UNCASVILLE, Conn. (September 30, 2010) - He can sleep at night, but PBR Livestock Director Cody Lambert says the last thing on his mind in the evening and the first thing on his mind in the morning is which bulls won’t be making the October trip to Las Vegas.
After spending the better part of the 2010 season watching the best bulls in the world perform on the Built Ford Tough Series, Lambert has spent the past month assembling this year’s pen for the World Finals.
“It’s just a matter of trying to pick the ones that are the best,” he said. “The way I do it is if there are two bulls that I feel are about the same, I really try to break it down and see which ones the judges normally score higher.
“At the end of the day, if they ride them, I want them to score the highest on the bulls that are there.”
As it has been in each successive season, the depth of the overall pen at the 17th Finals is greater than in past years.
Complicating matters this year is the fact that the Finals has been shortened by two rounds. Instead of selecting 140 bulls, Lambert has to narrow his list down to 110.
That list does not include the top 4-year-old ABBI Classic bulls who will also compete at the Thomas & Mack Center.
Lambert said he’s not always right, but he has a lot of bulls to choose from.
He later added, “It’s really a year-long process trying to establish what the best bulls are, but it doesn’t matter how good they were in January, February, March. It really comes down to how good they are in August and September.”
This weekend, in Uncasville, Conn., several bulls will be showcasing their talents one last time.
On hand will be Big Tex and Yellow Jacket Jr., along with Smack Down and Soulja Boy, who haven’t been all together at a BFTS event in a while. Major Payne and Unabomber will also be the Mohegan Sun Invitational.
Lambert said the job isn’t so much picking which ones go to the Finals, as it is deciding which ones won’t.
One particular bull – Pinball Wizard – will have to perform better this weekend than he has in his past two trips. According to Lambert, despite bucking off both Brendon Clark and Chris Shivers, the bull has had “two off days.”
“He wasn’t as good as he normally is, so he’s going to have to have a better day – and I mean a lot better day – in Connecticut to make it to Las Vegas.”
[Editor’s note: Lambert’s weekly podcast will be posted later this morning.]
NEWS AND NOTES
PBR Now on RFD-TV: J.W. Hart and his co-host Justin McBride will be back on RFD-TV tonight, beginning at 10 p.m. ET. The show is also streamed live at PBR.TV. Fans are encouraged to call 877-731-6733, or send questions by emailing pbrnowshow@pbr.com.
Live Event Center: Follow all the action from this week’s BFTS event in Uncasville, Conn., including the fourth of five bonus rounds for the Top 10 riders, by logging on to the Event Center at www.pbr.com/live. The multimedia center provides live scoring, live blogging and event-related interviews.
