2026 BFI Pays Record $6 Million; Tryan and Lord Win 49th Bob Feist

Wrangler BFI Week presented by Yeti, in its seventh year at the Lazy E Arena in Guthrie, Oklahoma, paid out an event-record $6,015,750 in cash and prizes across 10 ropings from March 26 through April 1, 2026. A field of 3,416 teams chased that purse, anchored by the 49th annual Bob Feist Invitational on Sunday, March 29, where 20-year-old Tyler Tryan of Lipan, Texas, and 30-year-old Levi Lord of Sturgis, South Dakota, led wire-to-wire to split $160,000 in one of the most dominant performances in BFI history.

The Feist: Tryan and Lord Lead Wire-to-Wire

Tryan walked into the box for Round 1 with one strategy and no second-guessing it: don’t play safe. He came out of the corner on a 5.4-second run that won the round outright by a full second, with Lord coming tight on a heel shot that put a marker down for the rest of the field. Lord, a 12-year veteran of the sport and five-time NFR heeler raised in South Dakota, had never even made the short round at the BFI before. By the end of Round 2, he and Tryan were sitting on a 12-second total, a cushion almost no one builds at a six-head event with a 21-foot head start and fresh cattle. They placed in Round 3 for another check before letting off the gas.

“Everyone at the BFI likes to be safe and swing over steers,” Lord said. “But that’s not Tyler’s game.”

The pair backed in for the short round with an unheard-of four-second lead at high call over defending back-to-back BFI champs Kaleb Driggers and Junior Nogueira, who had been listening to announcers all day talk about their three-peat potential. Nogueira uncharacteristically lost his rope on the final steer, but it was already a moot point. Tryan and Lord just needed a clean run, and they made one. Their 42.21-second aggregate over six rounds was the third-fastest in BFI history. The split was $150,000 from the aggregate plus another $10,000 from go-round earnings, $160,000 between them in total. Reserve champs Brye Crites and Ross Ashford split $85,000 with a 46.74 on six.

The kicker: Tryan and Lord had already decided to part ways as partners after the California spring run before they ever backed in the box. They will rope together through May, then split. Tryan, son of three-time BFI champion and three-time world champion Clay Tryan, became a second-generation Feist champion one day after winning the Hooey Jr. BFI Open with Denton Dunning. He banked $115,500 total at the Lazy E across the two days and became the first roper to ever have both the Hooey Jr. BFI Open and The Feist on his resume. Tryan also overcame an unusual obstacle to get to that box: at 16, just after switching from heeling to heading, he cut his thumb off and could not swing a rope for a year and a half. He went on to win the 2025 Resistol Rookie Header of the Year and finish that season ranked in the PRCA Top 20.

“It’s the most prestigious thing we go to all year, and getting the win means a lot,” Tryan said. “Now the goal is to make the NFR.”

A 15-Year-Old Beats World Champs in the Breakaway

Thursday, March 26, opened the week with the Charlie 1 Horse All-Girl Team Roping and Breakaway. Four or five California families had hauled together to Guthrie with their kids, who are best friends. One of those kids, Braydee Bourdet of Hollister, was 15 years old and roped breakaway. She came from seventh callback to win the main Charlie 1 Horse All-Girl Breakaway in 11.56 seconds on three calves, ahead of world champs Taylor Munsell and Martha Angelone, clocking remarkably consistent times of 3.8, 3.7, and 3.9. She also won the 18-and-Under Incentive by two seconds. Counting a placing in Round 1, she banked $18,100 total.

“I prefer long scores,” said Bourdet, a high school sophomore who began paying her own entry fees a few years ago and gets to keep all of her winnings, though she said she might help her parents with diesel. The Bourdet family raises horses and cattle, runs yearlings, and stands a stallion named Isaac Starlight. Wayne and Lacey Bourdet raised the horse Braydee rode to the win; she has hauled him for about five years and has been seasoning a few others they raised. Both Braydee and her 12-year-old brother were also entered to the max in the Hooey Jr. BFI 10.5 the next day.

Bourdet was not rattled by the field she beat. “Yes, there were a little bit of nerves, but I’d been standing around taking notes and talking to them all day,” she said. “They’re nice people and easy to compete against and that makes it a lot easier.”

Earlier that day in the Charlie 1 Horse All-Girl Team Roping, draw partners Megan Gunter of McCammon, Idaho, and recent Southwestern Oklahoma State University graduate Chenoa VandeStouwe of Inwood, Iowa, met for the first time at the end of the arena after their first steer. They roped all four in 33.20 seconds and beat former champ Whitney DeSalvo and Kenna Francis by a full second to split $20,000. World champion breakaway roper Martha Angelone drew 11-year-old Lattie Lummus of Bloomburg, Texas, in the 9.5 Incentive and went 33.89 on three for $7,500. Lummus, who said she “trains ponies for a living,” recently broke and sold an English-born Gypsy Vanner pony for $103,000.

A Week of Big Paydays

Friday’s Hooey Jr. BFI 10.5 drew 468 teams, the largest field of the week. Missouri best friends and roommates John Cole Van Loan, 17, and Paden Evans, 19, who live together in Purdy and break calf horses for Clay Brown, won it in 31.83 to split $100,000. The pair had needed a 9.2 from second callback and went 7.99, then watched the high-callback team from New Mexico rope a leg and fall to ninth. Saturday’s Wrangler BFI 15.5 went to last-minute teenage partners Owen Gillespie of Castroville, Texas, and Maverick Lozano of Huntingdon, Tennessee, who roped four in 28.54 to split $60,000. Gillespie’s original partner had a college-rodeo short-round conflict and Lozano’s couldn’t make it, so they paired up the morning of.

Million-Dollar Monday brought the 12.5 and just over 400 teams to the Lazy E. The short round was so tight that fewer than five seconds separated all 35 teams coming back. Retiree Ricky Mellman and college senior Preston Peay, both of Hempstead, Texas, were second callback and needed a 7.9 to take the lead. They came tight in 7.2. The high team took a no-time, and Mellman and Peay had won the biggest paycheck of BFI Week, $220,000 split, plus the prizeline. It was sweet redemption for Peay, a 22-year-old Sam Houston State University senior who had missed for Mellman in last year’s 12.5 short round.

Two-Million-Dollar Tuesday combined the 11.5 Businessman’s and 10.5 Over 40 ropings into more than $2 million in payouts. Colorado partners Darren Ridley of Las Animas and Jason Devore of Fort Lupton claimed the 11.5 in 31.42 to split $180,000, the biggest win of either of their lives. Devore had hauled his son out to Guthrie for the Jr. BFI for years before finally entering himself. The 10.5 Over 40 drew 445 teams, including legends Jimmie Cooper, David Motes, and Jay Ellerman. It went to strangers-turned-partners Justin Franks of San Tan Valley, Arizona, and Hardy White of Torrington, Wyoming, matched up by Franks’s farrier. The pair went 36.14 on four to split $170,000. White then loaded his trailer at midnight and pulled it home to Wyoming with $80,000 in his pocket and 25 head of fresh natives in tow.

The week closed Wednesday with the 9.5 Over 40, where 53-year-old roping producer and disk jockey Kelly Tuley of Red Oak, Texas, did something almost no one has done at this kind of event. He heeled to first AND third in the same roping, banking $190,000 with Jeff Sanders of Blum, Texas, and another $115,000 with Michael Riggins of San Augustine, Texas, for a personal haul of $152,500. After flagging on his first short-round run, Tuley bailed off his mare Black Betty, rope still dangling from his saddle, and did The Worm in the arena dirt. Then he climbed back on, won second with his other partner, and did The Worm again. Tuley had lost his dad in June.

Fast Time, Horse of the BFI, and Family Ties

The Rickey Green Fast Time award at The Feist went to Clay Smith and Coleby Payne for a 5.10 in Round 5. The Head Horse of the BFI bronze went to Shiner’s Stylish Nic (“Louie”), a 10-year-old buckskin owned by Greenberg Land and Livestock and ridden by Shay Carroll of Stephenville, Texas, to a top-10 callback at The Feist. The Heel Horse of the BFI honor went to Right Back Gunnin (“Smack”), an 8-year-old bay owned by Douglas Rich, who bought him in January and rode him to the sixth callback.

Family ties anchored multiple divisions. Clay Tryan and his middle son Braylon placed second in Round 4 of The Feist. Shared-surname pairs included Klay and Kash Yaussi at sixth in the BFI 15.5, Cannin and Cashin Carson at 15th in the Hooey Jr. 10.5, Dawson and Dillon Graham at ninth in The Feist aggregate, Jake and Jim Ross Cooper at sixth in The Feist, Manny and Cody Egusquiza at fourth in Round 1 of The Feist, and Brayden and Brock Grashuis at second in Round 2 of The Feist.

Full event results are available at the BFI Week results tracker.