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Behind the Top 15: Madison Outhier

Madison Outhier won Reno and finished the 2026 regular season No. 11 for her first National Finals Breakaway Roping, two summers after a wreck in Salt Lake City and seven years after she won The American as a teenager.

Madison Outhier wins the 2026 Reno Rodeo with 8.2 seconds on three head.
Madison Outhier wins the 2026 Reno Rodeo | Photo by Click Thompson

No. 11 | $111,252

  • Age: 24
  • Hometown: Utopia, Texas
  • NFBR Qualifications: 1 (2026)
  • Best World Finish: 11th (2026)
  • Major Rodeos: Reno, Nevada (2026); Dodge City, Kansas (2026); Bremerton, Washington (2026); Preston, Idaho (2026); Big Spring, Texas (2026); Tyler, Texas (2026)
  • Major Ropings: The American (2019); Women’s Rodeo World Championship (2020, 2021)
  • WPRA Honors: 2021 Resistol Rookie of the Year, the first in breakaway roping
  • Star Horsepower: Lets Boogie Wildcard (Eva); Rooster

Madison Outhier won The American, two Women’s Rodeo World Championship titles worth $60,000 apiece and the first breakaway Resistol Rookie of the Year award as a teenager, and in 2026 she finally added the one thing missing: a trip to the National Finals Breakaway Roping.

The 24-year-old from Utopia, Texas, won Reno, Dodge City, Preston, Big Spring and Tyler this year, split the win at Bremerton and finished the regular season No. 11 with $111,252—two summers after a wreck in Salt Lake City cost her the back half of 2024. She won Reno on the mare she was riding that day.

Rooster and AT&T Stadium

Outhier won RFD-TV’s The American in 2019 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. A year later she was back in the same building for the inaugural Women’s Rodeo World Championship, and at 18 she won it in 2.05 seconds for $60,000 on Rooster, a family-bred gelding out of her grandparents’ LA Waters Quarter Horses program.

“Nobody else has ever roped off that horse before me. It’s just been my dad and I,” Outhier told The Breakaway Roping Journal in 2020.

She defended the title at the South Point Arena in Las Vegas in October 2021, going 1.91 in the final performance for another $60,000. She was a business major at Texas A&M University by then, and Rooster was still the horse.

“I don’t know what I did to deserve such a great horse. I owe everything to him,” she said.

She made it back to Arlington in 2026, too, one of the 15 cowgirls in The American’s $2 million final after placing second at the West regional with a 1.80 in the finals.

Read more: The Gamer: Madison Outhier Wins Back-to-Back Women’s Rodeo World Championship Breakaway Roping World Titles

Rookie of the Year, 2021

In 2021 she became the first Women’s Professional Rodeo Association Resistol Rookie of the Year in breakaway roping. The next summer she left after the College National Finals Rodeo in June and hauled with Taylor Hanchey, Tacy Webb and Beau Peterson.

“Those girls are so fun and uplifting. I wasn’t worried about doing bad or getting down myself because they would all be happy and light after each run, no matter what,” she said.

“In the breakaway, it’s anybody’s game, any day. It’s a fast-changing event and nobody is going to win every rodeo and every roping there is,” she said.

On the Bubble in 2023

She opened 2023 at the Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo, placing second in both rounds of her bracket in 2.6 and 2.4 to advance at the top of it. At San Antonio she won her semifinal in 1.8 for $2,500 and led the qualifiers into the finals with $4,250.

In June she won Santa Ynez, California, in 2.1 for $3,158 and stood No. 15 in the world. She roped at the NFR Open in July for the Texas Circuit.

She was No. 17 with $52,120 after Labor Day and split the win at Amarillo, Texas, in 2.0 for $3,409 on Sept. 23. With one weekend left she needed $6,412 to catch Erin Johnson for the last spot, and the 2023 NFBR went on without her.

Read more: Cage Match—Will Erin Johnson or Samantha Fulton Make the 2023 NFBR?

Salt Lake City, July 2024

In 2024 she was knocking on the door of the National Finals Breakaway Roping when her season ended in a parking lot. On July 18, at the Days of ’47 Rodeo in Salt Lake City, her mare came over backwards on her on the asphalt. Outhier broke her collarbone, fractured ribs, collapsed a lung and lacerated her liver. She stayed conscious, and other ropers got to her fast, Marty Yates and ICU nurse Tacy Webb among them. She was done for the year.

The mare was Lets Boogie Wildcard—“Eva”—out of the same LA Waters Quarter Horses program. Eva was not hurt.

“I took her with us on the road last year and started seasoning her more. She is actually who I had my accident on in Salt Lake City back in 2024. She is all good from that, didn’t get hurt—she’s been an awesome asset to my team,” Outhier said this June.

Read more: Madison Outhier’s Horse Accident and Recovery on The Breakaway Breakdown Podcast

A Joker in 2025

She was back on the road in 2025. In May, Joe Beaver drafted her for his Jokers team at Kid Rock’s Rock N Rodeo at AT&T Stadium, and the Jokers beat Cody Ohl’s Convoy in the championship round for $500,000, or $27,778 per team member.

“When Joe called and said, ‘You’re a Joker,’ I was pumped,” Outhier said. “It’s so cool getting to rope there [at AT&T Stadium]; there’s a great atmosphere in that building.”

She rode Rooster in Arlington. That summer she split the second round at the first Calgary Stampede breakaway with Timber Allenbrand in 2.5 for $6,250, and in September she split the win at Tyler, Texas, in 2.0 for $2,956.

“I’ve rode him virtually everywhere for the last 12 years which is also a testament that one horse can stay that good for the same person for that long and taught me how to win,” she told us that August.

Read more: No Joke: Cheyanne McCartney, Madison Outhier Pocket $27K with Kid Rock’s Rock N Rodeo Championship

Big Spring, Reno and Bremerton

She opened the 2026 summer run by winning Big Spring, Texas, in 2.0 for $3,704 on Eva. The fix was in the box.

“I think a lot of my troubles at these rodeos have come from going too early and pulling across the line. I feel like lately, I’ve been scoring a lot better so that I am able to hit the barrier at a more flat-out run. It has let me use my rope a little more and get more out of my horse so that I’m able to catch up to the calf in those quicker spots.”

Two weeks later she won the Reno, Nevada, average at 8.2 on three head, all three runs on Eva. She was 2.5 in the first round and 2.8 for second in the short round, and the trip was worth $11,726.

“It was my first time to ever do good there, honestly. I think it was my first time to even make the perfs in the second round too.”

Reno’s setup runs long. She went into the short round to protect her place in the average.

“I was just wanting to lay the barrier back a little more,” she said of the short go. “When I roped in 2.8, I honestly did not expect to win it. I knew the girls behind me would probably be a little quicker, but it ended up working out in my favor.”

After Reno she flew to Greeley, Colorado, and roped on Rooster there, giving Eva a lighter week before the Fourth of July.

Read more: Madison Outhier Wins Reno to Crack Top 15

Then came a $12,702 week at the turn of August. She won Preston, Idaho, outright in 2.1 for $5,866, then won the Dodge City, Kansas, average at 8.6 on three head. With a third in the first round and a third in the short round, Dodge City was worth $6,836.

In late August she split Bremerton, Washington, with Danielle Lowman in 1.9 for $6,248 each. She closed the regular season at home in Texas, winning Tyler in 2.0 for $3,281 and New Braunfels in 2.7 for $1,363.

Where She Stands

Reno moved Outhier from No. 23 to a projected No. 13 in the WPRA world standings, and the Preston and Dodge City week put her at a projected No. 8 with $90,183. She finished the 2026 regular season No. 11 with $111,252 and qualified for her first National Finals Breakaway Roping, two summers after Salt Lake City.

“It’s definitely exciting anytime you break into the top 15. But yeah—just keeping the same mindset—taking one calf at a time,” she said after Reno.

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