The sound of breaking glass woke the house before the sun did.
Brady Fielder had returned home to Texas late Sunday night after an 0-for-3 weekend in New York City. It was not the three-day event the Australian had wanted, but after getting back from the airport, Fielder crawled into bed at his home on State Highway 101 outside Bowie, Texas.
A few hours later, around 7 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 12, the house erupted.
Texas Rattlers Assistant Coach Brady Oleson remembers waking up to what sounded like somebody smashing beer bottles on the ground.
Then came yelling.
That was strange.
The quiet Australian Fielder never yells.
Then came the realization.
The windows were bursting from the house.
Fielder, his girlfriend, his brother and Oleson scrambled to get outside as smoke burned their eyes and heat already blazed through the home. The fire had reportedly started around the laundry room and moved into the attic, tearing through a house that was still being remodeled.
Outside, there was little they could do.
One person had a pair of flip-flops. Another grabbed golf shoes from a pickup sitting beside the house. The keys were on fire. Smoke engulfed the truck.
So they stood there and watched.
The house Fielder had just bought in America — the house he had been remodeling with the help of Austin Gamblers rival Callum “Chips” Miller, an industrial technology major, and Oleson — went up in smoke.
Everything inside went with it.
Boots. Belts. Clothes. Photos. Buckles.
Even the Great 8 Award buckle Fielder earned in 2024 as the rider with the best riding percentage in PBR Teams — an award he remains the sole recipient of — was gone.
For an Australian who once arrived in America with little more than the backpack on his back and his gear bag, Fielder was suddenly almost back to square one.
The gear bag was still there.
Most everything else was not.
“Grateful everyone is ok. Sad to lose everything we had in the house. We are surrounded by such great people and very well taken care of at this point and time of life, it’s amazing.” Fielder wrote shortly after the fire. “I don’t expect anything from anyone and we will get it taken care of.”
It may have been the most Brady Fielder response possible.
The 911 call had been much the same — remarkably calm for a man watching his life burn in front of him.
By the time firefighters arrived, there was almost nothing left to save.
Fielder pointed toward what used to be a wall of the house, where his carry-on still sat packed from his trip to New York City. Inside was his passport.
The wall was gone.
A firefighter reached through the wreckage with a pitchfork and pulled the bag out. The passport was singed, but still intact.
For an Australian who had once come to America with little more than a backpack and his gear bag, it was hard not to see the significance.
Fielder still had his passport. He still had his gear.
Most importantly, everyone had made it outside.
That was enough.
The people around him made sure it would be.
Texas Rattlers Head Coach Cody Lambert — the community teddy bear behind the hard exterior — immediately jumped into action. Lambert’s wife went to Walmart to get socks, clothes and the basic necessities for everyone displaced by the fire.
Montana Silversmiths began working on replacement buckles.
Ariat stepped in, pulling together current inventory in the group’s sizes.
Along came new felt hats.
The cowboy brotherhood did what it does.
“To be honest, the support I've had at this point in time in my life is truly amazing,” Fielder later said. “I'm so grateful to be surrounded by such amazing people that just put you right back on your feet. They've been a huge help. I'm so very grateful for that.”
Losing everything overnight will test a man’s spirit to the core.
For Fielder, walking away with almost nothing was not the end of the line. It was another reminder of what the cowboy brotherhood really means.
When his house burned down, his Texas Rattlers teammates, friends and the greater PBR family stepped up to carry the weight.
Fielder took that support, re-centered his life around gratitude and went back to work.
That is the mentality of a cowboy.
That is Brady Fielder.
And adversity had already learned that lesson once before.
Fielder grew up in Clermont, Queensland, Australia, riding calves almost as soon as he could walk before progressing to bulls under the direction of his two older bull-riding brothers. At 16, a bull stomped his chest, puncturing a lung and creating an air pocket that traveled behind his eye and ruptured, permanently taking the vision in that eye.
It never stopped him.
He became the 2019 PBR Australia Rookie of the Year, eventually made the move to the United States and helped the Texas Rattlers win the 2023 PBR Teams Championship. In 2024, he went 24-for-34 during the Teams regular season — 70.59% — to win the Great 8 Award as the most consistent rider in the league.
In 2025, even a broken leg that cost him time early in the Teams season could not keep him from finishing runner-up in the MVP race while posting the best riding percentage among the top three contenders at 75%.
Fielder had once needed to borrow money just to afford his flight to the United States.
Now, after building a career, buying a home and filling it with the hardware that proved how far he had come, he had watched most of it disappear in one morning.
Then his season started to catch fire.
Fielder finished fourth in Salt Lake City.
He followed with a 12th-place finish in Pittsburgh, ninth in Jacksonville, eighth in Little Rock and 11th in Tallahassee.
Then came Indianapolis.
Fielder was perfect.
He covered all three bulls at Ram Trucks PBR Indianapolis presented by Cooper Tires, opening with 89.30 points, following with 87.65 and closing the weekend with a 91.80-point championship-round strike.
268.75 aggregate points.
First place.
And $50,813.
The Australian who had watched nearly everything he owned disappear two months earlier was winning big money again.
Fielder finished fourth in Albuquerque before rolling into Billings, Montana, in April.
Again, he did not buck off.
Fielder opened PBR Billings with 88.30 points, added 85.25 in Round 2 and saved his biggest score for last, erupting for 92.40 points in the championship round.
Another 3-for-3 weekend.
Another event win.
Another $44,340.
“Jan. 12, had a bit of a crazy lifetime experience waking up to a fire in my house,” Fielder said in Billings. “It was a shock to the system, really, but it's all part of living, I guess. It's a matter of working through it and taking care of it every step of the way.”
By then, Fielder was No. 2 in the world standings.
The man who had been picking through what remained of his home in January was suddenly chasing an individual gold buckle.
He nearly caught it.
Fielder remained perfect again in Tacoma, tying for second to close the Unleash The Beast regular season and carrying his title hopes into the PBR World Finals in Fort Worth.
There, the championship race came down to the final day against John Crimber.
Crimber ultimately secured the 2026 PBR World Championship with 1,242.50 points.
Fielder finished No. 2 with 1,063.67.
Across 61 outs, Fielder covered 33 bulls for a 54.10% riding percentage and earned $385,701 during the Unleash The Beast season.
It was not the gold buckle he came to America chasing but it was still a career year.
And Fielder was nowhere near finished.
When the 2026 PBR Teams season began, Fielder returned to the Texas Rattlers as one half of the team’s one-two punch alongside Daniel Keeping.
Keeping calls the duo “Shake and Bake,” borrowing the line from Talladega Nights. Fielder still has not actually seen the movie, so for now, he has settled for Keeping’s explanation of the reference.
Whatever you call them, the combination has worked.
Through 23 outs, Fielder has covered 15 bulls for a 65.22% riding percentage. His average ride score of 88.85 points is higher than both riders currently ahead of him in the MVP race — three-time World Champion Jose Vitor Leme and Paulo Eduardo Rossetto.
Fielder currently sits third in that race.
And the season still has road left.
His world was rattled. The Texas Rattler was not.
He lost the house.
He lost the boots.
And he stood outside and watched the belt buckle from the Rattlers’ 2023 PBR Teams Championship burn in front of his eyes.
Now, he is on a mission to win another one.
He lost nearly every physical reminder of how far the kid from Clermont had come since arriving in America with a backpack and a gear bag.
What the fire could not touch was the grit that got him here.
Nine months later, Fielder is back near the top, still riding, still winning and now headed home to Fort Worth with another buckle in his sights.
Rattler Days presented by Germania Insurance brings Fielder and the Texas Rattlers back to Dickies Arena Oct. 2-4, where he will ride in front of fans, family and foes with one thing already proven — it takes a whole lot more than fire to rattle Brady freaking Fielder.
Photo courtesy of Bull Stock Media