Jordon Briggs sunk into the shadows to care for her two-time AQHA/WPRA Horse of the Year, Famous Lil Jet, in winter 2024, and we’re spilling the beans on what happened to Rollo, plus how this world champion duo clawed their way back to the top of their game in a mere matter of months.

Barrel racing fans were shocked and concerned by the news that Famous Lil Jet, QData’s No. 4 all-time earning barrel horse of all time, who has carried Jordon Briggs to three NFR’s, one world championship and $1,244,616 in career earnings at the age of 10, would be sidelined for an undetermined amount of time.

We’ll talk about their recent successes shortly, but let’s roll it back to the beginning of 2024.

“I always give him a pretty long break after (the NFR),” Briggs said. “But when I got back on him, something seemed wrong in his runs. Sure, it usually takes him several runs to get back to ‘Rollo’ runs—he’s a chubby boy. But I’d ran hin about four times, and usually two to three is plenty to get him back in the 1D, clocking and working like himself. He just wasn’t there. He was dumping on his front end, running past his first barrel. He just didn’t feel right.

Luckily, Briggs grew up learning from her mother, multi-time World Champion barrel racer Kristie Peterson, who owned and campaigned French Flash Hawk, “Bozo,” to a legendary career. Peterson instilled a valuable lesson so deep into Briggs’ framework, that she and her husband, Justin, knew better than to try to tune or condition the problems on the pattern out of Rollo.

The injury

“My mom always taught me that there’s nobody who knows your horse better than you,” Briggs said. “So I knew in my gut that something was off. I took him to my vet, Dr. Marty Tanner the same day I was entered for my first run at San Antonio. I couldn’t risk taking him down there without knowing. Having to run three times in deeper ground could really make things worse if something was wrong.”

Briggs’ gut instincts proved correct. Rollo’s longtime veterinarian Tanner knew the horse nearly as well as Briggs from ears to tail, and he voiced his suspicions immediately, which the ultrasound soon confirmed.

“He tore the sesamoid ligament in his hind leg,” Briggs said.

I ended up taking him to Dr. Marty Tanner the day I was up at San Antonio—I just had a bad feeling about it. I was scared something wasn’t right and I was going to make it a lot worse.”

He flexed that hind ankle and called it before we eved ultrasounded it.

The diagnosis was a tear of the sesamoid ligament in Rollo’s hind leg.

Because I know him so well, we caught it fast. I tried Renovo for the first time and he was 75% healed after two weeks. I was extremely impressed with Dr. Tanner, I was proud of myself for following that gut feeling and not making it worse. That gave us the chance at going out this summer. If I had pushed it, we might be having a completely different conversation.

“I know it’s going to be a challenge. It’s definitely not the summer i’m used to planning. But this is the challenge that God threw at me this year. It’s really made me appreciate Rollo even more. I’m just looking at the summer with bright eyes, keeping my expectations in check and focusing on enjoying every single moment and run I have with Rollo.”

The Equinety equation

“I’m proud to ahve Equinety by my side during this,” Briggs said. “Having Rollo on Equinety XL and OEC before his injury, in my opinion, kept it from being as bad as it could have been if it had torn worse. When I called John and told him Rollo would be out for a while, he encouraged me to double Rollo up on Equinety XL (two scoops per day). Dr. Tanner said this injury could take two to four months to heal and he was healed in six weeks. I have to credit that to my vet and Equinety.”

The comeback

One of Rollo’s first appearances, after loosening up at jackpots and a few smaller ProRodeos in ’24 was his performance at the June Colorado Classic Futurity and Maturity in Montrose.

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The duo earned the Maturity aggregate title against some of the toughest aged and derby horses going down the road without pause. Fans in attendance may be telling the tale for years to come, as Briggs showed the grit that has helped her become one of barrel racing’s most admired athletes during every stride of her competitive runs—and it wasn’t just for the coveted traveling Blackstone Grill and other numerous awards that went to the winners.

Briggs normally hits the winter rodeos aggressively, then backs off and selectively chooses her runs through the summer before returning to Texas in the fall as her ProRodeo strategy, but her 2024 run is packed a little tighter. In 2023, she entered the summer run No. 1 in the world standings, but in 2024 she found herself outside of the top 250 in the WPRA World Standings.

And after a last-minute rule change on qualifications, that meant she was outside of the cut line for one of the duo’s traditionally best events, Reno Rodeo.

“I was extremely disappointed when I found out I wouldn’t get into Reno,” Briggs said. “I called the Turquoise Circuit Director, the WPRA, anybody I could to get to the bottom of how they were allowed to change those at the last minute, but at the end of the day I just had to accept it.”

Even after they hit the pavement hard with Justin and daughter, Bexley in tow, the road back to domination wouldn’t prove to be an easy one. The notorious Greeley Stampede pattern—one that Rollo’s conquered to major paydays in recent years—proved a humbling experience for Briggs.

“He just kept rolling past the first barrel and never stopped,” Briggs said. “We had to change him out of a hackamore outdoors and work to make adjustments. A no-time isn’t something you want when you know you need to make every run count.”

With sponsors, fans and media outlets watching her every move, Briggs entered the Cowboy Christmas run determined to make her move.

It started out sluggish.

“We were making great runs,” Briggs said. “But he just wasn’t clocking. Nothing was clicking for us and we weren’t winning checks.”

Finally, thanks to a series of mental and physcial tweaks for both athletes, the pieces started to fall into place at least. Briggs managed to place deep at three high-paying rodeos toward the end of her Fourth of July run to earn over $12,000. Then came the Calgary Stampede (which still isn’t included in the WPRA standings at the time of publishing) where the duo made it through to Championship Sunday and walked out with another $12,000 in their pockets.

But, they were one position out of making the final four Showdown Round and their chance at $50,000.

“It feels twisted to think of a five-figure week as a loss,” Briggs said. “And it wasn’t. But at that point, we’ve made our way into the top 100 or so. Which is great. But you can’t make the jump to the bubble without pulling out a big win, so you still feel like your sponsors, everybody is watching you wondering ‘Can they do it?’

Well, whatever switch flipped in Briggs and Rollo’s partnership as a record hot July rolled on was the right one. Fast forward to this week and she clinched her Semifinals position with a hot performance across two rounds so far at the Cheyenne Frontier Days and is locked into the Days of ’47 Gold Medal Round after a placing in the qualifier and a Progressive Round victory. On top of that, she’s holding down No. 2 at Ogden Pioneer Days.

As August approaches, she’s ramping up her rodeo volume and looking to secure valuable WPRA Tour points in order to capitalize on the end-of-season events like Puyallup, Washington, and the Sioux Falls Governor’s Cup.