15 Best and Most Famous Rodeo Competitors of All Time

Our ranking of the 15 best rodeo competitors of all time, led by Trevor Brazile, Ty Murray and Jim Shoulders, with world titles and records.

Each profile lists the competitor’s events, association, birth date and world titles, followed by what made that cowboy or cowgirl stand out. The list runs from the 1940s to the 2025 National Finals Rodeo (NFR), mixes roughstock riders, ropers and barrel racers, and includes the best women on merit. Below the ranking you will find the best competitor in each event and the names that just missed the cut.

How We Ranked the Rodeo Competitors

World titles: PRCA and WPRA world championships, with all-around titles weighted most.
Range: success in more than one event, which is what the all-around title rewards.
Dominance: title streaks, earnings records and how far ahead of the field a competitor was.
Impact: whether the competitor changed the sport, its money or how the public saw it.

Bull riders who later moved to the Professional Bull Riders (PBR) are judged on both careers. Singers, stock contractors and bulls are not included, only competitors. The order is our own judgment, not an official one.

The 15 Best Rodeo Competitors at a Glance

#	Competitor	Events	Career
1	Trevor Brazile	All-around: tie-down, team and steer roping	2000s to 2020, now semi-retired
2	Ty Murray	All-around: bull riding, saddle bronc, bareback	late 1980s to 2001
3	Jim Shoulders	All-around: bull riding, bareback	1940s to 1970
4	Larry Mahan	All-around: bull riding, broncs	1960s to 1970s
5	Charmayne James	Barrel racing	1983 to the 2000s
6	Stetson Wright	All-around: bull riding, saddle bronc	since 2018
7	Casey Tibbs	Saddle bronc, bareback, all-around	1940s to 1950s
8	Tom Ferguson	All-around: tie-down roping, steer wrestling	1973 to the 1980s
9	Don Gay	Bull riding	1970s to 1980s
10	Dean Oliver	Tie-down roping, all-around	1948 to the 1970s
11	Sage Kimzey	Bull riding	since 2014
12	Fred Whitfield	Tie-down roping, all-around	1990 to 2016
13	Sherry Cervi	Barrel racing	1990s to 2010s
14	Tuff Hedeman	Bull riding	1980s to 1990s
15	Lane Frost	Bull riding	1980s

#1 Trevor Brazile

🤠 Events: All-around: tie-down, team and steer roping
🎂 Born: November 16, 1976, in Amarillo, Texas
🏟️ Association: PRCA
🏆 Career Highlights: Record 26 PRCA world titles, record 14 all-around titles (2002 to 2004, 2006 to 2015, 2018), tie-down roping (2007, 2009, 2010), team roping (2010), steer roping (2006, 2007, 2011, 2013 to 2015, 2019, 2020)
🏛️ Hall of Fame: ProRodeo Hall of Fame (2022)

Brazile holds the record for PRCA world titles with 26, the last of them won in 2020. Fourteen are all-around titles, double the seven that Ty Murray had held as the record since 1998. He won them as a roper, with gold buckles in tie-down roping, team roping and steer roping, an event he won eight times.

He was mentored early on by the tie-down roper Roy Cooper, whose stepdaughter Shada he married in 2001. He now competes only part of the year, and the ProRodeo Hall of Fame inducted him in 2022.

#2 Ty Murray

🤠 Events: All-around: bull riding, saddle bronc, bareback
🎂 Born: October 11, 1969, in Phoenix, Arizona
🏟️ Association: PRCA, PBR
🏆 Career Highlights: Nine PRCA world titles: seven all-around (1989 to 1994, 1998) and two bull riding (1993, 1998), co-founder of the PBR
🏛️ Hall of Fame: ProRodeo Hall of Fame (2000)

Murray won the all-around title six years in a row from 1989 to 1994, tying Tom Ferguson’s streak, and added a record seventh in 1998. He did it in all three roughstock events, bull riding, saddle bronc and bareback, and won the bull riding title in 1993 and 1998 as well.

He was one of the founders of the Professional Bull Riders and later worked as its television commentator from 2005 to 2020. In 2023 the PBR ranked him No. 11 among the 30 best bull riders in its history. His all-around record stood until Trevor Brazile broke it.

#3 Jim Shoulders

🤠 Events: All-around: bull riding, bareback
🎂 Born: May 13, 1928, in Tulsa, Oklahoma; died June 20, 2007
🏟️ Association: RCA (later PRCA)
🏆 Career Highlights: 16 world titles: all-around (1949, 1956 to 1959), bull riding (1951, 1954 to 1959), bareback (1950, 1956 to 1958)
🏛️ Hall of Fame: ProRodeo Hall of Fame

Shoulders won 16 world championships, the most of any cowboy in his day, and was called the Babe Ruth of rodeo. Seven came in bull riding, including six in a row from 1954 to 1959, four in bareback and five in the all-around.

He was the first to win bareback, bull riding and the all-around at the National Finals Rodeo. Injuries ended his career at 42, and he spent his later years as a rancher. He died on June 20, 2007.

#4 Larry Mahan

🤠 Events: All-around: bull riding, broncs
🎂 Born: November 21, 1943, in Salem, Oregon; died May 7, 2023
🏟️ Association: RCA (later PRCA)
🏆 Career Highlights: Six all-around world titles (1966 to 1970, 1973), two bull riding titles (1965, 1967)
🏛️ Hall of Fame: ProRodeo Hall of Fame (1979)

Mahan was the first cowboy to win six all-around world titles, five of them in a row from 1966 to 1970 and the sixth in 1973. He also won the bull riding championship in 1965 and 1967.

He was the subject of the film The Great American Cowboy, which won the 1974 Academy Award for best documentary. He was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 1979, named a Legend of ProRodeo in 2010, and died on May 7, 2023.

#5 Charmayne James

🤠 Events: Barrel racing
🎂 Born: June 23, 1970, in Boerne, Texas
🏟️ Association: WPRA
🏆 Career Highlights: Record 11 WPRA barrel racing world titles (1984 to 1993, 2002), seven NFR average titles
🏛️ Hall of Fame: National Cowgirl Hall of Fame (1992), ProRodeo Hall of Fame (2017)

James won the barrel racing world title in 1984 as a teenager and then every year through 1993, ten in a row, almost all of them on her horse Scamper (registered as Gills Bay Boy). She won an 11th title in 2002, still the record for the event.

She also won the NFR average seven times. In 2017 she was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame, 25 years after the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame had taken her in.

#6 Stetson Wright

🤠 Events: All-around: bull riding, saddle bronc
🎂 Born: Date not published, from Milford, Utah
🏟️ Association: PRCA
🏆 Career Highlights: 10 PRCA world titles as of 2026: six all-around (2019 to 2023, 2025), three bull riding (2020, 2022, 2025), one saddle bronc (2021), season earnings record of $817,088 (2025)

Wright won the all-around title in 2019, his first NFR, and became the first cowboy from Utah to win it since 1987. He took it five years in a row, adding bull riding titles in 2020 and 2022 and the saddle bronc title in 2021, when he beat his brother Ryder by $1,187. That year his $585,850 broke Trevor Brazile’s season record of $518,011.

A groin injury forced him out of the 2023 NFR after two rounds, but his lead was big enough for a fifth straight all-around title. A hamstring injury cost him all of 2024. He returned in 2025 to win the all-around and bull riding titles with a new season record of $817,088, his tenth gold buckle, as of 2026.

#7 Casey Tibbs

🤠 Events: Saddle bronc, bareback, all-around
🎂 Born: March 5, 1929, in Stanley County, South Dakota; died January 28, 1990
🏟️ Association: RCA (later PRCA)
🏆 Career Highlights: Nine world titles: six saddle bronc (1949, 1951 to 1954, 1959), two all-around (1951, 1955), one bareback (1951)
🏛️ Hall of Fame: ProRodeo Hall of Fame (1979)

Tibbs won six saddle bronc world titles, the first in 1949 and four straight from 1951 to 1954. In 1951 he won the saddle bronc, bareback and all-around titles in the same season.

Outside the arena he appeared on the cover of Life magazine on October 22, 1951. Later he worked in film as a stuntman and actor. He was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 1979 and died on January 28, 1990.

#8 Tom Ferguson

🤠 Events: All-around: tie-down roping, steer wrestling
🎂 Born: December 20, 1950, in Tahlequah, Oklahoma
🏟️ Association: PRCA
🏆 Career Highlights: Six straight all-around world titles (1974 to 1979), tie-down roping (1974), steer wrestling (1977, 1978)
🏛️ Hall of Fame: ProRodeo Hall of Fame (1999)

Ferguson grew up in California, roped for the Cal Poly team and turned pro in 1973. From 1974 to 1979 he won six all-around titles in a row, breaking Larry Mahan’s mark of five straight. He also won the calf roping title in 1974 and steer wrestling in 1977 and 1978.

He was the first cowboy to win more than $100,000 in a single season and the first to reach $1 million in career earnings. Ty Murray tied his streak in 1994, and Trevor Brazile passed it in 2012.

#9 Don Gay

🤠 Events: Bull riding
🎂 Born: September 18, 1953, in Mesquite, Texas
🏟️ Association: PRCA
🏆 Career Highlights: Record eight PRCA bull riding world titles (1974 to 1984), 13 NFR qualifications
🏛️ Hall of Fame: ProRodeo Hall of Fame (1979), Bull Riding Hall of Fame (2015)

Gay grew up around the Mesquite Rodeo, which his father Neal ran, and started riding at six. He won his first world title in 1974 and his eighth in 1984, a bull riding record that still stands.

He qualified for the NFR 13 times and was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 1979, while still competing, and entered the Bull Riding Hall of Fame in 2015. His father Neal followed him into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 1993.

#10 Dean Oliver

🤠 Events: Tie-down roping, all-around
🎂 Born: November 17, 1929, in Dodge City, Kansas
🏟️ Association: RCA (later PRCA)
🏆 Career Highlights: Eight tie-down roping world titles (1950s to 1969), three straight all-around titles (1963 to 1965)
🏛️ Hall of Fame: ProRodeo Hall of Fame (1979)

Oliver learned to rope on dairy calves near Nampa, Idaho, and entered his first rodeos in 1948. He won eight world titles in tie-down roping, a record later equalled by Roy Cooper, and three straight all-around titles from 1963 to 1965.

He was one of the biggest money winners of his era and served several terms on the board of the cowboys’ association. In 2026 he received the PBR’s Ty Murray Top Hand Award.

#11 Sage Kimzey

🤠 Events: Bull riding
🎂 Born: August 26, 1994, in Strong City, Oklahoma
🏟️ Association: PRCA, PBR
🏆 Career Highlights: Seven PRCA bull riding world titles (2014 to 2019, 2021), three CBR world titles, 2024 PBR World Finals winner

Kimzey won the PRCA bull riding title as a rookie in 2014, only the second rookie to do it, and set a rookie earnings record of $318,631. He won six titles in a row through 2019 and a seventh in 2021, one short of Don Gay’s record.

He also won three world titles in Championship Bull Riding. In 2024 he moved to the PBR full time and won the World Finals event in his first season. In 2025 he joined the Austin Gamblers in the team series.

#12 Fred Whitfield

🤠 Events: Tie-down roping, all-around
🎂 Born: August 5, 1967, in Hockley, Texas
🏟️ Association: PRCA
🏆 Career Highlights: Eight PRCA world titles: seven tie-down roping and the all-around (1999), three NFR average titles
🏛️ Hall of Fame: ProRodeo Hall of Fame (2004)

Whitfield joined the PRCA in 1990 and qualified for the NFR as a rookie, only the second first-year roper to do so. In 1991 he won the tie-down roping world title, the first black cowboy to win a timed event title.

He won seven tie-down titles in all and the all-around in 1999, despite open hostility from parts of the crowd and the field early in his career. He is by far the most successful black competitor in PRCA history and entered the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 2004.

#13 Sherry Cervi

🤠 Events: Barrel racing
🎂 Born: September 17, 1975, in Tucson, Arizona
🏟️ Association: WPRA
🏆 Career Highlights: Four WPRA barrel racing world titles (1995, 1999, 2010, 2013), more than $2 million in career earnings
🏛️ Hall of Fame: National Cowgirl Hall of Fame (2018)

Cervi grew up in Marana, Arizona, as the daughter of two PRCA members and started competing at six. She won her first world title in 1995 and her fourth in 2013, 18 years apart.

Her 2013 season took her past $2 million in career earnings, the most of any barrel racer at the time. Her best known horse was MP Meter My Hay, called Stingray. The National Cowgirl Hall of Fame inducted her in 2018.

#14 Tuff Hedeman

🤠 Events: Bull riding
🎂 Born: March 2, 1963, in El Paso, Texas
🏟️ Association: PRCA, PBR
🏆 Career Highlights: Three PRCA bull riding world titles (1986, 1989, 1991), 1993 BRO world title, 1995 PBR world title
🏛️ Hall of Fame: ProRodeo Hall of Fame (1997)

Hedeman won the PRCA bull riding title in 1986, 1989 and 1991, the 1993 Bull Riders Only title and the 1995 PBR world title, a tour he helped found. His 95 point ride on the bull Bodacious at the 1993 BRO World Finals is one of the best known in the sport.

In 1995 Bodacious smashed nearly every bone in his face, and he lost his senses of smell and taste. He still won the PBR title that year. He was one of Lane Frost’s closest friends, later ran the PBR as president, and in 2023 the PBR ranked him No. 2 among its 30 best bull riders.

#15 Lane Frost

🤠 Events: Bull riding
🎂 Born: October 12, 1963, in La Junta, Colorado; died July 30, 1989
🏟️ Association: PRCA
🏆 Career Highlights: 1987 PRCA bull riding world champion, only qualified rides on the bull Red Rock
🏛️ Hall of Fame: ProRodeo Hall of Fame (1990)

Frost won the PRCA bull riding title in 1987. The next year he rode Red Rock, the 1987 bucking bull of the year, which had never been ridden in 309 attempts, in four of their seven matchups.

On July 30, 1989, at Cheyenne Frontier Days, he was killed by the bull Takin’ Care of Business after an 85 point ride. He was 25. His life became the 1994 film 8 Seconds, and Garth Brooks paid tribute to him in the video for The Dance.

Best Rodeo Competitor in Each Event

If you want one name per event, these are our picks. For how rodeo grew out of ranch work, see our history of rodeo.

Event	Competitor	Why
All-around	Trevor Brazile	Record 14 all-around titles and 26 world titles
Bull riding	Don Gay	Record eight PRCA bull riding titles
Saddle bronc	Casey Tibbs	Six saddle bronc world titles
Bareback	Jim Shoulders	Four bareback titles among his 16 world titles
Tie-down roping	Dean Oliver	Eight tie-down roping world titles
Barrel racing	Charmayne James	Record 11 WPRA world titles
Steer wrestling	Tom Ferguson	Two steer wrestling titles in his all-around run
Modern era	Stetson Wright	Six all-around titles and a season earnings record

Honorable Mentions

Six more competitors who came close and could make a top 15 on another day.

Roy Cooper: The Super Looper won the 1983 all-around title and six tie-down roping titles. He died on April 29, 2025.
Billy Etbauer: South Dakota bronc rider who won the PRCA saddle bronc title five times.
Freckles Brown: 1962 bull riding world champion, famous for riding the unbeaten bull Tornado and a mentor to Lane Frost.
Bill Pickett: Cowboy, rodeo performer and actor who in 1972 became the first African American man inducted into the National Rodeo Hall of Fame.
Ryder Wright: Won the PRCA saddle bronc title in 2017, 2020 and 2024, three titles in five years.
Statler Wright: Won the 2025 saddle bronc world title, the same year his brother Stetson won the all-around.

More About Rodeo

FAQ

Who is the best rodeo competitor of all time?

In our ranking it is Trevor Brazile, ahead of Ty Murray and Jim Shoulders. Brazile holds the records for PRCA world titles (26) and all-around titles (14).

Who are the top 10 rodeo competitors of all time?

Our top 10 is Trevor Brazile, Ty Murray, Jim Shoulders, Larry Mahan, Charmayne James, Stetson Wright, Casey Tibbs, Tom Ferguson, Don Gay and Dean Oliver.

Who has won the most rodeo world titles?

Trevor Brazile, with 26 PRCA world titles from 2002 to 2020. Jim Shoulders held the record before with 16.

Who is the best female rodeo competitor of all time?

Charmayne James, with a record 11 WPRA barrel racing world titles, ten of them in a row from 1984 to 1993. Sherry Cervi won four titles across 18 years.

Who is the greatest bull rider of all time?

Don Gay holds the PRCA record with eight bull riding world titles. Jim Shoulders won seven and Sage Kimzey seven, while Tuff Hedeman added a PBR title to his three PRCA titles.