Riley Carel’s focus sharpens to a needlepoint the moment before he ropes a calf.

“If we’re trying to beat five seconds, I can’t have four different things in my brain,” he said. “… When I’m back in the box, I’m just repeating in my head, ‘Score’… and then the rest of it is all reaction.”

Plateau residents and tourists alike may be able to see Carel’s lightning-fast reflexes in action during the Enumclaw Pro Rodeo from Aug. 22 – 25 where he hopes to score big in the calf roping and team roping events.

Born and raised in Enumclaw, Carel has been riding horses and swinging ropes for as long as he can remember.

“I’ve roped my sister, my dogs, my cows, my horses, mailboxes,” he said. “I’ve roped stuff my whole life.”

Rodeo was a pastime while he was growing up, occasionally following his dad to and from various rodeo competitions around the state.

He had to take a break in college when he played basketball — Carel said his contract wouldn’t allow him to do another activity that could jeopardize his performance on the court.

But after he graduated (and a few knee surgeries due to his collegiate sports career), Carel got back in the saddle in 2021 as he started to take rodeos a bit more seriously.

For the first few years, he’d sign up for a dozen or so events with the Northwest Pro Rodeo Association and the Pro Rodeo Cowboys Association each, which he respectively likened to baseball’s AAA and MLB leagues.

But Carel is shooting for the moon this year, and by the end of the season he will have competed in more than 40 rodeos, all with the hopes of making it to the Northwest Pro Rodeo Association (NPRA) finals this September at the Oregon State Fair.

“This year I had the horsepower and just decided it was a good time to go to more than I have ever been to in the past,” he said. “I am not getting any younger, so [I] decided to just go for it.”

August is a big month for rodeo competitors — there are a lot of events, a lot of chances to win some cash, and maybe most importantly, a lot of chances to secure a spot in the top 12 that go on to the NPRA finals.

Carel is competing in six different rodeos this week alone: he was at the PRCA rodeo in Lynden, WA, on Monday, and will be in Heppner and Tygh Valley in Oregon, and then Goldendale, Port Angeles, and Chehalis Thursday through Sunday.

He described a grueling schedule where he and his fellow competitors will likely have one rodeo in the morning, another that evening, and still has to drive all night to reach his next destination on time.

“You’re not getting a lot of sleep,” he said.

But Carel’s got to be on top of his game despite those conditions — and that means nabbing that calf in seconds.

“In the team roping, you’re hoping to be in the four second range, the five second range,” he said. “… With the calf roping, you’re hoping to be eight, nine seconds.”

When asked about his record times, Carel laughed — it’s a common question rodeo competitors get, but it’s a hard one to answer.

Photo by Photo by Elaine Kimball / Elaine’s Images Riley Carel has just seconds to finish throwing down this calf before using the piggin string in his teety to secure its legs in he wants to place well in the event.

“Each rodeo is so different,” he said — the arenas, the calves, the position of the box and the pens, everything, which means some competitions are set up for slower or faster roping times depending on all those factors. “… We were just a five-eight somewhere this last weekend and got fifth in the team roping. Well, there’s a lot of rodeos where a five-eight would get first.

“I could try to sound really cool and say… my fastest time in team roping is a four-three and my fastest time in calf roping is a seven-five,” he continued. “I could say that to sound cool, like it’s some big thing, but… honestly, what’s more impressive is being a five, five-five… when it’s a tough setup.”

Carel also couldn’t say what his success rate was, or where in the standings he currently sits — those are just statistics he purposefully doesn’t pay attention to until he’s at the very end of the rodeo season.

“Knowing where you are in the standings isn’t going to change anything, so I just go,” he said. “… I literally don’t pay attention to it.”

All he could say was that, “We’ve won enough to keep plugging along and keep us in the fight.”

He may not pay attention to the standings, but The Courier-Herald does, and as of July, Carel has won nearly $2,500, placing eighth in calf roping, though he’s not in the top 20 for team roping.

But that could all change, for better or worse — Carel described rodeo as “a sport of failure.”

“Everyone that runs will tell you that. It’s the most mentally challenging sport I’ve ever done,” he said. “… [T]he best calf ropers, team ropers in the world place at about 35%. Win a check at 35%, 40% of the rodeos that they enter.”

When this article is published, Carel will be wrapping up preparations for the coming rodeos.

Traveling with him is his dad, who no longer competes in rodeos, but helps handle the horses and drives.

“He goes to almost every rodeo with me,” Carel said. “… He taught me how to rope. He helps me with every aspect of it today. I couldn’t do any of this without him.”

And once the season is over, he’ll settle back into everyday life with his wife, daughter, and job at Babbitt Insurance — unusual for a rodeo competitor.

“Most of the guys I compete against, they run cattle for a living. They run a farm for a living. They rodeo for a living. Their whole life is consumed in this ranch-rodeo-cowboy world,” he said, laughing. “I definitely don’t. I sit at a desk.”