Last year, Brody Wells was nervous going to Las Vegas for the National Finals Rodeo. It was his first trip to the top rodeo event of the year, and he didn’t know what to expect. 

This year he was mostly excited as he welcomed friends, family and others in the community Friday night at the Irma, all eager to give the Powell cowboy a fine sendoff the night before making the trip south. 

“I mean, guys always have nerves. If you don’t have any nerves going in there, you’re probably not alive, but I’m more excited to go down there and compete,” he said. “And I know what it’s about. You know, you kind of get your feet wet in the first year, you’re nervous and this and that. So I’m kind of excited. I’m just, I’m really excited to go down there and compete this year.”

The NFR begins today (Thursday) and for the second year in a row Wells, a Powell High School grad who grew up in Powell and Wapiti, is one of the top 15 saddle bronc riders in the country. In fact, he heads into the NFR ranked sixth in saddle bronc while his traveling partner, Australian cowboy Damian Brennan, is second. 

Last year Wells went to Vegas 12th in the standings in just his third year in professional rodeo after racking up more than $135,000 in earnings. He blew that away this year, earning over $214,000 and securing a number of highlight performances. 

“I just kept my momentum rolling and just, I mean, kept it simple,” Wells said Friday. “Just kept having fun and kept drawing good. And I mean, it kind of takes care of itself if you’ve got the right attitude.”

He must have found the right attitude, because Wells tallied eight wins or co-victories over the course of the season, including winning the Xtreme Bronc Finals in Rapid City, South Dakota, and the Farm-City Pro Rodeo in Hermiston, Oregon, and earning more than $90,000 in the month of August alone. 

“It was a really good summer, and I had some really good, really big wins there in August,” he said. “August was a really good month for me.”

Wells didn’t contain his rodeo skills to just the United States either, he not only did his yearly trips to big Canadian rodeos, he even traveled with Brennan to Australia to compete. 

Throughout the season Wells was able to test his skills against some of the same top level of bucking horses he’ll be seeing in Vegas. He said while no cowboy is getting on an NFR level bucking horse every time, they’ll often see horses that are still very good, if not ones that may make an appearance in Vegas in the next couple of years. Because only the toughest horses appear at the NFR. 

“They’re a bunch of dragons,” he said. “You know, these horses are worth millions of dollars. They’re bred to get us down. You know, that’s the whole point of that industry, the bucking horse industry, is just breeding high end stuff.”

After all, Wells is only doing what he grew up mastering — taking unmanageable horses and breaking them in.

“I got into riding broncs from doing what I love, which was, you know, riding wild horses,” he said. “And people would send me horses that weren’t very rider friendly. And so I take them to the mountains and go hunting on them and cowboying on them. And I just learned to get gritty.”

Wells not only held on but dominated a few of those million-dollar horses during his last NFR, winning two rounds and placing in five of 10. 

Does he expect to be able to match that first-year run? 

No, he’s aiming higher. 

“I want to double it,” he said. “Just write your goals high and shoot for the moon, you know, and see where you land.”