At the 2025 Cinch RSNC World Finals, four standout ranch sorters—Kody Ward, Aubree Coker, Kara Doornink and Nicki Fuller—won their divisions in the Holiday Auto Group Challenge of the Champions, an elite event featuring the best of the best. The class showcases the highest-earning ranch sorters from the season, with only the top five riders from each division—Open, Amateur, Novice and Rookie—invited to compete. A sudden-death, round-robin format means each contestant rides with every other in their division. Final standings are then based on the total number of cattle sorted in the least amount of time
Fort Lupton, Colorado’s Kody Ward said he was unsure whether he’d even qualify for the event in the final weeks of the season.
“I was looking at [the standings] in the couple months leading up to it, and I was like, ‘Gosh, I might not even make the Challenge of the Champions,” Ward said. “Then I started looking down the list, and I was like, ‘Gosh, I wouldn’t even make the Amateur.’ [They] won a lot of money this year.”
After a pretty successful showing in May at the Cinch RSNC Double Down Showdown produced by Moore Family Productions in Powell Butte, Oregon, that added $4,255 to his cache, Ward ultimately qualified into the Open’s Top 5 with $34,337 in season earnings. For his efforts, he gained a spot to compete in a division stacked with fellow pros like half-million-dollar sorter Joel Lesh, Matt Stevens, Logan Wolfe and Travis Roberson.
“There’s five of us in each division, and everybody rides with everybody once, so you end up with four rides,” Ward said, explaining the format. “There are 10 teams total. We all ride on the same herd of cows, try and keep it even for everybody. And, in true round robin format, whoever has the most cows in the least amount of time wins, and I was lucky this year.”
After three rounds, Ward and Wolfe were tied, each with 20 head and, the herd, Ward admitted, didn’t make it easy.
“They would look really good for a run, and then you thought you could press on the gas pedal a little bit, and then they would get weird and real runny. It was kind of a miracle that we were able to get ’em sorted.”
Nonetheless, Ward was able to get another clean head of 10 sorted in Round 3, while Wolfe no-timed.
“It came down to his last run with Joel,” Ward remembered. “They ended up no-timing, and so then I could just kind of go out there and have fun on my last ride.”
This article appears in the Summer 2025 issue of The Ranch Sorter, featuring World Champion stories, event recaps, regional results, and more.
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