Ace Berry

Lifetime Achievement • Inducted 2009

Just 15 years, 11 months old when he qualified for the National Finals Rodeo the first time in 1962 – the second-youngest competitor in NFR history – Ace Berry remained a fixture there into the mid-1970s, competing at both ends of the arena. The Oakdale, Calif., cowboy qualified for the NFR in team roping 14 consecutive years (1962-75), with 10 different partners, and earned a spot in the NFR bareback riding competition six times (1967, 1969-73). Berry and Phil Lyne are the only men to win NFR average titles in a roughstock event and a timed event in the same year. Berry won the 1972 NFR team roping title with John Miller and the bareback riding with what was then a rodeo-record 685 points, the same year that Lyne won the average in bull riding and tie-down roping. Berry also won NFR average titles in team roping in 1967 and in bareback riding in 1971.

National Finals Rodeo Average Champion

Bareback Riding: 1971, 1972

Team Roping (heeling): 1967, 1972

RAM Circuit Year-End Champion

California Circuit:

Bareback Riding: 1975

Born: January 13, 1947 in Bartlesville, Oklahoma

Joined the PRCA: 1962

NFR Qualifications: 14

California Rodeo Salinas / Salinas, CA
All-Around: 1970
Bareback Riding: 1975, 1977

Cheyenne Frontier Days / Cheyenne, WY
Bareback Riding: 1969 (tie)

Clovis Rodeo / Clovis, CA
Bareback Riding: 1968, 1969, 1970
Team Roping: 1972

Grand National Stock Show & Rodeo / San Francisco, CA
All-Around: 1973
Bareback Riding: 1970
Team Roping: 1973

La Fiesta de los Vaqueros Rodeo / Tucson, AZ
Bareback Riding: 1970, 1973

National Western Stock Show & Rodeo / Denver, CO
Bareback Riding: 1973
Team Roping: 1973

Pendleton Round-Up / Pendleton, OR
Bareback Riding: 1970, 1972

Red Bluff Round-Up / Red Bluff, CA
Bareback Riding: 1970, 1973

Reno Rodeo / Reno, NV
All-Around: 1967
Bareback Riding: 1973
Team Roping: 1962, 1966

Rowell Ranch Rodeo / Hayward, CA
Team Roping: 1964

San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo / San Antonio, TX
Bareback Riding: 1970

Snake River Stampede / Nampa, ID
Bareback Riding: 1973

World’s Oldest Rodeo Prescott Frontier Days / Prescott, AZ
Bareback Riding: 1973