No. 1 Stetson Wright, No. 2 Wacey Schalla set for epic All-Around battle at NFR

Stetson Wright’s 2025 season has been dominated by his race in the all-around with Wacey Schalla.

The 26-year-old Beaver, Utah, cowboy took an early lead over the 19-year-old phenom, but the gap closed in the last few weeks of the season, most notably because of Wright’s injury in Puyallup, Wash., in early September.

He sustained three broken ribs, a collapsed lung and other injuries to his midsection after he was stepped on by a saddle bronc horse after he was bucked off at the Puyallup Rodeo. The injuries kept Wright out the remainder of the season. 

Still, Wright stayed atop the all-around standings with $391,670 in earnings in both saddle bronc riding and the bull riding. In a way, his 2025 performance proved to himself he was still one of the best cowboys in the world after missing the entire 2024 season due to injury.  

“It means I showed back up and I’ve done exactly what I said I was going to do after I got hurt,” Wright said. “I said I wouldn’t come back until I was winning. It wasn’t the best year I’ve ever had, but I feel like I adapted back into rodeo really well after taking 14 months off.”

Wright enters the NFR in the Top 15 in both of his events. Schalla, too. It’s the first time since 2001 that two roughstock cowboys entered the National Finals Rodeo chasing the PRCA All-Around World Championship in the same year.

“My whole goal every year is to outdo what I did last year,” Schalla said. “And just to be able to do that in not one but two events, was everything that I wanted to do. And now it’s time to bring that over into Las Vegas in December.”

Last season, Schalla qualified for the NFR in bull riding and made a run in the all-around race but fell short under the bright lights of the Thomas & Mack Center.

He enters the Finals this year atop the PRCA | Bill Fick Ford World Standings in bull riding and 13th in the bareback riding standings. Schalla said competing in two events at almost every stop this season has helped him lock in behind the chutes, a trend he hopes to continue in his second trip to Las Vegas.

“I love (competing) on the same day in both events,” Schalla said. “So just to be there to get on my bareback horse and kind of knock the edge off and then go at them in the bull riding is actually what I like. I prefer to get on in two events, so I had to make that happen this year.”
 
“Winning the all-around years before, it was kind of decided before we got to the Finals,” Wright said. “Now, I think it’s so good to be able to win a gold buckle going in with an actual race, that’s going to make a statement for the type of cowboys one of us are. It’s super exciting going in with Wacey.”

Making history is something Wright has become accustomed to in his career. A PRCA member since 2018, he’s already claimed eight gold buckles (five in the all-around, two in bull riding and one in saddle bronc) in nine trips to the NFR. In 2022 he won the average title.

This season has been a career year for Wright. Before his injury, he was well on his way to breaking the regular season single-event earnings record he set in 2023. That year, he had $368,630 in earnings. His 2025 season came to an early end with $350,174 in earnings.

Now healthy, Wright’s focus shifts to Las Vegas. The Thomas & Mack Center has been friendly to him throughout his career. He hopes the time away from rodeo to heal will allow him to enter Las Vegas fresh and ready to chase down more gold buckles.

“One thing I learned with the last injury is take your time to heal,” Wright said. “I’m chasing a bull riding and bronc riding gold buckle. If do that everything else will fall into place.”

Schalla is narrowing his focus entering this year’s NFR and trying not to make the culminating event in the sport of rodeo any bigger in his mind.

“At the end of the day, it’s another rodeo that adds a lot of money,” Schalla said. “So you get ten chances to do the best you can and hopefully come out with the gold buckles. I’m not planning on changing anything other than keeping my head on straight and being there in two events, I think will actually help out a lot.”

–PRCA