Aspen Miller is No. 14 in the WPRA world standings with $28,849.23 won, but the Santa Fe, Texas, cowgirl’s second Top 15 campaign is taking a different shape than the one that carried her to a fifth-place world finish in 2025.
Last year, Miller had a little more breathing room.
A big win at San Antonio set the tone early, and from there, Miller stayed inside the Top 10 for most of the season before qualifying for her first NFBR and finishing the year fifth in the world. This year, the 22-year-old Sam Houston State student is still right where she needs to be, but she’s had to piece it together differently.
“I wouldn’t say there’s anything drastically different,” Miller said. “I think that this winter definitely wasn’t as great as last. I had a big win at San Antone that gave me some comfort. I stayed in the top 10 all year last year.
“It’s not necessarily the same situation this year. I still feel comfortable, but I definitely need to consistently win and hit as many big licks as possible.”
Miller has done enough of that to stay in the mix, picking up checks at Houston, Logandale, Corpus Christi, Vernon, Odessa, Fort Worth and San Antonio. But the difference, in her mind, has not been whether she’s put herself in position—it’s been whether she’s finished the job when she gets there.
“The short goes have not been my friend this year,” Miller said with a laugh. “I feel like I’ve given myself opportunity to win, and I haven’t finished and I haven’t done my job.”
That realization hit harder leaving Corpus Christi, where Miller said she knew she was not roping scared or feeling nervous.
“I had my sucker in the dirt for sure,” Miller said. “I was like, ‘What is going on? I don’t feel nervous before I rope. I don’t feel like I’m doing anything different. I’m just doing dumb things.’”
How did she plan to fix the issue?
Simple—catch the cow, no excuses.
Miller went to the Carbon Classic jackpot with that goal in mind. She did, won last hole in the average and felt like she had gotten over the hump that had followed her through the short rounds.
“There you go,” Miller said to herself. “There’s that one catch you need to get over that little hump.”
At home, Miller has been keeping that same mindset. She is not changing her style or backing off the way she ropes. Instead, she’s making sure she and her horsepower are ready for every kind of setup the summer run can throw at them.
Some days, that means practicing like 1.9 is winning the rodeo. Other days, it means practicing the kind of run where everything is falling apart and the job is simply to get one caught.
“It’s really just practicing for all scenarios,” Miller said.
That matters even more with the summer run ahead. Miller plans to leave earlier this year, with rodeos like Sisters, Oregon, added to her schedule and Nampa moving up, giving breakaway ropers more places to win before Reno even starts. Last year, Miller estimated she went to around 66 or 67 rodeos. This year, she knows she can hit a few more.
“There’s so many great rodeos now during the summer that you can win real big money at,” she said. “Even not winning first, you can still win great money. Luckily, we have that opportunity, and you don’t have to have just the best winter to make the Finals. I feel like you can have a decent one or even a not great one and just kick butt during the summer and make it all work.”
Miller’s horsepower gives her options, too. Jigsaw remains her a-team, but Iggy, her older mare, still has a major role when the setup calls for something a little more forgiving.
“I’m lucky to have her,” Miller said. “I don’t ride her as much, but I like to ride her at places like Cheyenne or Salinas just because she’s a little bit more forgiving than Jigsaw is sometimes. But I can be fast on her, too.”
For Miller, the goal is not to reinvent the season just because the path looks different than it did a year ago. The goal is to keep putting herself in position, use the good calves when they come, get by the bad ones and trust that the summer run can do what the summer run does.
