Tilden Hooper enjoys the NFR ride a little while longer

Of the 15 bareback riding qualifiers for this year’s Wrangler Nationals Finals Rodeo, only one is sporting a full beard in his official photo on the PRCA website.

Tilden Hooper’s chin whiskers are well-manicured. And conspicuously dark. At 37, he’s the graybeard in this year’s lineup of bareback riders, though you wouldn’t know it from his publicity shot.

For the second time since becoming a professional cowboy in 2007, Hooper entered the NFR as the 15th and final qualifier. He and Mason Clements, 33, who was slotted 14th, are the only riders over 30 competing in a field whose average age is 25.2.

Take away Hooper and Clements, and that average drops to 23.7.

Riding broncs has become a young man’s game, all the more reason Hooper is satisfied just to be back at the Thomas &Mack Center after a two-year hiatus. He finished 23rd on last year’s money list, after sitting out 2023 with a nagging neck injury.

His time on the sidelines coincided with his wife, Melissa, giving birth to twins.

So the respite that enabled him to help out with parenting duties actually was a blessing in disguise.

“It worked out where what seemed at first a big, big setback turned out to be a huge blessing,” said the cowboy, who makes his home in Granbury, Texas, near Fort Worth.

“We have three kids under 5 years old. So (it has been) a wild, hectic time that I’ve been able to be (at home), for what otherwise, I probably would not have been.”

Quiet on the set

Making it to the Finals usually hasn’t been a struggle for the camera-friendly cowboy, who has appeared in cameo roles in the popular “Yellowstone” TV series, as well as “Ransom Canyon” on Netflix.

During a four-year period from 2018-21 Hooper placed third, fourth and fifth in season earnings. But this year, he had to finish strong just to qualify for his 10th NFR.

A 90-point ride on a horse named Stevie Knicks at the North Dakota Roughrider Cup in late September resulted in a first-place finish and a check for more than $18,000. Another big payday at the Governor’s Cup in Sioux Falls, S.D., a few days later got Hooper off the bubble and into the provisional 15th NFR qualifying spot.

But it took the accountants at PRCA headquarters nearly two weeks to make it official.

He wound up edging R.C. Landingham by a measly $109 for the final slot.

“There were almost two weeks there in October where I wasn’t even 100 percent sure I made it,” Hooper said of the auditing process.

This is the second time Hooper entered the NFR at No. 15. The first time, he thought his season was over. But then it was revealed that Hooper’s challenger for the final qualifying spot competed in one more rodeo than allowed by the rules and had to forfeit his earnings from it.

So this time, “it felt a little premature to celebrate” Hooper said of waiting until it was official before packing his bags for Las Vegas.

Future attractions

Likewise, Hooper said it’s also too soon to make a definitive decision about continuing to grind out a living against the young whippersnappers he has been trying to leapfrog in the standings at the NFR.

He covered his first five mounts but failed to place on any of them.

But with $36,668 available to the nightly go-round winners and an even more lucrative average payoff coming at week’s end, there’s still time for Hooper to turn it around.

“I’ve always known that this could go away at any moment. (But) I don’t know if prepared is the word,” he said about retirement and what his future might hold. “I don’t know if you can ever be prepared for your livelihood to be cut off like a light switch.”

Hooper said a strategy that has always served him well is to be smart with the money he wins and keep a low overhead.

“There are other things I do besides this,” he said.

Hooper is a partner in a drone business that does inspection work in the oil and gas industry, and he’s done media work for The Cowboy Channel.

“And thank God for our sponsors because a lot of them have stuck with me through the years,” he said.

Keeping it real

As much as he would like to ride off into the sunset by winning a gold buckle in Las Vegas, Hooper said he’s now more of a realist than a dreamer.

“That’s probably not going to happen,” he said about the possibility of going from 15th to first.

But “if I get the good horses and everything goes my way, then, you know, maybe we’ll look up and start talking about winning the average at the National Finals.”

As a competitor, one never stops doing the math about what it would take to pull a rabbit out of the hat, even at age 37 against a field of talented whippersnappers.

It was 31 years ago last month that George Foreman became the oldest man to win boxing’s heavyweight championship. Still fighting — and dreaming — at age 45, Big George knocked out Michael Moorer at the MGM Grand Garden, just up the road from the Thomas &Mack Center.

For one glorious night on a crisp Las Vegas evening, any semblance of realism was suspended.

Let those whippersnappers chew on that for a while.