Tough Draw Tuesday: Jacob Lees Keeps Building
- Kaycie Timm
- Jul 14
- 9 min read
Jacob Lees did not grow up chasing rodeo because it was the family business.
He came from a ranching background, but no one in his family rodeoed. His first real connection to the sport came through a television screen in California, watching Chris Shivers ride bulls in the PBR.
“From that moment on I thought, ‘I want to be a bull rider. That’s what I want to do,’” Lees said.
That dream stayed with him, even when rodeo was not easy to access. After his family moved to Alaska, where rodeo opportunities were limited, Lees never fully let go of that dream. When he returned to California, he started finding ways to be around the sport.
He saved money. He bought his own equipment. He found places to practice. He started getting on bulls.
“I just kept going to rodeos,” Lees said. “I kept on my parents about it, kept on doing what I could to be around it. Saved up money, bought a bull rope, and started going out to Gary Leffew’s house to get on bulls. After a year of doing that, I found bareback riding and saved up some more money, bought a rigging, and started getting on bareback horses.”
There was no perfect roadmap. No guaranteed path. Just one decision after another.
That is part of what makes Lees’ current season stand out.
Today, he is one of the top bareback riders in the world, sitting No. 2 in the PRCA Bareback Riding World Standings with $171,279 in season earnings. His 2026 run has included major wins, consistent checks, and a strong Calgary Stampede showing, including an 86.5-point ride to win Round 3, an 86-point ride to place third in Round 2, and a 90.5-point ride on Watermoon Moonshine in the finals to earn second overall and a $20,000 check at the prestigious Canadian rodeo.
He has also built momentum across the summer with wins at Basin City Freedom Rodeo, Western Stampede, Old Santa Ynez Days Rodeo, and Round 1 of the Snake River Stampede.
The results are easy to see. The foundation behind them took years to build.
Finding His Lane
Although Lees’ path into rodeo began with bull riding, bareback riding eventually became the event he chose to pursue fully.
In college, he still consistently entered bull riding while also competing in bareback riding, trying to make a run at an all-around title. Still, he knew bareback riding was where his focus needed to stay.
“Bareback riding was just something that I really, really loved,” Lees said. “I loved the bull riding. I would love if I rode bulls better, but I just never wanted to put the work into it like I wanted to put the work into bareback riding.”
That clarity mattered.
Bareback riding became the place where Lees could put in the work, develop his own style and build the kind of consistency required to compete at the highest level. He describes his style as a combination of riders he has studied and learned from, while still recognizing that every rider has to become his own version of himself.
“I really believe that pretty much everyone has their own style,” Lees said. “You can emulate guys that you like, but it’s really hard to ride exactly like someone else unless you’re built exactly like them.”
That mindset reflects the way Lees has approached much of his career. Learn from others, but do not copy them. Take what applies, build from it, and keep improving.
Learning From Missed Opportunities
In 2024, Lees earned the Indian National Finals (INFR) Bareback Riding World Championship, a title that carried personal meaning through his Alaska Native background on his mother’s side.
“My Native heritage is something that I’ve always been pretty proud of,” Lees said.
Winning the title also gave him confidence. The INFR is a different association and a different setting, but for Lees, the title still represented being the best among a strong group of competitors.
“To have that title that I was the best of the best that year means a lot,” he said.
But the following season brought a different kind of lesson.
In 2025, Lees narrowly missed qualifying for the National Finals Rodeo (NFR). After making the NFR two years in a row, he admitted there may have been moments where it felt easier to assume it would happen again.
Looking back, he saw the season differently.
“I learned a lot,” Lees said. “I don’t want to say that I put it on cruise control, but you just feel that at a point, it’s just going to be easy from there.”
He did not blame the draw, the season, or anyone else. Instead, he looked at the small chances that could have changed the outcome.
“I can think of a fair few mistakes that I made at rodeos, and I had really good chances,” Lees reflected. “I was so close to making it. If I would have not made those mistakes, maybe put in that extra work I was putting in before, then I would have been at the NFR in 2025.”
That perspective became part of what shaped his 2026 season.
“You really have to take advantage of every chance,” Lees explained. “At the beginning of the year, you’re looking down the line and you can see you really have to take advantage of every rodeo you go to, especially with the caliber of guys going down the road these days. It’s not just going to happen without putting in the effort.”
For Lees, missing the NFR was not the end of the story. It became part of the foundation for the next one. Even after missing the 2025 qualification, Lees still went to Las Vegas to honor sponsor obligations he had already made.
“It sucked to not make it, but I still felt like I had to go and be there,” he said. “My sponsors stand behind me all year. I need to stand behind them as best I can whenever I can, and I told them I’d be there, so I wanted to be there.”
That decision says as much about Lees as any score or ranking. He values the people and businesses that stand behind him no matter what.
Building Momentum
The lessons learned in 2025 have helped Lees put his 2026 season on track.
Lees has put together one of the strongest stretches of his career, building momentum through June, Cowboy Christmas, and the Calgary Stampede. He entered July sitting near the top of the world standings and has continued to add to a season that has already exceeded several of the goals he set for himself.
Still, he is careful not to let the standings take over his mindset.
“I try to just take every horse as it is,” Lees said. “It could all be over at any point. You never know what’s around the corner.”
That approach has helped him manage both the highs and lows of a long rodeo season.
“When you’re riding good, it’s easy to keep on building on that confidence,” Lees said. “You just can’t get in it too much because the wheel’s only on top for so long.”
For Lees, the goal is not to ride the highs too hard or let the lows last too long. Instead, he strives to keep moving, keep working, and keep adding to what he has already built.
One of his biggest goals for the season was to reach $100,000 before July. He crossed that mark early. Another goal was to be No. 1 in the world at some point during the year. He reached that, too.
“I love crossing off goals,” Lees said. “As you break them, you can just make some new ones.”
That mindset fits the title of this season for Lees. Even with a No. 2 world ranking, more than $171,000 in season earnings, and a list of major wins behind him, he is still building.
The Team Behind the Season
As Lees’ success has grown, so has the importance of the people around him.
His family has become an even bigger part of life on the road. Lees and his wife, Chelsea, have a daughter, Nevada, and becoming a father has changed the way he looks at travel, downtime, and the moments between rodeos.
“It means the world to me for my family to be able to come with me,” Lees said. “I was told my whole life, as soon as you have a little girl, everything changes, and it really, really has.”
When his family is able to travel with him, it gives Lees something steady in the middle of a demanding season.
“It’s changed everything so much,” he said. “It’s gone from just wanting to hang out with the boys all the time to now just wanting to hang out with my family.”
That support system extends beyond family.
Lees also approaches his sponsors and partners with a team mindset. His current partners include TrueVet Services, ProHats, American Bonfire, Fenoglio Boots, Kirfaru, Caldwell Night Rodeo, and Kimes Ranch, with TrueVet carrying a specific connection to values deeply rooted in rodeo culture.
“I think that rodeo is probably one of the most patriotic sports, if not the most patriotic sport,” Lees said. “We really back our first responders. We really support the troops. Anthem before every rodeo, pray before every rodeo, and it really is an American sport.”
For Lees, partnering with TrueVet is about more than wearing a patch. It is about aligning with a company that supports veterans after they have served.
“To be able to partner with a company like TrueVet that really takes care of our veterans after they’ve already served this country in such a big way really makes you appreciative,” he said.
That same sense of appreciation carries into how he views sponsorship as a whole. Lees knows what it feels like to need help staying on the road. He remembers the seasons when sponsor support made a real difference, and he does not take that lightly.
“I’ve been in a position a lot where if I didn’t have those sponsors backing me, it would be really hard to keep on getting down the road,” Lees reflected.
That is why he does not view rodeo as an individual effort, even in an event where one rider is the one climbing over the chute gate.
“It’s really a team effort when it really comes down to the whole traveling side of it and getting to the rodeos, entering the rodeos,” Lees said. “It all comes down to one big team.”
For Tough Draw Sports, that mindset is part of what makes Lees such a natural fit. His success is not disconnected from his character. The way he rides, the way he honors his obligations, the way he values his family, and the way he treats his partners all point back to the same foundation.
Consistency in the Hard Places
When asked about consistency, Lees did not define it by how well a rider can perform on the best horses. He defined it by what a rider can do with the difficult ones.
“I think consistency is just being able to ride the really good horses, the really nice horses, and also the really nasty ones that people don’t want to get on,” Lees said.
That perspective comes from experience. Early in his career, Lees did not always have access to perfect practice horses or ideal opportunities. He got on what he could, when he could.
Looking back, he believes those rides helped shape him.
“There wasn’t a ton of practice pens around when I was starting out, and so I got on a lot of really undesirable animals,” Lees shared. “Looking back, I think it was better for me because I have a lot of experience getting on those horses that people don’t want to get on.”
That kind of background matters in a season like this one.
At the top of the world standings, the difference is often small. The best riders in the world can win on great horses. The separation comes when a rider can still make something happen on a horse that does not set him up perfectly.
Lees understands that.
Sometimes, consistency means making the most of the moment in front of him. Sometimes, it means knowing when to make a smart decision for the long run. Either way, it comes back to the same lesson he carried from missing the NFR: every opportunity matters.
Still Building
Jacob Lees’ current season is easy to frame through numbers.
No. 2 in the world. More than $171,000 in season earnings. A second-place finish at the Calgary Stampede. Wins across major rodeos. Momentum that has carried him through one of the most important stretches of the summer.
But those numbers are only part of the story.
Lees’ path has been built through years of ordinary decisions: saving money for gear, finding places to practice, learning from other riders, honoring sponsor commitments, missing the NFR, learning from it, and coming back with a sharper understanding of what every opportunity requires.
He did not inherit a rodeo path. He built one.
And even in the strongest season of his career, Lees still talks like someone who knows there is more work ahead.
“I’m just going to keep on going at it the way I have been going at it,” he said. “Staying up on my training when I get some downtime, trying to keep my head level, leaning on my family, and just keep on keeping on.”
That may be what defines this chapter of his career more than anything.
Jacob Lees is treating this season like proof that the foundation is working. And he is still building.
Continue the Conversation
This week’s Tough Draw Tuesday was inspired by a recent conversation with Jacob Lees on Tough Draw Talks.
Lees shared more about his path into rodeo, the lessons that shaped his 2026 season, the people who continue to influence him, and the mindset behind one of the strongest years of his career.
Listen to the full conversation now on Tough Draw Talks on Spotify, Apple, or anywhere you stream podcasts.
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