Rodeo roots run deep in families. The love of this cowboy game is a tradition that tends to be handed down from one generation to the next. Paul Tierney and Chance Kelton are certainly not the only high-profile dads with sons on this year’s Cinch Timed Event Championship presented by Smarty Rodeo roster. But they’re two of the most experienced when it comes to advice directly gained from their own days in that CTEC arena at the Lazy E.

Trevor Brazile is the Timed Event king with seven titles to his credit. But with eight CTEC championships between them, the Tierney boys are the winningest family. Patriarch Paul has won four of the coveted Rodeo Ironman crowns in three different decades; son Jess won the 2017 Timed Event; and little brother Paul David took his third CTEC victory lap last year.
So, what does it take to win this thing?
“Good help and good horses,” Paul said. “You don’t want to take the second team to this one. The team roping cattle really ran last year. A second-rate head horse would not have cut it. I would say you better have strong personnel and A-team-type horses.”

Only 19 men have ever topped the Timed Event marathon since Leo Camarillo won the first one 40 years ago in 1985. What sets these winners apart from the rest?
“You have to be a good cowboy with good horses to stand a chance,” Tierney said. “When you make 25 runs, things go good and things go bad. You’ve got to be able to improvise instantaneously when things don’t go according to plan. You can’t kick the tires and get mad at yourself. Sometimes, there’s a disaster. I saw Trevor Brazile take a 60 (no time) on his first run in the heading, and come back and win it one year. That’s the kind of stuff that can happen at this event.”
Are elite all-around cowboys born or made?
“Definitely made,” Tierney continued. “As time goes on, you do more of this and more of that. When both of my boys were sophomores in high school, I said, ‘We’re going to start bulldogging this year.’ They said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘Because you might want to go to the Timed Event one day.’ It’s a lot easier to learn to bulldog at 16 than 26.
“Back in my day, roping calves and bulldogging was the most common road to being an all-around cowboy. Very few guys do that now. More of them rope calves and team rope today.”

Is success at the Timed Event more physical or mental?
“Both,” said Tierney, who was the 1980 world champion all-around cowboy and also won a world tie-down roping title in 1979. “You can’t just get by physically or mentally. You’re trying to win $100,000 competing in events you don’t do all the time. The steer roping was the hardest event for me, and that’s always the last event. So I had to close the deal in my hardest event. When it comes to being physically and mentally tough, you can’t have one without the other. You have to be both.”
Papa Paul says it was harder to watch his sons compete at the Timed Event in their early years than doing it himself. But by now he’s an old CTEC parent pro.
“There was some anxiety watching my boys do it for the first time,” he said. “It’s not as hard now, because they’ve been there so many times now. I’m proud of our family.”
As is Dad Kelton of his. Chance headed at three-straight Wrangler National Finals Rodeos—he qualified all three years with Brent Lockett, but roped with Monty Joe Petska at the third one in 2000 after Lockett broke his leg at the last rodeo of the regular season at San Francisco’s Cow Palace that year. Kelton also qualified for five National Finals Steer Ropings in his cowboy career.
Kelton threw his name in the Timed Event hat 14 times, from 1999 through 2012. He also raised 2025 CTEC rookie Ketch Kelton, who won the Jr Ironman the last two years. Ketch, who turned 19 on February 22, is currently a freshman at Cisco (Texas) College.
While Paul Tierney thinks all-around cowboys are made, Chance Kelton sees his son as born to be one.
“I think they’re born, because Ketch was just a natural,” Chance said. “Whatever I showed him, he could do it. I like to do all the events, so I wanted my kid to do them, too. I wish all kids would do all the events, so they could see what they’re made of.”

The Jr Ironman consists of three rounds in four events—heading, heeling, tie-down roping and steer wrestling—whereas the Timed Event is five rounds in five events, which also include steer roping. Not a problem.
“I think Ketch ran his first steer roping steer when he was 12 or 13,” Chance remembers. “I always had steer roping horses, and slow cattle. He’s tripped a bunch.
“Ketch has worked his whole life getting ready for the Timed Event. It’s kind of cool for your kid to grow up doing the same things you did. My best advice to him going into his first one is to stay grounded and just go through the basics, step by step. The guys who put in the work get it done at the Timed Event.”
NFR switch-ender Colter Todd will help Ketch in the heading and heeling, and fellow Timed Event titan Tyler Pearson will haze.

“Ketch loves to go catch wild cattle with Derrick (Begay) and Colter,” Chance said. “It’s pretty handy watching. Colter has been very good to my kid. He’s Ketch’s hero. I think my kid asks Colter more questions than he does me.”
The plan is for Ketch to ride big sister Kenzie’s head horse, Peaches; more than likely his own heel horse/calf horse combo, Happy Meal; Damian Padilla’s blue roan bulldogging horse; and one of past Timed Event cowboy Scott Snedecor’s steer horses.
How does Dad like his son’s chances as a CTEC rookie?
“It’s tough to bet against him,” Chance said. “That arena’s been good to Ketch. I’m all-in.”
