What Every Bubble Cowgirl Needs to Make the 2026 NFBR

Nine days are left in the 2026 regular season, and in BRJ’s projected world standings the No. 15 seat is held by $663.

Bradi Good took it at Mandan on Sunday. All seven cowgirls chasing her are entered in the Amarillo, Texas, slack on Wednesday—103 entries, $6,000 added, and eight bubble cowgirls counting Good in the same pen on the same afternoon.

The Bubble

Projected and unofficial.

What’s Left to Win

The richest of them is Poway, California, at $8,000 added. A win there is roughly $2,150. That is the ceiling on any single check available to a cowgirl chasing the cut, and it sorts the nine of them into three groups.

Where They’re Roping

Off the PRCA trade list, Sept. 21. Entry counts are the whole field.

Amarillo is the one that matters. Wednesday’s slack has 103 entries and all eight cowgirls in this story in it—the seven chasing, plus Good, who is defending the seat. One pen, one afternoon, $6,000 added.

On the Line

These two can cover it at any rodeo on the list.

Beau Peterson—needs $663

The smallest gap on the board and the easiest to close. A mid-pack placing at any of the nine does it; she does not need to win anything. She was 2.4 for a share of 11th at Mandan and $1,714, which is more than she now needs.

She is also out of Sioux Falls. On our projected Sept. 21 points—12th, 31.40 behind the last qualifying spot—she is the closest cowgirl to the NFBR cut with the fewest ways left to close it. Four open rodeos and nothing else.

Entered: Pasadena Monday perf, Amarillo Wednesday slack, Tyler Thursday slack, Stephenville Friday slack. Four shots at $663.

Jill Tanner—needs $1,517

Held the seat on Saturday, lost it Sunday without roping badly—she simply did not place at Mandan while the two cowgirls behind her both cashed $1,714. She needs closer to a win than a placing: second at Poway, or a win at Amarillo or Stephenville.

And she does not need any of it, because she is already in Sioux Falls. She finished top four at Puyallup, which qualifies her for the Governor’s Cup whatever her points say—and on points alone she would be 13th and out. Of the seven cowgirls chasing this seat she is the best positioned: $1,517 back, entered at the only rodeo whose win covers it, and holding a berth at the richest one left.

Entered: Amarillo Wednesday slack, Tyler Thursday slack, Stephenville Friday slack, and Poway—the only cowgirl on the bubble entered there, in Friday’s perf. Her Pasadena run was in slack on Sept. 17 and is already behind her.

More Than One Rodeo Pays

For these three, no single open rodeo left covers the gap. Angelone has Sioux Falls to fall back on. Gilbert and Jacobs need two good ones and have nothing else.

Martha Angelone—needs $3,837

Nearly twice the biggest check available. She is also in Sioux Falls, ninth on our projected points and seventh of the eight who get in on points—the furthest back of this group and the best placed to make it up.

Entered: Pasadena Monday perf, Amarillo Wednesday slack, Stephenville Thursday perf, Tyler Thursday slack—plus Sioux Falls. More live rodeos than anyone else on the bubble.

Sawyer Gilbert—needs $4,819

More than twice the ceiling, and 18th on our projected points, so no Governor’s Cup. She needs a win and a good placing inside nine days, at rodeos she has to be entered at already.

Entered: Pasadena Thursday perf and the Amarillo slack. Two rodeos, and neither pays what she needs even to win it.

Maddy Jacobs—needs $6,533

Three times the biggest check on the board and 19th on our projected points, so no Sioux Falls either. On the open schedule alone this is a win plus two placings.

Entered: Pasadena Thursday perf, Amarillo Wednesday slack, Stephenville Friday slack, Tyler Thursday slack. Four rodeos that between them could just about cover it—a win and two good placings.

Sioux Falls or Nothing

Neither can reach the cut at the open rodeos that are left. Both are in Sioux Falls, and that is the whole of their case.

Jackie Crawford—needs $10,739

Five times the open-rodeo ceiling. She is in the Sioux Falls field through Puyallup, where she co-won, and she told us after that weekend she was banking on it. This is why.

Entered: Pasadena Monday perf, Amarillo Wednesday slack, Stephenville Thursday perf, Tyler Thursday slack—and Sioux Falls, the only one of the five that can actually cover her.

Jordan Jo Hollabaugh—needs $13,912

The longest shot with a live path—and she is in Sioux Falls. She is 10th on our projected points, which would be outside a straight top eight, but Josie Conner and Haiden Thompson both finished top four at Puyallup and both sit inside that eight, so their points spots roll down and the cut reaches her. She earned nothing at Pendleton or Mandan and kept the seat anyway, by 28.48 over Taylor Munsell.

Entered: the Amarillo Wednesday slack, and nothing else among the five biggest—not Pasadena, Stephenville, Tyler or Poway. An Amarillo win is worth $1,613 against a $13,912 gap, so Sioux Falls is not just her best path, it is effectively her only one.

Who’s in Sioux Falls

BRJ projection: the official WPRA points file stamped Sept. 15 plus Pendleton and Mandan, which both award points and neither of which is in it. The top eight on Sept. 21 plus Puyallup’s four make a 12-roper field, and the Governor’s Cup adds $166,666.

The roll-down is what decides the last seat. Puyallup’s top four are in regardless of points, and two of them—Conner and Thompson—are also inside the points eight, so two spots roll down and the points cut reaches 10th on the list rather than eighth. That is the difference between Hollabaugh watching and Hollabaugh roping.

It also produces the oddest line on the board: Munsell and Peterson are 11th and 12th on points and out, while Tanner is 13th and Crawford 20th and both are in. Puyallup was worth more than eleven weeks of points.

Which leaves the race split down the middle at the top. The two cowgirls closest to the seat are $663 and $1,517 back, and only one of them is in Sioux Falls. Peterson has the smaller gap and four open rodeos to close it in. Tanner has nearly three times the gap and the richest rodeo of the year to close it at.

The Cut Is Going To Move

Every gap in this story is measured against today’s projected cutline of $89,939. That is not where the cut finishes. The Governor’s Cup pays regular-season money and lands before the Sept. 30 cutoff, and five of the cowgirls in this story are in that field, so the line is going up.

The reason is who sits at the line. Aspen Miller at $101,098 and Jenna Dallyn at $96,828 are 13th and 14th and neither is in Sioux Falls, so neither can add much. In two finishes out of three one of them ends up being the cut. The cowgirls below them are the ones with $166,667 to rope for, and enough of that money lands to push the line up to Miller and Dallyn rather than down to the bubble.

Which is the hard news for Beau Peterson. She is $663 out today, the smallest gap on the board, and she is not in Sioux Falls. In 30,000 finishes she made the top 15 in 0.1 percent of them, and not one of the eighteen settings put her above 0.1. The $663 is real; it is just measured against a line that is about to move roughly ten thousand dollars away from her, and $2,150 is the biggest check she can reach.

Jill Tanner is the mirror image: $1,517 out, nearly three times Peterson’s gap, and in at 53 percent because she is in the field at Sioux Falls.

What Each One Needs Per Run

Measured against the $99,000 the cut is modelled to reach, not against today’s line. A run is a rodeo she is entered at now; Sioux Falls counts as one.

The column that matters is the last one. Four of the five cowgirls with a Sioux Falls berth need between $1,812 and $3,960 a run, which is ordinary placing money at a rodeo that pays $34,000 to win. Every cowgirl without one needs more per run than the run can pay.

Run it to the ceiling and three of them are already out. Winning every rodeo she is entered at is worth $6,048 to Beau Peterson, $6,048 to Maddy Jacobs and $3,360 to Sawyer Gilbert, against gaps of $9,724, $15,594 and $13,880. Not short of likely—short of possible.

Gilbert is the starkest. Her ceiling is $88,480, which is below the $89,939 the cutline already sits at today. She cannot pass the cut as it stands, let alone where it is going.

Peterson needs the cut to land under $95,324 to have any path at all, and our model put it at or above $95,000 in 96 finishes out of 100. Jacobs needs it under $89,454. Both numbers are inside the range of what turnouts and a soft Sioux Falls could still produce, which is the only reason this is a projection and not an obituary.

And at the other end, Jordan Jo Hollabaugh needs $22,973 with two rodeos to do it in, and only one of them can pay it. Sioux Falls can hand her $59,067.

What Nobody Can See

Turnouts and walk-ups. A cowgirl who is not on a daysheet today can still get in where somebody pulls out, and that money counts. Entries close and fields move; this is where they stood on Sunday night.