It’s been two years since Montana’s Chase Brooks has gotten to represent The Treasure State in the grand entry or ride a bucking horse in the Thomas & Mack Center.
He came close to competing for a gold buckle at the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo on both of those occasions finishing in 23rd and 18th place. This year, he has a new outlook and is hoping to make it back to Las Vegas for his seventh opportunity to ride for the coveted gold buckle awarded to the world’s champions.
As of August 1, Chase was in ninth place in the world standings with less than two months left in the regular season and while he’s not safe, he is fighting to stay inside the top 15 and believes the odds are in his favor.
He grew up in Deer Lodge with summers near Browning. His father rode bucking horses, but more importantly is a ranching cowboy that raised Chase and his brother, Dalton, on the backs of horses.
Mom, Shannon, is a school teacher that did not have an easy time getting them through school. Chase graduated from Powell High School where he played football, basketball and wrestled a bit. He always knew he wanted to compete in rodeos and initially thought he would ride bulls. At five feet and six inches tall and weighing around 160 pounds, he definitely is built for that.
When he was old enough to get on big bulls, he decided that wasn’t his jam. He had spent summers on ranches near Browning, Montana where Truman “Mouse” Hall raised bucking horses and put on a summer rodeo. The decision to ride bucking horses came naturally. The ability to do it and win did not.
Chase has always been athletic and spent plenty of time in the gym working on his physical fitness. He competed in team roping, bull riding and other events growing up. When he put all of his eggs in one basket, he found that saddle bronc riding was the most difficult thing he tried.
“It got expensive hauling a horse around, and was easier to throw a saddle in a car and go to the rodeo,” he said. “I tried it and it was the hardest thing I’d ever done. But I really liked the challenge.”
While his time in the classroom hadn’t been a priority, becoming a student of saddle bronc riding was and still is. He went to a school that NFR qualifiers Shaun Stroh and Dusty Haussauer put on, and another in Canada by Rod Hay.
“I tried to get to as many schools as I could afford,” Chase explained. “But you don’t really go to a school and figure out bronc riding. You learn all the tools at the school. If you go home, put them to use and get on your spur board like it’s an obsession, that’s where the technique and everything comes from. You just pretend until it starts to take off.”
For Chase as well as other bronc riders, that process is often slow, humbling and character building. He joined the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association just after high school in 2013. The next year, he won just under $4,000. Each year, his earnings climbed until he earned his first spot at the NFR in 2018 where he finished eighth in the world.
He then qualified for rodeo’s championships for six consecutive years, the last time in 2023 where he pulled his hamstring in round nine and had to miss the winter rodeos in 2024. Injuries and failure are a part of every rodeo competitor’s story, but not all of them look at that as a blessing.
“Missing the Finals helped me in a lot of ways,” he explained. “My identity was as a bronc rider. That was who I was and sitting at home injured and sitting at home during the NFR made me realize there’s so much more to life. It was the lesson I didn’t know I needed.”
Chase remembers the first bucking horse he rode successfully, the first check he got at a professional rodeo and the first buckle he won. He doesn’t take any of it for granted and treasures those memories now more than ever. He’s been training with Doug Champion – Champion Living since 2021, while keeping his body in shape in many ways he learned playing other sports. Together, this program has helped with specifics for saddle bronc riding.
This year is stacking up to be one of his best ever and that’s not just because of what is happening in the arena. Chase has been traveling with his wife, Cara, and their two daughters, CJ and Ceelie. Ceelie hasn’t gotten to be on stage with dad at the NFR Welcome Reception where the treasured back numbers are given. Chase really wants to have that experience with her. And whether or not that happens, he will be grateful.
“I don’t think that it’s anything but God’s timing,” he said of another trip to Las Vegas. “I think everything is planned with Him and it’s easy to see His story come together when you’re not in the thick of it. It’s tough. I feel like He always tests you and He wants you to be better. The only way to be better is to learn a lesson. Especially for me. I’m a pretty hard-headed guy, so learning a lesson takes quite a bit.”
Those lessons have consequences in and out of the arena and Chase is working hard to be the best that he can be.
“Making the NFR is cool. It’s a dream to get to do it,” he said. “But, not having your world revolve around that makes you realize that there are more important things to do. I just want to follow God as closes as I can, glorify Him through everything I do, be a great dad and husband and lead my family to knowing Him too. That’s the most important thing beyond anything in the world.”
From wanting to be the best saddle bronc rider he can be to being the best human that he can be, Chase Brooks is a work in progress. Never one to take the easy road, he was drawn to the saddle bronc riding because of his love of horses and the challenge. And he works at all of it every day.
“I figure I’m never going to be as good as I want to be,” he said. “I’m always going to keep trying.”