Updated for the 2026 National Finals Rodeo.
Katelyn Scott qualified for her second National Finals Rodeo in 2026, finishing the regular season No. 11 in the world after winning the Pendleton Round-Up average on Streak N Liza.
Two years earlier she was planning to circuit rodeo. From 2020 through 2023 she entered Cheyenne every year and turned out every time. Then her sister started finding her horses.
“Every horse I’m running right now, she has a hand in. She knows what fits me,” Scott said.
Where she comes from
Scott’s mom kept her mounted early, on a horse her mom trained that went back to bloodlines from Scott’s great-aunt, Margaret Owens Montgomery, the first president of the Girls Rodeo Association, the organization that became the WPRA. When her parents divorced and Scott moved in with her dad, her barrel career fell to the side.
“I always continued to run the barrels. I just wasn’t very good, but I always strived to get back there,” Scott said. “I had people along the way that helped mount me, that leased me barrel horses.”
She worked everything else in the meantime.
“I worked all the events in high school: roping, cutting, team roping, poles, goat tying,” Scott said.
She won the pole bending at the 2008 Texas State Finals. She rodeoed three years at Odessa College and a fourth at Eastern New Mexico University, and she made the College National Finals three times, in the breakaway her first year and in the goat tying her second and fourth.
She credits both parents.
“The discipline she instilled in all of her kids, of getting up and taking care of things, I’m incredibly grateful for,” Scott said.
Her dad’s lesson came in high school, on a day she was complaining.
“He told me, ‘Do you ever hear me complain about getting up, going to work?’ And I said, ‘No.’ And he says, ‘That’s because I love what I do every day. I have hard days, but I love it,’” Scott said. “It impacted my life because after that, I still complain. I’m definitely not perfect. But when I get to the barn, I love what I do. I love the horses. I love how the horses have connected me to people that I would’ve never met before.”
The long way back to the road
Her next great horse came through Sue Barrington, who mentored her. Live From New York was one of the last horses Barrington trained. Scott filled her WPRA permit on him at a barrel race called Wrapping Up a Cure in Andrews, Texas, and her first ProRodeo check came at Coleman, Texas.
“Sue actually passed away from breast cancer,” Scott said. “So it was a very, I would say, bittersweet win.”
In 2012 her husband, Cody Scott, bought a 2-year-old Shining Spark-bred colt to be a rope horse. A couple of years later she started him on the barrels, and Shiny Gold Bid put her back on the road. She placed on him at ProRodeos in 2016. In 2017 her friend Kaylee Richardson talked her into entering Nampa, Spanish Fork and that run of rodeos, and then Richardson’s horse got hurt. Scott went anyway. She won a round at Nampa, placed in the second round at Cheyenne and placed at Spanish Fork.
“I blame her for entering me up,” Scott said. “And then I got to go out there and I did good. And it kind of put the bug in me.”
In 2018 she hauled hard on Shiny Gold Bid and KN Born This Way, a mare trained by Jolene Montgomery, and placed at Pendleton on the mare. She went hard again in 2019, and it did not go well.
“I had another really good horse that I thought was really going to take to the rodeos, and he hung his leg in the fence and I had to put him down,” Scott said. “At that point, I knew the Lord was doing something different in my life. I wasn’t sure what that looked like, but it was definitely different.”
She spent the next few years at amateur rodeos.
“I kind of joke, I entered Cheyenne in 2020, 2021, ’22 and ’23, I’m pretty sure, and turned out of all of ’em,” Scott said. “I kept thinking I’m going to get to go out, and every year it wasn’t meant to be.”
In 2023 Letta Trouble Doit placed for her at the Stephenville qualifier for RodeoAustin and won the UPRA finals. She planned to enter ProRodeos on him in 2024, and then he needed knee surgery. Merritt had a gelding in mind.
The horses
Streak N Liza, the gelding she calls Twiz, came first.
“I always tell people, don’t ask me to pick a horse,” Scott said. “Streak N Liza, I told my sister I wasn’t interested. He looked slow to me. He picked his feet up too high off the ground. I didn’t think he could run. He is one of the fastest horses I’ve ever rode, so don’t listen to me if I tell you.”
She drove to the Calgary Stampede qualifier in Logandale, Nev., in 2024 to run a different horse, and he never made it into the arena. She had Twiz entered, too. He took her to the 2024 Calgary Stampede, where she won the first round of Pool B and ran third in the four-horse Showdown.
“I would’ve just told (you in) 2024, I was just going to circuit rodeo,” Scott said. “But the Lord knew different.”
Twiz went to the vet in June 2025 with an injury nobody could pin down and came back Aug. 29 at Plains, Mont. He ran Round 8 at her first NFR, and in 2026 he was second in the short round at Tucson and won the Pendleton Round-Up.
Watchthefreakfly, the mare she calls Baby Cakes, runs left like Twiz, and the two look alike. Baby Cakes won the 2024 Turquoise Circuit Finals average in Camp Verde, Ariz., and made the run at Pasadena on the last weekend of 2025.
Justa DTF Frenchman (Aint Seen Nothin Yet x Madeline Spade 410 x Justa Hickory Spade), Peanut Seed, is a 2015 palomino gelding owned by her sister, Lorissa Jo Merritt. Crystal McIntyre futuritied him and Jessica Anderson campaigned him in Texas, and he had never been hauled across the country before Merritt made one run on him and shipped him to Scott right before the Fourth of July 2025.
“His name was Peanut, but we didn’t change his, we just added Seed, because my sister told me this may not take the faith of a mustard seed. It may be the size of a peanut seed,” Scott said. “So we call him Peanut Seed. I mean, Peanut is his name.”
He is easy to haul and not much for attention.
“He is a horse that shows up for his job. He knows what his job is,” Scott said. “He is very efficient in a turn. He runs hard all the way up into his turns. He had never been rodeoed on. I have so much respect for him because he did. He just meshed right in.”
He had never run indoors until Omaha in September 2025.
“He went from Mandan in the mud to Omaha and he killed it,” Scott said. “I mean, he acted like it was just another day at the office.”
Scott takes her sister’s word for it.
“She’s told me this is the horse for you, and I think two of them I never even got on,” Scott said. “I just took her word for it and have had success.”
Breaking through
In June 2025, with Twiz at the vet and a lot of runs already on Baby Cakes, Scott was ready to go home.
“I remember the vet telling me he’s not going to be ready,” Scott said. “I didn’t know what was going to happen. And meanwhile, my sister had started working on the deal with Peanut Seed, and so I didn’t know, I would say, the miracle around the next corner. But that was a pretty low time.”
Peanut Seed arrived right before the Fourth. Before Caldwell, with her horses getting on her hand, she called Phil Haugen. He gave her a couple of things to work on and reminded her to enjoy the process. Then she won the Caldwell Night Rodeo in Idaho, coming back 11th of 12 into the short round and waiting out the rain in the stall barn.
“Honestly, I wasn’t nervous or anything because I’m just watching it rain, hoping that it would let up,” Scott said. “I had to tell myself, ‘Hey, even though it’s starting to rain again, you’ve got to focus on riding your horse to the first barrel.’ You got to ride your horse. It doesn’t matter what the weather’s doing.”
That year she also won San Bernardino, Calif., Plains, Gunnison, Colo., and Artesia, N.M. At Mandan, N.D., she split second with Lisa Lockhart in the mud.
“September was awesome,” Scott said. “I think I went to 22 or made 22 runs and didn’t place at four of them.”
After Las Cruces on the last Saturday night, she knew she had set herself up to make it. She finished No. 15. Her sister-in-law, Halyn Lide, clinched her own NFR spot that final weekend by winning the Governor’s Cup.
“I was not staring at the standings like, ‘Oh my gosh, I got to do this,’” Scott said. “I always say peace only can come from the Lord. And I had so much peace.”
She has a favorite line for a season like that one.
“Chaos doesn’t make a person,” Scott said. “It reveals a person.”
At her first NFR she placed in six rounds on Peanut Seed. A fall on slick ground took her out of the average, and she left Las Vegas No. 10 in the world.
2026
Scott and Twiz won Pendleton on two head, two-hundredths ahead of Megan McLeod-Sprague. The same week she won the West Texas Fair & Rodeo in Abilene, Texas, and the two rodeos moved her to No. 12.
Peanut Seed took her back to The American in Arlington, Texas, for the second straight year, by way of the Central Regional in Oklahoma City. She was one of two 2025 NFR qualifiers who went the contender route for a shot at the full $2 million instead of taking a champion’s invite. In July he was second in the finals at the NFR Open in Colorado Springs.
She won the Wild Card at Fort Worth and won Kingman, Ariz., Burlington, Colo., and Yuma, Colo. She has led the Turquoise Circuit since May.
On Sept. 6 she held the last NFR spot, No. 15. A week later she passed Makenzie Mayes, and after Pendleton and Abilene she went to the Governor’s Cup in Sioux Falls, S.D., at No. 12. She missed the final four on a tiebreaker with Emily Beisel.
Her people
Cody runs the phone.
“My husband, Cody Scott, is my right-hand man,” Scott said. “He has literally been on my phone returning text messages, emails, all the things, because I don’t do that.”
Halyn Lide, her sister-in-law, is married to Scott’s brother. A friend prays with her before almost every run.
“She prays with me almost before every run,” Scott said. “She is, I would say, my lifeline.”
After her first NFR, the ranch work was waiting at home in Texas.
“As soon as I got home, we have some mama cows, and so we had to ship calves,” Scott said. “My husband bet me I couldn’t rope this old roping steer that has huge horns, and he bet me a hundred dollars, and I got that hundred dollars.”
She hopes that’s the part people keep.
“In five years, people may not remember that Katelyn Scott made the NFR, but I hope that they remember someone that talked to them, gave them a hug,” Scott said. “It’s about the people.”
She has given the same answer through all of it.
“Every time I show up to these rodeos, whether I’ve been there or not, it feels like the first time,” Scott said. “It’s just new and exciting and so grateful for the horse. We are nothing without them.”
Katelyn Scott by the numbers
2026 Season
- Final world standing: No. 11, $138,222 (WPRA, Oct. 1)
- Rodeos counted: 87
- Rodeo wins: Pendleton Round-Up average (Pendleton, Ore., 58.03 on two head, on Streak N Liza); West Texas Fair & Rodeo (Abilene, Texas, $3,608); Andy Devine PRCA Rodeo (Kingman, Ariz., $1,411); Kit Carson County Pro Rodeo (Burlington, Colo., $1,798); Yuma County Fair & Rodeo (Yuma, Colo., $1,251)
- Round wins: Fort Worth Wild Card (16.22, $2,000); NFR Open Set C Round 2 (Colorado Springs, 17.14, $3,000)
- Biggest checks: NFR Open finals second, $10,000; Sioux Falls Round 1 third, $6,266; Fort Worth finals tie for third, $6,000; American Central Regional final second, $5,500; Calgary Pool B Round 1 third, $4,500; Sioux Falls semifinal, $4,500
- Horses: Justa DTF Frenchman (“Peanut Seed,” 2015 palomino gelding, Aint Seen Nothin Yet x Madeline Spade 410 x Justa Hickory Spade, owned by Lorissa Jo Merritt); Streak N Liza (“Twiz,” gelding)
- Circuit: Turquoise Circuit leader ($18,136 on 14 rodeos as of Sept. 11)
2025 NFR
- Entered the NFR: No. 15
- Finished the season: No. 10
- Total earnings: $214,690.62
- NFR earnings: $83,927.62
- Go-rounds: Round 1, 4th ($15,376.88); Round 2, 3rd ($21,882.48); Round 3, 4th ($15,376.88); Round 4, 5th ($9,462.70); Round 5, 6th ($5,914.19); Round 10, 6th ($5,914.19)
- Horses: Justa DTF Frenchman (“Peanut Seed”), Rounds 1–5, 7 and 9–10; Streak N Liza (“Twiz”), Round 8