Jordan Minor won the Pendleton Round-Up breakaway for the second time in her career, tying for third in the first round at 2.6 seconds ($3,642) before taking the short round outright in 2.3 seconds ($2,890) for a two-head average of 4.9 seconds and $8,194.
A week later, Minor said, it still hasn’t fully landed.
“I’ve been reliving it over and over in my head, watching my run, just trying to let it sink in, and there’s just something about it that still is unbelievable.”
The run she remembers least is the one that won it. Her first-round calf ran slow enough that she says she could hear the entire arena—people on the side, people at the bottom, people across the line. The short round went the other way completely.
“I think I glazed over,” Minor said, “and I’m glad it worked, because I didn’t hear anything.”
A Mare With History
The horse underneath her carried more history than one run could hold. Ciscos French Mojo, known as ‘Mojo,’ is 17 this year and is out of the mare that started her family’s breeding program—a mare Minor’s own mother raised, trained and rode to two circuit championships. Mojo was that mare’s first foal, sired by Frenchmans Falcon, a stud owned by Minor’s aunt and uncle, Butch and Mary Knowles.
“It really makes everyone in the family proud to know she was by their stud out of my mom’s mare—one I raised and trained,” Minor said.
About seven years ago, by Minor’s own account, Mojo lost her left eye in an accident at home. Minor rode her at that first Pendleton with both eyes intact; blind on one side ever since, the mare has carried her back to the short round five times.
“We’ve been very, very lucky there,” Minor said.
Minor doesn’t change much about how she shoes Mojo from rodeo to rodeo—she’s ridden her every year and trusts her. This year was the exception. A wet week at Pendleton had her adding ice nails before she backed into the box.
Family Ties
Her family made the moment feel bigger than the run itself. Minor’s aunts, cousins and sisters keep a booth on the track by the first barrel every year at Pendleton, and after the short round, her mother and sister sent Minor’s two daughters down to meet her.
“That was the best surprise,” Minor said. “I had no idea. I feel like I was just in my own little world in disbelief, and all of a sudden they were right there on the track.”
Minor’s oldest, Monroe, didn’t wait long to claim her mother’s prize.
“My daughter beat me to it that day. She had it on her belt, and I’m like, just a second—can I look at that?”
Getting to that point takes a village, and a very full truck. Minor travels most weekends with her sister Jade, a barrel racer who also made the short round at Pendleton, and Jade’s husband; her father still team ropes and occasionally partners with him. Minor’s own husband, Riley—a longtime NFR-qualifying header from the Minor family’s Ellensburg, Washington, roping dynasty—was competing in Mandan that same weekend and missed the moment in person.
“I wouldn’t want it any other way, because he had to go,” Minor said. “He was still watching. He was just as excited when he got home.”
Her dad was part of the day in more ways than one. He called the calves down the hill during the short round, and year-round he helps tool the saddles Pendleton awards its champions, working alongside saddle maker Blake West.
“There was just a lot, a lot of things involved that made it an unexplainable feeling,” Minor said.
Marrying into a family with its own roping name hasn’t complicated things, Minor said—if anything, it’s made sense of them. She grew up roping alongside her husband’s cousin, Bailey Patterson, and says she’s as close with that side of the family as her own.
“I know that’s what he does, and he knows that’s what I do,” Minor said. “We don’t know anything different.”
The rodeo sent her home with more than a check.
“I was blown away at all the things Pendleton gives you. It’s unreal. You don’t know what to focus most on. There’s the saddle and the buckle and the spurs and just so many things in that bag.”
Her husband has started teasing her about it. Minor recently framed a handful of career photos and realized four of them were from Pendleton alone.
“He was like, I think we know that is your favorite rodeo now, and you’re gonna have to buy another picture.”
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