T.J. Gray placed on all seven bulls he rode during the National Finals Rodeo. He won the average championship, which included a $94,000 payday, and earned $295,665 during his 10-day stay in Las Vegas to also win the Top Gun award. He finished his second straight NFR as the reserve world champion bull rider.
(PRCA PHOTO BY LARA ST JACQUES)

 

Oregon bull rider pockets nearly $300k in 10 days at NFR

T.J. Gray has had a December to remember.

Gray was a magician on the backs of some of the rankest bulls in professional rodeo during the week and a half of the National Finals Rodeo, the sport’s grand finale at Las Vegas. He tested his skills and his mental approach over 10 rides and came out as the best of them all over that stretch.

“I was a little more relaxed and had a lot more fun,” said Gray, 24, of Dairy, Oregon. “I think having fun works for me.”

It certainly did in Sin City. He rode seven bulls for a cumulative score of 610.5 points to win the NFR average title, with a bonus of $94,000. He won three rounds and finished no worse than fourth over the other four nights in which he had a qualified eight-second ride. For all that, he finished the championship with $295,665 in Las Vegas earnings.

He did that in just 10 days and finished the season second in the world standings with $513,810, about $33,000 behind the world champion, Utah cowboy Stetson Wright. Gray also won the Top Gun award for having the highest earnings in a single event, beating out a field of 118 cowboys and cowgirls competing in a variety of disciplines; he also snagged some nice gifts with the Top Gun, including a $20,000 voucher to be used toward a new vehicle.

“I’m not going to complain about winning money, but I wouldn’t say I’m necessarily money driven,” Gray said. “It’s not the money that excites me about it, but more, I just love the competition. That’s what drives me. However, Chase Dougherty won the Top Gun in 2018. When he did it, I thought, ‘I’ve got to do that one day.’

“Chase is another Oregon cowboy, and I thought it was very cool. It’s a very prestigious award, because not only are you the best bull rider that week, but you are making more than all the other events. I’m pretty proud of that one, too.”

He got there by riding the most animals of any bull rider, which is no small feat. Their bovine counterparts are athletic, too, and outweigh the cowboys by 1,400 to 1,800 pounds. Three men rode six bulls, while there were three others that rode five.

“Riding only seven bulls leaves room for improvement,” he said. “We’ll see what next year brings.”

The top bulls make things more difficult, even for rodeo’s elite. Only three men have ridden all 10 at the NFR since its inception in 1959, and the last to do it was Brazilian Adriano Moraes in 1994.

“Quite a bit of people also agreed that we had a pretty good NFR as far as having a lot of guys staying on in most rounds,” said Gray, who also secured bigger paychecks in certain rounds because of ground money; the NFR pays out more than $118,000 per night over six placings, and if only a handful of cowboys ride, the rest of the money goes to those that made the whistle.

“That makes me happy that the competition was as good as it was. To be able to stay on more than anyone else is pretty cool.”

There were three go-rounds that featured fewer than six qualified rides, and Gray won two of them. Only two cowboys rode in Round 7, when the Oregon cowboy matched moves with McCoy Rodeo’s Blue Duck for 90.5 points; Gray earned $63,000. Only four cowboys made it in Round 9, when he was 78.75 points on Smith Pro Rodeo’s Mellow Yellow to finish fourth worth $19,000, and four more made it when he won Round 10 with an 89.5-point ride on Rosser Rodeo’s Mr. Priefert, valued at $40,512.

When he rode, he placed, which is why he cornered the market inside the Thomas & Mack Center. He did have a lonely stretch, though, bucking off in Rounds 3-5.

“The first two were legit buck-offs,” he said. “The third one, I got in my head, and I started trying to overcomplicate it. Fortunately, I picked up on what I was doing. You’ve got to have fun and quit thinking about it.”

He reeled off five checks in a row to close his 2025 campaign. In that stretch along, he earned $174,764 in go-round money.

“It helps to not overthink things,” Gray said. “Don’t worry about the outcome. I told myself, ‘I don’t care if I fall of the next five, we’re just going to enjoy it no matter what,’ and it turned around pretty fast.”

As with any athlete, a good mental approach is vital when doing things physically. The muscle memory and fundamentals are already in place, so taking a simplified approach to business is the best way to handle the tasks at hand.

Consider this: Gray did all this while competing with an ankle injury that pestered him half the year. In early June, he was hung up to Corey & Lange Rodeo’s Tiny Tornado at the Sisters (Oregon) Rodeo Xtreme Bull Riding, and the bull stepped on his lower leg. Gray suffered a crack in his fibula in his ankle, and two weeks later, surgeons place a metal plate and screws to stabilize the fracture.

He went back to riding and earned enough to qualify for the NFR for the second straight year, but there was something else wrong. Gray contracted an infection in that ankle. He had surgery after the finale to remove the infection, but he was still slowed a little by the swelling caused by the ailment.

“I think I limped just because I’m a sissy,” he said with a laugh. “The bone is healed, and I’m walking around fine. I wasn’t really in much pain; it was more that it swelled up on me and was weak. It wasn’t like it ever hurt. It just wasn’t strong enough to run on.”

He was certainly running through the competition. With the average championship comes a trophy saddle and a buckle. Outside winning a world championship, winning the aggregate title is the second most prestigious in Pro Rodeo.

“I’m not usually one that gets super excited about buckles, but as soon as I got my average buckle, I had it on my belt in about 30 seconds,” Gray said. “When I was having that rough patch and as good as everyone was riding, I thought that was not going to be in the cards this year. Then, it worked out for me, and by the end was looking like it could be. It all came down to the last night. I knew whoever did the best that night was going to win it.”

To the victor goes the spoils. Most importantly, it helped the Oregon cowboy build on his confidence as he points his rodeo wagon toward the 2026 campaign.

“I’m just going to stay focused on doing the same thing, and that’s to let the Lord guide me as far as He can,” Gray said. “I’m not necessarily goal-driven, but I know what I’m capable of. I know I can go as far as I can in this game, but instead of doing it for my own desires, I’m just going to let it happen in God’s timing.

“Coming into this next year, I’m going to just trust God’s timing.”