By Lincoln Shryack

While rodeo’s biggest stars duke it out this week at Wrangler National Finals Rodeo, the future wave of cowboy and cowgirl talent will share a portion of the Las Vegas spotlight. The second annual Junior NFR will raise the bar set by last year’s inaugural rodeo, as more qualifiers, events, and competition days will make for an even grander spectacle.

You can catch all of the 10-day action right here on FloRodeo, starting tomorrow and running through December 16.

The 2016 debut featured 342 junior athletes spread across six rodeo events — barrel racing, team roping, tie-down roping, breakaway, bareback, and bull riding — with multiple age groups in each allowing the youngsters a unique opportunity to gauge themselves against other up-and-comers from all different locales. The new event was certainly a hit for athletes, parents, and fans alike, but the opportunity to make it even better was quite obvious.

And credit goes to the event organizers, in collaboration with the PRCA: those improvements have been made. Jr. NFR has taken cues from its famous older brother in its second go-around to appeal to a bigger audience and bring more athletes into the arena.

Not only have two more events been added for 2017 — steer wrestling and saddle bronc riding — but this schedule lines up exactly with 10-day extravaganza that is Wrangler NFR. A whopping 524 youth athletes were granted back numbers to this year’s Sin City showcase, and rodeo fans will be able to shuttle back and forth between the Las Vegas Convention Center (Jr. NFR) to the Thomas & Mack Center (NFR) to take part in the whole Cowboy Christmas experience.

“We replicate the same events that are at the NFR, in addition to breakaway roping,” said Bo Gardner, VP of corporate sponsorship at Las Vegas Events, to JuniorNFRBlog.“We wanted to make sure that what we were doing we were doing it right so it would take us into the future. We wanted to make sure we were giving the sponsors and the kids in the events the best opportunity.”

Magnus, Kelton, Goodrich, Timberman, Myers, Skelton, and Brazile.

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The growth of the event’s appeal was startling from one year to the next, as over 5,000 attempted to be among the 524 that will compete over the next 10 days. That total will be expected to grow as Jr. NFR gains more and more exposure, meaning that rodeo will continue to grow and reach more potential future stars. This new opportunity for the rodeo youth to learn the ropes is something that current rodeo pros didn’t have coming up the ranks, but they can certainly understand the immense value for the kids.

“It would have meant the world to me to compete in the Jr. NFR,” said reigning bareback world champion Tim O’Connell to NFR Insider. “How cool would it be to be riding a bareback horse as an 8-year-old in Vegas. I don’t think there would be anything cooler than that.”

And for competitors in the team roping and barrel racing events, a shot to perform under the Vegas lights isn’t the only reason to get excited about this year’s Jr. NFR. The winners across those events’ age groups will be granted entry into February’s RFD-TV’s The American rodeo at AT&T stadium in Dallas. The allure of an invite into the richest one-day rodeo in the world will mean that Jr. NFR is just starting to take off.

The future of this 10-day mega event is looking brighter than ever, and so too is the sport of rodeo overall.

Don't forget to watch all the action right here on FloRodeo.