Carlee Otero has broken the Wilderness Circuit single-season earnings record with $54,669.67 and sits No. 6 in the WPRA World Standings with $151,560 as of Sept. 24.
The four-time NFR qualifier from Perrin, Texas, designated the Wilderness Circuit for 2025 after rodeoing in her home-state circuit in years past. The ProRodeo Playoff Series was a driving force for the change.
“Since rodeoing is evolving and we’re chasing Playoff points, we are out in that area longer than we are in Texas,” Otero said. “It just makes sense because we go to so many rodeos out there; we’re there more months out of the year than we’re at home. It turned out better than I had even expected.”
Other than location and logic, the money mattered.
“They all pay so good out there,” she said. “Going into the summer run and getting ready for the circuit rodeos out there, I was like, ‘If I could place in the top five at 75% of the rodeos, I’m going to make (the Wilderness Circuit Finals). Any rodeo out there—Spanish Fork, Ogden—it doesn’t matter, you’re going to win several thousand dollars. Once I started placing consistently, I knew I was super close.’”
During ProRodeo’s Utah Pioneer Week—when Spanish Fork Fiesta Days Rodeo, Salt Lake City’s Days of ’47 Rodeo and Ogden Pioneer Days run—Otero added more than $28,000 to her circuit total, effectively sealing a Wilderness Circuit Finals appearance.
With major Wilderness stops feeding her run to a Top 15 spot, Otero said strategic entering became a precarious balancing act—one she leaves to her husband, NFR tie-down roper Michael Otero.
“Michael does all the entering,” she said. “He’s really good at it. I always question him, I always argue with him, and I always think he is not entering enough. This year I was like, ‘I don’t have (Blingolena), so you need to enter me in some smaller rodeos,’ and he said, ‘I don’t think you need to, I think you’re going to be fine.’ I panicked pretty much all year long.”
The preseason goal was simply to give herself a shot at the circuit finals Nov. 7–8 in Heber City, Utah.
“Our strategy was basically, ‘I would love a chance to make the circuit finals this year; I am not sure I have the horsepower to make the NFR,’” Otero said. “Then, when things started falling together, I was like, ‘I think I can make the NFR and make the circuit finals,’ so we just started entering from that point on to try to accommodate both.”
The turning point came at the Calgary Stampede, where she won $15,000. That result kept the family on the road and shifted the target to Playoff points for Puyallup and the Governor’s Cup.
“It was probably at Calgary that we were like, OK, we’re going to go ahead and stay out here and enter more, bigger rodeos than we planned on,” she said. “At that point in time, Michael was really close to the top 15 as well, so we made the decision to stay out and instead of just making the circuit finals, we were going to chase Playoff points for Puyallup and the Governor’s Cup.”
Assisting in achieving her 2025 NFR goals are two mares who Otero has been seasoning to the outdoor elements this season.
“The two horses that I have came from indoor futurities, derbies, and indoor jackpots,” she explained. “I was just going to ride them and see what happened, and it turned out that both of them really excelled in the outdoor pens but then showed up at Nampa and still did well. I was extremely blessed to say that both horses did well in any set up for me this year.”
AM Regina George, “Regina George”, is a 2018 palomino daughter of A Smooth Guy out of Oro Rose, a granddaughter of the infamous Dash For Cash. Trained by Brittany Hill, the mare was turned out nearly two years before Otero legged her back up.
“[The plan] was to go out with Michael this year and go to Calgary since I had qualified and just wait and see what happens with Sly for 2026,” Otero said. “Then right after Nampa, the opportunity came for me to buy Regina. At that point, I hadn’t done great on her; she clocked well at Nampa, and we were headed to Reno, and I was like, ‘I’d rather own her.’ Then we went to Reno, and I feel like from the time I paid for her on, she started lighting it up. She’s a blessing; I’m super glad she’s ours.”
Cathys Kandy, “Twix”, is a 2018 buckskin daughter of The Kandyman and out of an own daughter of Frenchmans Guy. Coming from smaller Kentucky setups, Twix needed time to feel her best on the road, then took Otero to second at Salinas, a win at Lehi, Utah, and into the short round at Cheyenne.
“She was going to be my main horse, but adjusting to the road is hard,” Otero said. “She wasn’t feeling her best at the beginning. But every time I ran her, she was picking up checks.”
Otero also credited the people who make the Wilderness Circuit what it is.
“The committees out there in the Wilderness Circuit are the best around, honestly,” she said. “They want the ground good; they want all of us happy—not just for our event, but for all of them. I’m just happy to be there.”
Otero’s unofficially over the threshold for the Wilderness Circuit ProRodeo barrel racing earnings in a single season, after Sue Smith’s remarkable 2023 season, where she cleaned up over $51K within the circuit.
Next up: Sioux Falls for the Governor’s Cup. After that, Otero and her mares get a month before Heber City—and a chance to extend a record that’s already in the books.