases his record eighth all-around gold buckle.

His lead over second-place Curtis Cassidy is more than $136,000, and none of the top three challengers – Cassidy, Ryan Jarrett or Josh Peek – is going to qualify for the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo in more than one event, while Brazile will make the postseason in all three of his events. Still, because there is $5.875 million in total prize money in Las Vegas, it is mathematically possible for Brazile to be denied. It just isn’t very likely.

The maximum a competitor can win at the NFR (according to a prize money breakdown that will not get final approval until later this week), is $220,030. To do that, a cowboy would have to win all 10 rounds of his event and the average. The NFR record for prize money won in a single event is the $146,100 that Sherry Cervi earned in barrel racing last December.

Assume for a moment that Brazile’s margin was roughly the same after Omaha; that would mean that even if the second place all-around hand set a record with $150,000 in earnings in his event at the NFR, he would win the gold buckle only if Brazile won less than $12,000 combined at the Clem McSpadden National Finals Steer Roping in Guthrie, Okla., and the Wrangler NFR.

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