TOLEDO, Ohio – For bullfighters Brandt Clark and Joe Garretson, their 2008 Professional Championship Bullriders tour season came to a rather wild conclusion.
When Illinois cowboy Jim Kreke was announced as the season champion at the conclusion of the PCB World Finals II in Chicago a month ago, Garretson and Clark were licking their wounds from a rough and tumble year that left Garretson sidelined from the final event of the 2008 campaign.
In all, the Springfield, Mo., bullfighter ended the season with a seriously broken arm, 12 broken ribs, a broken collarbone, a punctured lung and a lacerated liver.
“I’ll be ready when we kick things off,” Garretson said, referring to the opening of the 2009 season starting at 7:30 p.m. March 6-7 at the Seagate Center in Toledo.
Garretson broke his arm at a PCB event in Grand Forks, N.D., on Jan. 23. He delayed surgery, getting the arm placed in a cast so he could fight bulls a week later in Cincinnati. While there on Jan. 31, he was run over by a bull, resulting in the rest of the scars that have covered his body.
“It’s just part of the job,” Garretson said, not mentioning the five days he spent hospitalized after the wreck in Cincinnati. “I feel better every day.”
For his work inside the arena, Garretson was named the PCB tour’s 2008 bullfighter of the year. His toughness shined through, even though his injuries kept him out of the arena during the association’s finale, where Kreke was crowned the national champion and B.J. Carter of St. Cloud, Fla., won the finals.
In Chicago, Carter was the only cowboy to cover three bulls for the qualifying eight seconds, scoring 264 points on three rides. His closest competition was Ryan Schumacher of Baldwin, Wis., who scored 175 points. Luke Carroll of Sacred Heart, Minn., and Bobby Lathero of Fellsmere, Fla., were the only other cowboys to cover at least two bulls.
Kreke pulled off a nice feat in Chicago himself, moving from third to first in the world standings.
“This should be a great bull-riding,” said Clark, who has become one of the premier protection bullfighters in the sport.
Fresh off his assignment at the PCB World Finals, five-time world champion bullfighter Rob Smets will serve as one of the arena announcers in Toledo. Smets has been around the sport of bull riding all his life and is recognized as one of the greatest bullfighters to have ever strapped on cleats and used his tremendous athleticism to help others in the arena escape harm’s way.
“We were here in 2006 and 2007, and we’ve been looking forward to coming back to Toledo for a long time,” Clark said. “There’s a good reason we’re kicking off the ’09 season in Toledo.”
Contact information:
Brandt Clark 989-506-9643 brandt@pcbtour.com
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