The Short Score: Winter Rodeo Catchup 2026

Welcome to the Short Score, your weekly update of teamer open news from across the industry,

where you can find the latest on the sport from the pro rodeo ranks to the jackpot world.

I'm Taylor Vollen and I'm your host.

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Short Score.

I'm sure you all missed me.

It's your host, Taylor Vollen.

I'm of course just teasing, but really.

Welcome back to a new year with the short score.

It's the start of March.

So clearly I have wasted quite a bit of time and so I don't want to waste anymore and

I think we should just jump right into it a few weeks ago.

We of course wrapped up one of the biggest winter rodeos in Fort Worth and the team that

came out on top had some relatively newer names, I guess you could say, depending on what

part of the country you're from, Corbin Cully and Trent Vaughn made quite the statement

with their Fort Worth stock show in rodeo when they were 5-4 in the clean slate finals

to take the win and they pocketed $24,900 a man in Fort Worth.

So quite the big trip and we are playing a little bit of catch up here on today's episode

and I'm bringing you some of my conversation with Corbin.

Hopefully Corbin, if you hear this, you don't mind.

Well congrats on Fort Worth.

Thank you, thank you.

That's it.

I mean, what kind of confidence does that give you though starting the year off with?

I mean, you guys won what, 25,000 out of there?

Yeah, yeah, I think maybe a takeover out, I don't remember exactly, but this is good.

I mean, I've never been in that position so things should help through the rest of the

winter and the spring and then give us a little money out of pockets to go with you.

I was going to say, I mean, this is your best start to a year, I think, right?

Your best winter?

Yeah.

Yeah, honestly, I haven't, I've never wear a rodeo to, I've never, I'm not going to

summer to really get into the winter rodeos and last year, I went ahead and started

rodeo for a while, you know, enough to win a little bit and kind of got in the top, I

think I was in the top 35 for a while and just kind of hung around right there.

No one that I, that I wasn't going to go to all the big stuff but have a chance to

maybe stay in and get in some of the buildings and so now I'm glad I did.

Yeah.

Now, why was last year, I guess technically this year, like what made last year be the

year to try to get into the winter rodeos, like why now, I guess?

Well, really beforehand, I mean compared to all my buddies and stuff, I didn't really

necessarily, I mean, I'm not a rope good enough at times but I would definitely didn't have

the horses or like, wasn't mental, you know, I was just kind of green and I knew like,

instead of trying to jump in, head first, like I went two years ago to a handful of

rodeos during shine and stuff, went for like two weeks and just kind of got to feel for

it.

And then I knew after that that I liked it so I was like, I'm not as well, trying to make

a plan and get some horses and to take a real shot and actually get in the buildings

and stuff.

And so, kind of just taking one step at a time, I guess, you know, I mean.

Yeah, things do definitely have to line up if I've learned anything.

Yeah, but, you know, well, tell me about Fort Worth, I mean that's quite the marathon

so walk me through those runs.

Really, we got fortunate as head on the first couple.

I just bought a new horse and I just practiced on it a little bit, took him one jackpot

a couple days before the first set, did go to the jackpot, kind of had the comp and

scope taking him over there.

And anyways, I first one, I just kind of seen a decent start, caught him, turned off and

I don't know if I was just like, kind of slow about getting him turned off or just

didn't make him hit ride or he kind of checked off and come in to me honestly.

And Trent got caught out for a crossfire on that one.

So I was like, we're behind the eight ball now.

And so I'm like, well, and there's enough teams that caught in the first round.

I know there was, I don't think there was like three or four catches.

So they all got, you know, whoever caught got money and then second round we turn around

and they're like, they were down towards the bottom of the second round.

And I was like, well, I'm going to try to go for the round and he said all right and I got

to get started and through pretty fast and he held the, he held the crap out of him,

but then he slipped a leg.

Well, then there wasn't any catches hardly.

The Myers went four to and I think we were four to it's a leg.

So nine to you.

And I was like, well, there's a couple teams left.

Surely they'll get us.

We might get a thousand bucks out of the ref, you know, and go home.

And we just really, it just kind of fell our way.

I think Tanner missed a couple of other guys missed or broke out or whatever, you know,

I mean, just worked out.

And then we got into the semifinals.

Drew a pretty good steer.

He kind of checked off and stepped into me.

I caught him decently fast because I felt like we were about, I think we're halfway

down the list there and there was maybe one, one good time and then a couple legs or something

like that.

And he kind of got out of whack and the turn and track him a little ways, healed him.

We ended up winning second in the semifinals and then, you know, clean slate saw us like,

well, we're in the middle again.

And he said, what do you want to do tonight?

And I was like, man, I'm just going to keep doing the same thing if it's fast.

Like I'll try to speed it up.

But it seems like the, if we let this year's be as straight as possible and like try to

maybe not like I was being aggressive, but it wasn't, it seemed like if I got in the

speed jam, it was harder.

So I just kind of was trying to see my start catch turn him off somewhere in the middle.

And then if you want, if you can throw fast, even better, you know what I mean?

Well, that's kind of what that one, that one was strong and step and dig straight.

Maybe even a kick right and it just kind of worked into our favor.

I was a kick off barrier.

Road up there pretty close turning him off.

He healed him second jump or five four.

I thought, well, we'll win something, but probably not firsted in the same type of deal.

It just kind of kept falling our way.

So really we had to have a lot of good fortune on the situation, good luck, whatever.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What do you remember what was going through your head as you're sitting back there watching

the last because there weren't a ton of teams after you guys was there.

I'm trying to remember.

But thinking we were four.

So there were a few or like halfway or whatever.

Yeah.

I mean, do you remember what you were thinking as you're watching it play out?

Turn around and I want to say the next team was Tyler trying.

Yeah.

And so obviously like I'm thinking, well, this is not a B35.

There's no brainer, you know, so I'm, you know, I'm winning second, you know, but no, he cranked on one

and it was kind of like the same type of deal.

A lot of stairs were checking off and coming left.

And I think you just got, they just got a little funky there.

And then I think you leave a hill team and lose us a seat, whatever.

And so I'm like, well, maybe, you know, good deal.

And then as they keep going the whole time, I'm thinking like, holy crap.

But we're going to win something good.

We're going to win some good.

And then the last thing has been a really good friend of mine.

I always ask him to stay this house.

I just take clay and I was like, well, he's going to do a great job.

You know, run upstairs, stick, whatever.

And he did.

And but I think we'll either go up to the leg or slip to the leg at the end.

And I couldn't hardly see that one, but I just seemed like I'm pretty sure it was

Tyler and Brady sitting there in front of me.

And they just turned around like I could see everybody's eyes on me.

I was like, oh, I definitely did just win this.

You know how the hell would you have here?

Yeah, that is something I feel like you're probably never going to forget.

Oh, yeah, for sure.

It was really cool.

That's awesome.

And I didn't even think about the fact.

I mean, Fort Worth is a major rodeo to win.

But in your first time there, I mean, how special is that?

Yeah, yeah, honestly, I've never, I mean, like as far as the three main buildings or

diodes, I've never been to any of them.

And then, and I mean, I guess I'm going to stand there and stuff like that.

But I was just like, this is pretty cool.

You know, it's pretty cool radio.

And then it's in nice because it's only like an hour and a half from my house.

So about two hours, honestly, after traffic.

But I was just like, this is pretty sweet radio.

And then even when it was even better, you know, and had my girlfriend and some family

around and stuff like that was awesome.

Yeah.

You said you're riding a new horse.

Tell me about him.

His name is Pistol.

He's 12 this year.

He's a, you got him Jacob.

You back a good friend of mine.

Oh, okay.

He, he owned him.

So he healed on him.

I think he had him as a cult, a pretty young at least.

And he healed on him.

And one, I think he's won the Great Lakes circuit two or three times on him.

He won.

And then he, they started hitting on him, you know, a little later on and he took

to it.

And then I gave it originally from South East Oklahoma, where I'm from originally, but

he moved to Iowa and married a girl that's actually, it's really a small world like,

you know, like the Western industry, small world type thing because like my girlfriend

and his, his wife's families lived in miles apart, you know, came out from where we're

all from.

But we're all, you know, down in the same area.

But then anyway, so long story short, I kind of get to know him as going from going

up there and going to some of the Great Lakes circuit rodeos and stuff like that and going

over practice his house when he let me ride him a few times and, and I really liked him

and I couldn't really come up with the money for a while.

And finally, this winner, I called him after Denver, I said, man, I need a horse.

I kind of, it's not, I guess, Colts and like the one good horse I had, I had sold kind

of getting tight.

And he's like, well, I'll say it's still a pity pistol or something or whatever.

It's like, we made a deal and worked it out and mixing, you know, a week later, having

it for work on him, you know what I mean?

That's kind of the way it went.

But he did a really good job with him.

He's trained him really good.

I mean, he's one head and then healing and a lot of different places.

Yeah.

That's neat.

That's a pretty interesting little story, like you said.

Yeah.

What does the rest of the year look like?

I mean, did you, were you planning on rodeo and hard this year or is this going to change

things?

What's that?

Yeah, we had, we had talked about it, we had talked about it a good bit.

Like, through the kind of after like ground circuit files time, I knew that the one horse

I had wasn't really working as well and I sold my bucks again last year.

And so I was kind of like in a spot and I told him, I said, I'd like to go, we got into

some of this stuff and it's worth it, but I need it.

I don't want to put the, you know, wagon in front of the horse or whatever.

I want to get things right first.

I want to have a good horse and do with the jackpots, do all the rodeos kind of line it

all up.

And he's like, yeah, yeah.

And I think he was, you know, he's, I was struggling there for a while, like through

Vegas and like all that stuff.

I was having a heck and then finally, it seemed like it was turning around and then we still

was talking about it.

He's like, well, it's just last year, really, we went to too many small rodeos early on.

Like, and I didn't unofficial anything.

So next thing, you know, it's, you know, there's no point in going like thinking you're

going to go to the Northwest because you don't have enough rodeo, you know, meaning like

all that stuff.

So I was like, let's just not go.

If we go to, you know, this stuff around the house, the Eastern Oklahoma, Western Arkansas

stuff, like, or the circuit is, it's just unofficial and he's like, all right.

So we've saved up, we don't think I've only been to four rodeos now.

And, and we kind of had planned on actually going to the good stuff this year.

You know, hopefully maybe get to go like we entered through Jackson, Sydney and Tucson

and then go out there for that and then probably have a little break and then Austin and

on to hopefully California, I've never been to California, so I'm hoping we get to try

that on a share.

Well, that's good.

Yeah.

Something a good plan.

Yeah.

So I mean, I would say, yeah, we're going to, we was kind of planning on it beforehand

and definitely now.

I mean, it's probably the best opportunity I've had, you know, this situation I've been

in.

So as long as I can keep some horses and we keep catching, hopefully we'll keep trying

it.

Corbin and Trent, like I said, had a big weekend or week, I guess I should say.

In Fort Worth, like I said, almost 25 grand a man.

And so they did move to number one in the world after their Fort Worth win.

But it has been a minute, clearly, and we have some new world standings leaders, at least

on the head side, especially because the last two weekends, I would say, we're pretty busy.

Caleb Jiggers now leads the way in the heading with $32,527 and nine cents, while Trent actually

is still leading on the heel side with $37,918 and 22 cents.

We of course, just recently crowned our San Antonio champs this weekend, and as you

know, Lightning Aguilera and Wyatt Cox took the top spot.

They actually tied Caleb and Junior in the final, so the 3.8.

But San Antonio is different and crowned their winners off of money one.

So Lightning and Wyatt took the win with $24,218 a man accumulated during their time in San

Antonio.

That story is in the works, of course, and should be coming to your ears as well soon

on the short score.

We also had the La Fiesta de los Vicaros, or the Tucson rodeo, which I say a lot easier

than the actual name this past weekend.

Brad Crites and Ross Ashford came out on top with a 9.9 on two head for $7,034 a man.

And all in all, they had a really nice little trip in the Arizona sun.

They won about $12,709 a piece while they were in Tucson.

So like I said, a good trip in Arizona for those two.

Thanks so much for listening to today's episode of the short score.

Like I said, we're back with a whole new year and it's going to be a fun one I am sure.

So thanks again for listening.