A year after one of America’s greatest horsemen got his first invitation to the Cinch Timed Event Championships – just to go out with a third-round groin injury – Cade Rice will give up his 2025 invite to Nebraska’s Riley Wakefield.
Unfortunately for Rice, who would love to try to win the $100,000 prize as the Cinch Timed Event Champion of the World, he’s set to compete in his first World’s Greatest Horseman competition, of which the finals in Fort Worth on March 1 is the same day the CTEC wraps up. The dates of the CTEC in Guthrie are February 27 – March 1.
“I’d been gearing up for it,” Rice said. “I was dang sure looking forward to it and working on all the events. But I’ve got a horse that’s capable, and the owners said ‘Go for it.’”
Rice, of Lipan, Texas, had taken Brian and Amy Bush’s cutting-bred roan stallion Jungle Cat to several big wins at heeling futurities in 2023. Insiders think the 8-year-old son of High Brow Cat out of a Peptoboonsmal/Mr Gun Smoke mare has a great chance of helping Rice win the $150,000 prize as the NRCHA’s World’s Greatest Horseman.
“I grew up watching Timed Event tapes and idolizing guys that can do all those events at such a high level,” said Rice, who heeled for Ketch Kelton last year during his Jr Ironman victory. “To win that would mean the world to me. It would be great if the dates were set up so I could compete at both.”
Lazy E’s general manager, Dan Wall, guaranteed the accomplished trainer hasn’t seen his last Timed-Event invitation. Rice is fairly busy this spring, anyway. He and his wife welcomed their baby son Ryle Michael Rice just three weeks ago (joining daughter Rhea Scarlett).
In the meantime, Wakefield of O’Neill, Nebraska, has competed at the past two editions of the CTEC, finishing a remarkable third in 2023 after he was called to substitute for Haven Meged at the last minute.
“This time, I feel like I have plenty of time to prepare,” Wakefield said. “I’ll be spending a full month focusing on all five events every day. And I’ll go down to Texas and get a better live-action feel in the tripping. Last year, I maybe came in thinking I was a tripper. I’d been running steers in my 220-foot-long barn at home.
Which is not the same as spotting the Lazy E’s big, strong steers tail around the end of the gate in that arena.”
Wakefield, 28, grew up competing in three timed events, and spent all summer entering all three in Canada. He got the No. 1 back number at the Canadian Finals Rodeo and just narrowly lost the all-around cowboy championship. He spends the most time working at his tie-down roping, but he also won the steer wrestling at the Pendleton Round-Up in 2022.
Wakefield’s ace in the hole will no doubt be the steer horse called Mississippi that he and his dad bought from Todd Everly. Jess Tierney had ridden him at the NFSR and CTEC when he won in 2017. In fact, the only horse Wakefield might need to borrow is a head horse, he said.
“My horses do their job and stay out of my way,” he said. “My heel horse won’t drag his rear end like Cade’s, but he will pin his ears and go to the cow and let me take as many swings as I want over one.”
Wakefield is clear about the fact that this event means more to him than any rodeo.
“This is what I train for; it’s what I do,” he said. “I try not to put it on a pedestal too much so I can keep the right mindset. In fact, I’d actually rather get the prospect of winning it off my mind. Because it’s something I’ve thought about every single day since my dad took me and my brother to watch when I was 11. We were just a couple of Nebraska farm boys, but we craved it.”
