The Arizona cowboys left Las Vegas in December 2023 as the NFR average champions, catching all 10 head in a time of 69.0 seconds. Begay and Todd’s big wins that season occurred across the country, including Logandale, Nevada; Guymon, Oklahoma; Greeley, Colorado; Filer, Idaho; Pendleton, Oregon; and San Bernardino, California.
‘We’re Just Friends Out Here; I Don’t Even Know What We’re Doing.’ — Best Friends Begay and Todd Win NFR Aggregate Title (BAM!)
With all the success they had in 2023, they rolled into the 2024 ProRodeo winter rodeos, pulling off the win at the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo. Later that year, it came down to who beat who in San Bernardino to decide whether Todd or Paul Eaves would make the 2024 NFR.
“We had to beat them, regardless of what they did, for me to make it,” Todd told Kendra Santos in November 2024. “But it was actually fun. It was like we were in the practice pen running one last steer to see who makes the Finals.”
Best Friends First: Begay and Todd Make Sense of 2024
It didn’t play out in Todd’s favor, and he missed the 2024 NFR by mere dollars.
“It went exactly how it was supposed to go,” Todd told Santos in that same interview. “For me, it’s fine. I don’t rodeo for a living. Not that I don’t care or have any emotions. But the way it ended up coming down to that last steer, it was bittersweet, but also cooler than heck.”
A year later, the Begay-Todd comeback took off. They capitalized at the winter rodeos, capturing the championship at RodeoHouston and flying to the No. 1 position in the world standings—a spot they held on and off for most of the 2025 season.
Begay and Todd Win 2025 RodeoHouston
“I try to just keep telling myself, ‘You only have one job. Your job is to heel him as fast as you can by two feet,’” Todd said after their $71,750-a-man payday in Houston. “I actually have to tell myself that so I don’t start thinking or trying to make a plan or whatever. The header in me wants to, and that’s the battle that I fight. I have to make myself fight that, and all I’m going to do is heel whenever he turns him — and whatever it is, catch him by two feet.”
Outside of their big win in Texas, Begay and Todd picked up checks in the average at Santa Fe, New Mexico; St. Paul, Oregon; the second round at the NFR Open in Colorado Springs; the first round in Salinas, California; the average in Ogden, Utah; Burley, Idaho; Bremerton, Washington; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and wrapped up their season with a second-round win at the Pendleton Round-Up.
The 2025 ProRodeo season is officially over, and Todd is headed to his fifth NFR qualification—his second with Begay. His unofficial earnings for the regular season of $163,849 put him second in the world standings behind Junior Nogueira.
*Unofficial* Team Roping Field for the 2025 NFR Determined
Todd and Derrick Begay placed in three rounds at the 2025 NFR and finished fifth in the average with 56.6 on eight head, worth $31,937 a man. Todd ended the year ninth in the world with $233,189.
In 2024, Todd finished 16th, one spot outside the Finals. This year he spent the last month of the season on the same edge. Riding Barbiiedoll, he and Begay won the first round at the Pendleton Round-Up and finished second in the average, part of a $28,016 week. That still left Todd 16th, $4,239 outside the heeling cut.
Begay Passes on $166,667-a-Side Sioux Falls to Do Battle with Todd in 2026’s Season’s Final Week
Begay skipped the $166,667-a-side Governor’s Cup in Sioux Falls to spend the final week roping with Todd. At San Bernardino, they split fourth and fifth with a 4.6, which moved Todd past Wyatt Cox to No. 15. At the 377 Last Hoorah in Stephenville, they won Round 2 for $4,333 a man. Todd finished No. 15 with $122,587, $5,533 ahead of Cox, for his sixth NFR qualification and his third with his best friend.
“We’re just friends out here,” Begay said after the two won the 2023 NFR average. Three years later, that friendship is the reason Todd is going back to Las Vegas.
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