BAKER CITY — Now that the pressure’s off, Jesse Brown only has to worry about leaping off a horse galloping at 25 mph and landing on a quarter-ton of uncooperative muscle and bone.

But in the rodeo arena, at least, he has a level of control.

Waiting on elements over which he has no influence is a different matter — tougher than wrestling a steer to the ground.

Tougher mentally, anyway.

Watching helplessly as results from his competitors appear on a cellphone screen is exhausting in its own way.

But a cellphone isn’t likely to crack your ribs or rearrange your vertebrae.

Brown, a professional steer wrestler from Baker City, knows about having his nerves wracked while he waits to find out if his months of toil — dozens of hours driving through the night, seconds of exquisite focus as his horse pulls beside a steer — will pay off with the ultimate reward.

That’s a berth in the National Finals Rodeo, the annual 10-day event in early December at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas.

The Super Bowl of rodeo.

“That’s the No. 1 goal,” Brown, 30, said in a phone interview on Tuesday, Sept. 20. “Everybody wants to be there.”

And for the third straight year, Brown will be there.

With the season wrapping up this weekend, Brown is 11th in the world steer wrestling standings, comfortably within the top 15 who qualify for the National Finals.

“I’m safe right now,” he said.

This is the second straight year that Brown, a 2011 Baker High School graduate, has solidified his spot in the National Finals without any great drama.

In 2021 Brown was ranked second in earnings at the end of the season.

But 2020 was quite a different situation — and not only because the pandemic interrupted the rodeo schedule at times.

In late September of that year, just before he competed in his final rodeo in Texas, Brown was in 16th place, just $500 out of 15th and a berth in the National Finals.

One of his two closest competitors was at a rodeo in New Jersey. The other was in South Dakota.

Brown, who played football at Washington State University before transferring to Montana State University — where he competed in team roping and earned a degree in business management — before taking up rodeo full time, had to monitor results on his phone that day.

When the numbers were finally tallied he had made it — by a margin of $1,650.

“When you’re close to 15th it’s kind of an uneasy feeling,” Brown said. “You don’t want to be on the other side of it.”

The 2020 season was different in another sense.

That year, due to the pandemic, the National Finals were moved from Las Vegas to Texas.

Brown was grateful to qualify, but he was disappointed that he didn’t get to compete in the Thomas and Mack Center.

He finally had that chance in December 2021.

Brown finished the year ranked sixth, with yearly earnings of $165,000.

He kicked off the 2022 season with his biggest paycheck by far.

Brown won $100,000 as the steer wrestling champion on March 6 at The American, a rodeo in Arlington, Texas.

Although that rodeo didn’t count toward qualifying for the National Finals, the payout easily boosted Brown’s earnings above his previous record from 2021.

He’s earned another $91,000 from “official” events this year.

Brown said he’s generally happy with his performance this season.

He spent much of the year traveling with fellow steer wrestler J.D. Struxness of Minnesota. Struxness is ranked fifth.

“We’ve pushed each other,” Brown said.

Most recently, he placed fifth at the Pendleton Round-Up.

“Probably my favorite rodeo of the year,” Brown said.

In 2019 he set the Round-Up’s steer wrestling record, bringing down his steer in 3.7 seconds.

Getting ready for Vegas

As a National Finals veteran, Brown said he feels confident that he knows how to prepare for the event, set for Dec. 1-10.

“I know how it works now,” he said.

In particular, Brown said he understands how busy he’ll be, with sponsor commitments and other tasks, each day leading up to the evening performance.

“Knowing that routine will be nice,” he said.

He’s also looking forward to having family among the 20,000 spectators.

He said his parents, Jim and Vicki Brown, plan to attend all 10 nights, and other relatives and friends probably will attend some performances.

“It’s always a blast to see everybody,” he said. “It’s a fun time.”

“That’s the No. 1 goal. Everybody wants to be there.”

— Steer wrestler Jesse Brown, referring to the National Finals Rodeo