17-Year-Old Tie-Down Roper Riley Webb Looks to Become Youngest Millionaire in Rodeo History

By: Darci Miller

PUEBLO, Colo. – When Riley Webb was around 6 years old, he roped his first calf.

His parents put on tie-down ropings, and after one such event at Trey Taylor’s arena in Decatur, Texas, Webb was finally allowed to climb aboard a kid’s horse and rope his first calf.

“It was awesome,” Webb recalls. “All the guys, all my dad’s buddies that went to the roping, all the people that were at the roping were there, and everybody was screaming and hollering. It was just awesome to be able to rope, even if I didn’t do it competitively. Roping in general, I love it.”

Now 17 years old, Webb’s love for roping has remained the same, but the stage on which he’s doing it has grown just a touch bigger.

The 2020 National High School Rodeo Association tie-down roping champion won the junior National Finals Rodeo in Fort Worth, Texas, last week and could make history later this month.

Webb has won two consecutive WCRA Majors – Stampede at the E in Guthrie, Oklahoma, last August, and Rodeo Corpus Christi this past May – making him eligible for the WCRA Triple Crown of Rodeo and its $1 million bonus, awarded to any rodeo athlete who wins three straight WCRA Majors.

Should he win at Days of ’47 Cowboy Games & Rodeo on July 20-24 in Salt Lake City, he could become the youngest millionaire in the history of rodeo.

“That’s crazy,” Webb said. “The WCRA has given all the athletes great opportunity to rope at these Majors for crazy money, and then they added the Triple Crown million dollar bonus. That’s ridiculous, to be able to have one more major to go to and run one calf for one million dollars. There’s no words for it. That’s just crazy. They’ve done a great job for all the athletes to give them this opportunity.”

The one caveat is the potential of another athlete also achieving the Triple Crown in the 2021 calendar year. If any of the Rodeo Corpus Christi champions are also victorious at Days of ’47, Webb would have to wait until the final WCRA Major of the year to know if he wins the $1 million outright or splits it with another champion.

But that’s all out of Webb’s control, and he’s been spending his time focusing on what is.

“I’m feeling pretty good. I’ve been roping good lately,” Webb said. “I won the junior NFR last week at Fort Worth and placed a little bit at the amateur rodeos and the junior events going on down here. So I feel good going into Salt Lake, but just been practicing, and hopefully, it turns out.”

 
Webb grew up with a rope in his hand, tagging along with his parents as they put on ropings every weekend.

“I always roped, and I always was there, riding my pony around, messing around, trying to get on calves and stuff,” Webb said. “I always had a rope. That’s what I did. But I played baseball for a little while, and jacked around roping, and not until I was probably about 11 or 12, junior high, was when I was like, ‘This is what I want to do.’”

He spent the next few years exclusively roping, and when he was 15, he began winning junior events and, in his own words, began to take off.

As he’s not yet 18, he still can’t compete at adult rodeos, and at Stampede at the E advanced into the final round out of the WCRA’s Youth Division (DY).

“At the time, I was going to all the open rodeos to nominate to get into that. Back then, I didn’t go to a bunch of open rodeos,” Webb said. “So to be able to nominate the junior events and get in there and be able to win it, and then get to the Major and win it and kick off possibly the Triple Crown, that’s awesome.”

That being said, Webb also appreciates how the open division elevates his game.

“I like roping in the open division because it pushes me to rope better,” he said. “I know I’m roping against guys that are older than me and guys that are going to make me step up to the plate and try to do better.”

In his two WCRA Major victories, Webb has defeated the likes of 2020 world champion Shad Mayfield and 2013 world champion Shane Hanchey. He’s been competing with athletes of that caliber since he was 13 years old, and he says that losing to them only drove him that much harder to succeed.

“We all have to put in the work, and we all practice hard,” Webb said. “It’s our job. Whoever does their job the best that day will win. On any given day, it can be anybody. Anybody can come out on top.”

While a major accomplishment could be looming, Webb has taken a measured approach. He hasn’t thought about his $1 million potential much unless someone asks him about it and has simply been focused on working hard and preparing for the job he has to do.

And when asked what he would do with $1 million, Webb laughed.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “Probably invest it in something, or buy some land. Hopefully we can get it knocked out, and we can worry about that afterwards.”

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