TAHLEQUAH, Okla. (November 12, 2010) - It’s been more than a year since Ryan Dirteater climbed onto a bull at a Built Ford Tough Series event, but the 21-year-old said he’s ready to compete once again among the top professional bull riders in the world.
Dirteater dislocated his left knee at the last regular-season event of 2009, in Uncasville, Conn. He’s completed the rehabilitation process, and though he’s continuing his physical therapy, he says he’s as strong – mentally and physically – as he ever was.
But the best indication that the Cherokee Kid has is ready to compete in New York in January is the calluses on both hands.
Dirteater said he’s been “working to help my dad out, when he needs it. I’m keeping blisters on my hand, as he says it. He tells me to get out here and do some physical labor and that’ll help me stay on a bull.”
With another two months before he’s back on the BFTS, the younger Dirteater is glad to be able to work out three or four days a week, help his dad around the family ranch in Oklahoma, or tend to the indoor arena he now co-owns with his friend Mike Jones in Tahlequah.
In the short time he’s owned it, he and Jones have already staged barrel racing, team roping and futurity bull riding events.
“I’m staying busy,” said Dirtearter. “I’m living in it. It has a living quarters on the side of it, so I can just step out my back door into the arena.
“I’m around bulls 24/7 now.”
He’s been riding bulls at Touring Pro events in anticipation of the Madison Square Garden Invitational on Jan. 7, 8 and 9. He will be using the first of his five BFTS injury exemptions.
This weekend he is in San Antonio for a Saturday night event, which is already the third Touring Pro event of the 2011 season.
“I want to keep getting on the back of a bull just about every weekend,” Dirteater said. “If I’m not entered anywhere, I’ll get on a practice bull here.
“I just want to keep getting on every week and get tuned up and not get lazy, rusty. The more bulls you get on, you won’t lose the feel, so that’s the plan.”
He’s been following that plan for the past three months. Before that, he was idle for 10.
“I hated it,” he said of being laid up for so long. “But it’s teaching me patience – something I didn’t have a lot of, but I have it now.
“I dedicated myself to this sport, I’ve been working hard at it, having fun, loving it, and I’m determined to get back there, do good and just stay on my bulls every weekend. To stay healthy and I need to stay sound.”
In two previous seasons, he’d ridden in 30 BFTS events.
In 2008, he managed one Top 5 finish in eight events. In 2009, he rode in 23 events despite enduring three major injuries. In May of that year he broke his femur, and four months later broke his jaw before sustaining the dislocated knee.
While he was still healthy, he spent time ranked in the Top 10 and won his first BFTS event in Dallas.
“It’s part of the game I play,” he said. “You’re going to get hurt. You just don’t know when, but you have to forget about the past, prepare for the future and live in the present.”
NEWS & NOTES
The last day of the Brahma Super Bull PBR Finals in Campo Grande, Brazil, will be streamed live on PBR.com beginning at 5:30 p.m. ET, Monday, Nov. 15.
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