No. 8 | $124,232
- Age: 22
- Hometown: Yoder, Wyoming
- NFBR Qualifications: 1 (2026)
- Best World Finish: 8th (2026)
- Career Earnings: $188,856
- Major Rodeos: St. Paul, Oregon (2026); Mandan, North Dakota (2026); Prineville, Oregon (2026); Pecos, Texas (2026); Estes Park, Colorado (2025); Gunnison, Colorado (2025); Belle Fourche, South Dakota (2025)
- WPRA Honors: 2025 Resistol Rookie of the Year, a record $64,624; 2024 and 2025 WPRA all-around world champion; 2025 WPRA tie-down roping world champion; 2025 Mountain States Circuit year-end champion
- Star Horsepower: Tom; Dingo
Haiden Thompson is headed to her first National Finals Breakaway Roping in just her second ProRodeo season, and she got there on the richest Fourth-of-July run any breakaway cowgirl has ever had.
The 22-year-old from Yoder, Wyoming, finished the 2026 regular season No. 8 in the world with $124,232. That’s nearly double the $64,624 that broke the Resistol Rookie earnings record a year earlier, which she won after losing the mare who taught her the event.
A Rookie Summer
Her rookie year didn’t hit stride until Guymon in June 2025. Then came a week in the middle of July worth $21,041—Estes Park, Colorado, for $4,249, Sheridan, Wyoming, for $2,239, Casper, Wyoming, for $7,122, Gunnison, Colorado, for $3,290 and Cheyenne, Wyoming, for $4,141—that took her to No. 1 in the Resistol Rookie race.
Most of it was driven overnight.
“On the morning of the Casper short round, I slept all day until someone had to wake me up so I wouldn’t miss it,” Thompson told The Breakaway Roping Journal that summer. “I had no idea what day it was most of the time—just kept seeing the same Wyoming landmarks over and over.”
She was riding two horses and switching by setup: Foxie N Fancy—“Foxie”—on the short starts, and a grade gelding called Tom on the long scores. She has had Tom since he was a 2-year-old, found through her uncle’s connections at a sale barn, and he was her head horse before he was a breakaway horse.
“It wasn’t picture perfect,” she said of the week, “but it was picture perfect enough.”
Losing Foxie
Late that July, Foxie was hurt in her pen at home in Yoder. The vets told Thompson she would never ride her again. A surgery in Arizona looked good at first and then went backward.
“She got hurt in her pen—it was just a freak thing,” she said. “We tried surgery, and at first it looked good, but then it went downhill so fast. My eyes were swollen [from crying] for a week straight. She made everything so easy, and suddenly I didn’t know what horse I was going to ride.”
“I’ve never been so close to falling off a horse so many times. She gave me so many bruises, but she taught me everything about breakaway roping,” she said. “She really only worked for me, we were meant to be together.”
She kept going on Tom. At Othello, Washington, in September her season reached $61,888, and Josie Conner’s rookie record of $61,233 from 2022 was gone with nearly two weeks left to run.
“It completely snuck up on me. I honestly had no idea. Josie did that and made the Finals, and I’m barely sniffing the top 20,” she said. “It’s crazy how the money has changed and how much tougher it’s gotten.”
Read more: Haiden Thompson Breaks Resistol Rookie Earnings Record in Bittersweet Fashion
Two World Titles and a New Horse
She finished 2025 with $64,624 and the Resistol Rookie of the Year title, won the Mountain States Circuit year-end championship with $22,566 and the NFR Open berth that comes with it, and then went to Waco.
At the WPRA World Finals in November she won her second straight all-around world title, $9,465 to Jackie Crawford’s $6,711, and her first tie-down roping world title by $520, taking the last round in 12.2 seconds while Crawford was a no-time. She won the tie-down average at 38.7 on three head—one of only two ropers in a field of 27 to post a time in all three rounds. Her sister, Hadley, was second in the breakaway average.
The horse who replaced Foxie came from a childhood friend. Rance Bowden had been calling from South Dakota about a gelding named Dingo before Foxie was gone.
“The first time I rode him somewhere, I won the jackpot, and it was a fairly big jackpot. I think I may have cried at that jackpot, we were 1.6 and 1.7,” she said. “I hadn’t ridden a horse that felt so much like Foxie. Him and Foxie are spitting images of each other. Little, pony-looking things.”
Read more: Resistol Rookie of the Year Haiden Thompson Reflects on Title, Adds New Member to Her Team
A Record Fourth of July
She cracked the top 15 for the first time at the end of June this year, winning $11,660 across three rodeos—splitting Prineville, Oregon, with Kelsie Domer in 2.4 for $5,194, winning the Pecos, Texas, average at 6.9 on two head for $3,382 and placing ninth in the Reno, Nevada, average.
Then came Cowboy Christmas. She entered eight rodeos, placed at six and won two, splitting St. Paul, Oregon, five ways for $7,978 and winning Mandan, North Dakota, outright for $6,641. Greeley, Colorado, paid her $3,897, Prescott, Arizona, $3,315, Cody, Wyoming, $1,261 and Killdeer, North Dakota, $931.
The total was $24,023, a Cowboy Christmas record. It beat the $16,628 Erin Johnson won in 2025 by $7,395 and topped every other breakaway roper over the run by $2,486. It was even $408 more than barrel racing’s top earner, Michelle Alley.
It took a charter flight to Basin City, Washington, a ride to St. Paul with Cheyanne McCartney, a flight to Cody with barrel racer Andrea Busby, a horse borrowed from Jackie Crawford for the Greeley short round and about 10 hours of sleep across four days. Traveling partner Martha Angelone kept the horses ready.
“The Cowboy Christmas was the exact definition of planes, trains and automobiles for me,” she said.
“My main goal going into this whole thing was just to see my start and catch the calf,” she said.
She credits her horses. Dingo took the short setups and Tom the long scores, and when Dingo couldn’t get back in time for Killdeer and Mandan, Tom finished the run.
“Last year I rode the wrong horse at some rodeos. That cost me, I felt like,” she said. “This year, everywhere I rode my horses was where I should have. Having that experience from last year really helped me make those decisions.”
“For the sake of women’s rodeo, I hope that record gets beat,” she said.
Read more: Haiden Thompson Ran Up a Record $24,023 During 2026 Cowboy Christmas on About 10 Hours of Sleep
Where She Stands
She roped at 76 rodeos to get there. Add her rookie season, and she has won $188,856 in two years.
“There’s a lot of girls at home right now seeing that they can actually make a living doing this,” she said. “We’re getting to the point where we’re not just out here trying to make ends meet. We’re actually making a living.”
