Rey Echeto, of Sanger, Texas, and Colette Lesh, of Lone Grove, Oklahoma, sorted 38 head in 229.18 seconds over four rounds to win the Cinch #13 Gold Shootout at the 2026 Cinch RSNC World Finals, worth $34,222 of the class’s $147,984 total payout.
Echeto and Lesh were sitting third when they entered the short round of one of the highest paying classes in ranch sorting, landing the first-out draw on a fresh herd neither of them had seen work.
Just Stay Alive
Being first out worried Lesh going in. She didn’t know how the untested cattle would break, or whether one would turn back on them the way a bad one had earlier in the week.
“Rey’s like, ‘Okay, that’s great, we’re first out,’” Lesh said. “I kind of had to change my mindset. I just wanted to go out there, set the bar high, and take what it would give us.”
Echeto felt the same pressure, but he kept it simple in the seconds before their run.
“Be easy, Colette,” he told his partner as they crossed the line. “Let’s just stay alive. We get a time, we’re in the money—let’s just stay alive.”
It worked. Echeto and Lesh sorted all 10 head, and the run held. The team that had come in leading, and the team right behind it, each had a chance to beat the pace—and both came up short.
A Heart Mare and a Million-Dollar Gelding
Lesh rode Northern Lightz (Catty Hawk x Hya Lights Me Now), a 2018 sorrel mare she calls “Gigi,” to the win. She bought the mare from Bill and Michelle Cowan as a 3-yearold already recovering from stifle surgery, with no guarantee she’d stay sound.
“I just feel like we get each other,” Lesh said. “She’s one mare that I will never sell. She’s got quirks—she’s ADD to the max—but I let her be her.”
Echeto’s mount carried a very different price tag. Hott Twice (Hottish x Tapt Twice), his 2020 sorrel gelding known as “Jackpot,” sold to Terry Green for $1.5 million as a 2-year-old at Western Bloodstock’s 2022 NCHA Futurity Sale, breaking the record at a sale that averaged $93,744.
“He’s got a great personality,” Echeto said of the horse he acquired from Matt Stevens. “He’s like a big dog. If there’s something to mess with, he’s going to mess with it. He just wants to have friends and have fun.”
A Bright Spot
Becoming the Cinch #13 World Champion further marks the tremendous success Echeto is having in the sorting pen. It follows last year’s World Finals win in the Non-Pro Futurity, and at this season’s shows in San Antonio and Waco, where he saw more Gold Shootout success.
For Lesh, however, the win capped a year that tested her far beyond the sorting pen. She missed the 2025 World Finals after her third major back surgery. Then came a stretch that piled one crisis on another: her oldest son, Jackson Ammermon, survived a brutal and life-threatening car accident that kept Lesh at his hospital bedside for five weeks. Days before, she broke her leg and had to schedule her own surgery as her son navigated a medically induced coma that allowed his medical team to treat his broken neck and brain trauma.
Within weeks, Lesh’s doctors diagnosed her with kidney cancer. She delayed the surgery to remove the kidney until after a few January shows so she could compete alongside her sons—Jackson is the 2022 Cinch RSNC World Finals Non-Pro Futurity Champion and his brother, Preston Ammermon, is the 2024 #14 Ranch Hand World Champion. Lesh had the kidney removed a few days later. By June, she barely qualified to compete for the Cinch Bonus Money, making it in at the last eligible show of the season.
“It’s completely changed the way I look at life,” Lesh said of the year. “I try to have so much more of a positive attitude, even when I have a bad run, because life could seriously be so much worse—and I’ve been there.”
#13 Gold Shootout — 2026 World Finals Champions
| Champions | Rey Echeto (Sanger, Texas) & Colette Lesh (Lone Grove, Oklahoma) |
| Winning run | 229.18 on 38 head |
| First-place payout | $34,222 |
| Total class payout | $147,984 |
Top 10 Payouts
| Place | Team | Payout |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rey Echeto / Colette Lesh | $34,222 |
| 2 | Tucker Field / Trever Field | $24,640 |
| 3 | Bob McPherson / Payton Brzymialkiewicz | $17,794 |
| 4 | Anna Braunschmidt / Jared Lesh | $13,688 |
| 5 | Gage Anderson / Brian Buckner | $11,634 |
| 6 | Nicole Pitsch / Aubree Coker | $9,582 |
| 7 | Arielle Weeast / Hunter Brzymialkiewicz | $8,212 |
| 8 | Wally Hays / Dan Weigand | $6,846 |
| 9 | Annalise Rivadeneira / Payton Brzymialkiewicz | $5,476 |
| 10 | Reece Stanfill / Junior Ribeiro | $4,790 |
