Major ropings: Cinch USTRC YETI Open Shootout, Lone Star Shootout, USTRC U.S. Open
Major rodeos: NFR, National Western Stock Show & Rodeo (Denver, Colo.), Rodeo Austin (Texas), Ellensburg (Wash.) Rodeo, California Rodeo Salinas, Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo, Cody Stampede (Wyoming)
Star Horsepower: Marshall (Missn Cowboy Sioux), Freightliner (DCC Colonel Cat)
Rope Choice: Lone Star Frio S / MS
Tanner Tomlinson’s career as a professional header all falls back on a 2019 win in Corpus Christi, Texas.
The then 19-year-old had just made the switch from the heel side to the quarterback role, looking to try something new. That win set everything in motion, pushing him to buy his PRCA card the following year in 2020.
“I actually heeled my entire life,” Tomlinson said in 2022 before his first NFR. “I won a truck heeling when I was 12 years old, then when I got to be about a #8 heeler, I started heading in the lower-numbered ropings. I was a 9+ heeler when I turned 17.”
As a kid, Tomlinson grew up just outside of Houston in a family of team ropers and raising roping steers. Rope in hand since a young kid, Tomlinson learned to rope from his dad Steve, older brother Justin and grandpa Willy.
In 2020, with one season under his belt as a header, Tomlinson finished his breakout PRCA season with $22,534.24, earning him the Resistol Rookie Header of the Year title. He picked up two-time World Champ Patrick Smith in 2021 and, in 2022, he’d shout from the rooftop at the Thomas & Mack Center in December at his very first NFR.
That same year, Tomlinson and Smith won seven go-round checks and set the NFR team roping aggregate record at 53.00 on 10 steers. Tomlinson was perfect in his first Las Vegas appearance, spinning 10 out of 10 steers, with no barriers at that. Collecting $199,726 a man at the NFR alone, Tomlinson and Smith also set an NFR team roping earnings record.
Tomlinson and Graves go 4.9 in the finals of Fort Worth. | James Phifer Photo Courtesy FWSSR
In 2023, Tomlinson qualified for his second NFR with Smith and ended the season 12th in the PRCA world standings with $181,204.
Tomlinson is currently roping with Travis Graves in 2025, kicking the year off with the Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo win for $25,350 a man. He currently sits No. 2 in the world with $193,807 won heading to his third NFR.
But in a million years, I didn’t dream my first Finals would go like it did. I knew if I got tapped off, it would go good. But I couldn’t have planned for it or had it go better than it did. It’s still a blur in my mind. For us to come so close to winning the world, and have it come down to the last steer—it’s going to be tough to top my first one.Tanner Tomlinson, 2023
Tomlinson and Travis Graves kept rolling through the 2025 summer, winning the California Rodeo Salinas for $11,000 a man, and finished the regular season second in the world behind Kaleb Driggers. In Las Vegas, they placed second in Round 5 and then won Round 6 with a 3.4 for $36,667 a man, in one of the toughest rounds in NFR team roping history. That moved Tomlinson to No. 1 in the world. He finished the year fifth with $276,606.
In 2026, Tomlinson took his own advice about the winter. With Coleby Payne, he won the National Western Stock Show & Rodeo in Denver with an arena-record-tying 3.5 in the short round, then won Rodeo Austin in March. In April he and Jade Corkill won the YETI Open Shootout at the Cinch USTRC National Finals for $28,500.
“Last year I told myself I wanted to try to win as much as I could in the winter and treat it like I was on the bubble, trying to make the NFR,” Tomlinson said. “Because people don’t realize how big the winter is.”
In September he checked off a bucket-list rodeo, winning the Ellensburg Rodeo average with Wesley Thorp on Marshall, now 18 and two years past the colic surgery that nearly killed him. Their 4.1 in the finals tied the arena record in the mud.
“He is the fastest horse I’ve ever rode from the back of the box to the line,” Tomlinson said. “You can ride him in an NFR setup. You can jackpot on him. You can ride him just about anywhere and he does good every time.”
