No. 5 | $148,284
- Age: 23
- Hometown: Gatesville, Texas
- NFBR Qualifications: 2 (2022, 2026)
- Best World Finish: 5th (2026)
- Major Rodeos: Ellensburg, Washington (2026); Filer, Idaho (2026); Oakley, Utah (2022); Belle Fourche, South Dakota (2022)
- Major Ropings: WCRA Days of ’47 gold medal, Salt Lake City (2019); RFD-TV’s The American semifinals round win (2021)
- WPRA Honors: 2019 National High School Finals Rodeo breakaway champion
- Star Horsepower: Pepto Pepper Rey (Tbox); TRR Tanquery Cat (Spike); Smokin Little Smarty (Cowtown)
After a $148,284 regular season, Jordi Edens-Mitchell is headed to her second National Finals Breakaway Roping—four years and three missed Finals after her first.
The 23-year-old from Gatesville, Texas, was 16 when she won $50,000 and the first Days of ’47 breakaway gold medal in Salt Lake City in 2019, the same year she won the National High School Finals Rodeo breakaway championship. Two years later she had a Women’s Professional Rodeo Association card and a summer that didn’t prove easy.
One Calf All Summer
Her first Cowboy Christmas run, in 2021, produced almost nothing. The only calf she caught on the whole trip was at Pecos, Texas, and it was the wrong calf, so it didn’t count.
“I roped one calf out of all the rodeos,” Edens-Mitchell told The Breakaway Roping Journal the following summer. “I went to Pecos, Texas, and roped my first calf. But it was the wrong calf, so didn’t even count. I didn’t rope one single calf for money after that.”
She drove home from Killdeer, North Dakota, and stayed there.
“I roped every day for two weeks before Cheyenne and ended up fourth at Cheyenne. That was my turning point,” she said. “I realized I needed to take it a little more serious, put a little more effort in. I think missing those calves was the best thing that ever happened to me. It made me mad. It gave me the drive that I didn’t have, that I needed.”
The $15,500 Week
The next Fourth of July she won $15,500 on 11.4 seconds of clock. She was 2.0 to win Oakley, Utah, for $6,387, 2.4 at Belle Fourche, South Dakota, for $4,426, and back-to-back 3.5s at Prescott, Arizona, for $4,687 in the aggregate. It moved her into the top 15 for the first time.
Getting between those rodeos took a flight.
“After Prescott, we were supposed to drive up to Belle Fourche, but my mom accidentally put DEF in our diesel tank,” she said. “I had to catch a flight up to Denver, where my dad met me with my backup horse.”
Read more: New Game Plan Yields $15.5K Cowboy Christmas and Top 15 World Standings Jump for Jordi Edens
She finished 2022 10th in the world with $73,102 and placed in three rounds at her first National Finals Breakaway Roping, running a 2.22 for third in Round 5 and a 2.14 for fifth in Round 8. It was her only NFBR qualification until 2026.
Tbox and Spike
What changed the arc was a text message. Pepto Pepper Rey—“Tbox”—came from Taylor Barham, and Edens-Mitchell had to ask.
“I always say that was a God thing. I texted her and she’d sell him to me,” she said. “I just jumped on him and it clicked. She did all the hard work.”
The other half of the rig is TRR Tanquery Cat—“Spike”—bought over the phone off a recommendation and some videos, and pointed at the big pens and the long scores. He won $8,483 with her at Cheyenne.
“He inhales a calf. I knew I could go there and catch on him,” she said. “He doesn’t carry the confidence Tbox does. I kind of have to put that into him.”
Read more: Great Ones and Go-Tos: Jordi Edens-Mitchell’s Horsepower Strategy
Turning Tbox Out
She set herself a number in the spring: at $100,000, Tbox goes home. She won $600 at Salt Lake City in July and crossed it.
“I won $600 at Salt Lake and that put me at 100, and we were going home that week and I was like, you know what? He’s going to go home and get turned out for a little bit,” she said.
That left a hole, and Jordan Driver filled it. Smokin Little Smarty—“Cowtown”—came off Driver in late July, and Edens-Mitchell hauled him to Dodge City, Kansas, the same week and made the short round on him.
“I kind of threw him to the wolves. We bought him and then took him to Dodge the same week,” she said. “I made the short round on him at Dodge, and then I got him home for two days and practiced once, and then we took back off, and I was like, oh, I don’t feel like I’m really doing him any justice.”
Read more: Meet Cowtown, Jordi Edens-Mitchell’s Newest Breakaway Horse
A Family Affair
She isn’t the only Mitchell headed to a Finals this winter. Her husband, Lane Mitchell, finished the 2026 regular season No. 8 in the PRCA world standings with $133,399 heeling for Cody Snow and qualified for his second National Finals Rodeo. He made his first in 2025, behind Cyle Denison.
Roping runs on her side of the family, too. Her father, Tommy Edens, qualified for the NFR as a header in 2007.
She and Lane take their son, Brooks, down the road with them.
Over the 2026 Fourth of July run she won $21,537, second only to Haiden Thompson’s record among breakaway ropers.
“She might be roping better than she ever has,” Lane Mitchell told The Team Roping Journal that week.
“We’ve got our little boy out here, Brooks, and it’s fun all the way around,” he said.
Where She Stands
Edens-Mitchell finished the 2026 regular season No. 5 in the world with $148,284 and qualified for her second NFBR. She won $10,637 in the first week of September, splitting the Ellensburg, Washington, average with Martha Angelone at 8.3 on three head for $4,576 apiece, winning the Ellensburg finals in 2.5 and splitting third at Filer, Idaho, for $3,692. She won $18,600 more the week of the Cinch Playoffs Governor’s Cup in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Tbox stayed home for Sioux Falls, and Cowtown made the trip. She does not hedge about what Tbox is.
“There’s a lot of good horses. There’s very few great ones, and I think Tbox is one of those,” she said. “As soon as we walk up there, it’s like his whole demeanor flips. He knows. If you’re not on top of it, you’ll look like an idiot. He’s going to do his job every time.”
