LAS VEGAS – Jess Pope takes his job as a rodeo cowboy seriously.
Late every night, the cowboys receive a text message that provides them with the next night’s horses they have had drawn for them. When he and his wife, Sydney, get back to their room, they start doing research on what he might expect when it’s time for him to nod his head.
“Where I am in my career, I like to compare things that I’ve been on,” said Pope, who matched moves with Pete Carr Pro Rodeo’s Night Faded for 89.5 points to win Saturday’s third round at the National Finals Rodeo. “I feel like I’ve been on every kind of horse there is, and like with this one, I go back through all my videos and all my notes, and I find horses that look similar to him.
“I just imagine in my mind what it’s going to be like, what it’s going to look like, how I’m going to do it. That way, by the time I’m on him, there’s no doubt in my mind that I’m not going to spur the tar out of him.”
It was the second straight payday for Pope and was worth $33,687. After failing to place on opening night, he’s earned $53,105 in Las Vegas and has ridden three horses for a cumulative score of 242.5 points. He has improved his 2024 earnings to $221,260 and is third on the money list. Most importantly, he has five days to worry about drawing out of the “eliminator pen” again.
“It’s just part of the rank-horse pen, whether they’re a stud or not,” he said of the stallion, a son of one of the greatest bucking sires in ProRodeo history, Night Jacket. “When they’re in the eliminator pen, that means they’re the baddest cats there are. It’s a lot cooler when it’s a stud, though, because that means we’re going to see a lot of his offspring coming up.
“He’s a different eliminator than a lot of them were. You dang sure got to be on your cue, but he takes such big, long jumps and has so much power to him. He sends your feet, so your main goal every time is to get your feet down, tuck your chin and keep your shoulder rolled down, and you just have to have a hold of him when he hits.”
Pope is referring to his spurs in the right place on the horse when the animal’s front feet hit the ground. That sets up the ride and helps create the rhythm needed to perform the spur stroke with the horse’s bucking motion. That’s how the scores are added, half for the horse’s performance, half for how well the cowboy spurs through the ride.
“He gives you the time to feel everything, so when he hits, it’s not near as hard,” said Pope, a three-time NFR average champion who won the 2022 world championship.
He has seven nights remaining on this season, and he understands what sits before him.
“I had a great end to my season, and a great fall and I rode good on my first two horses,” he said. “I rode great tonight. I just had to have the right horse, and it worked out.”