Harris finds King Midas touch at American Royal
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Two-time and reigning World Champion Bull Rider J.W. Harris may be peaking at just the right moment.
In his last major competition before the 52nd Wrangler National Finals Rodeo, Harris thrilled the large crowd in Kemper Arena Oct. 29 with a dramatic 89-point ride on Stace Smith Pro Rodeos’ For Real that earned him a rodeo-best $9,419.
It was, for sure, enough to win the American Royal, a Gold event on the 2011 Wrangler Million Dollar Tour presented by Justin Boots, surpassing Chad Denton and 19-year-old Jacob O’Mara by two points.
A broken right (riding) hand suffered at the Wrangler NFR last December got Harris’ 2010 season off to a slow start and led him to brand his performance this year as “kind of mediocre.”
“It wasn’t until after the Xtreme Bulls event in Cody (Wyo.) in July that I really began to trust (the hand) … began to get my strength back where it was before the injury. During the early months of the season, it would kind of go dead on me at times.
“I didn’t do any special therapy. I built up my strength just getting on bulls. It was kind of aggravating waiting for it to come around again, but you go through that sometimes in this sport and it’s good now. No pain.
“This was a good tune-up for the Finals and a good way to start the 2011 season.”
Harris enters his title defense in Las Vegas in eighth place, about $50,000 behind leader Wesley Silcox, but knows what is possible if he can put together 10 solid rounds there. Each round pays $17,512 to the winner, and the average champion at the NFR earns nearly $45,000.
“It all starts over when you get to the Finals,” Harris said. “It’s an even slate. I just have to go out there and do my job and see what happens. I can’t control what Silcox or any of the rest of them does. I just have to do my part.”
Harris was one of six past world champions to secure at least a share of a championship at the $302,459 American Royal, Oct. 21-23, 29-30.
• Five-time World Champion Saddle Bronc Rider Billy Etbauer’s 88-point ride on Frontier Rodeo’s Let ’Er Rip from the first weekend stood up for first place. Etbauer also split the win with J.J. Elshere at the American Royal in 2006, the last year before a three-year hiatus in which the American Royal committee staged the Dodge Prairie Circuit Finals Rodeo.
“(Let ’Er Rip) is kind of a wild little thing,” Etbauer said. “I had him in Dodge City (Kan.) a year or two ago. Basically, you always feel busy on him. He’s always going to buck, he’s pretty fast and he doesn’t necessarily make the same tracks every time. He’s one you can go and win on, if you can survive the ride, anyway.”
• Bobby Mote, who has won three world championships as a bareback rider, actually earned more money team roping in Kemper Arena on his way to securing the all-around title. Heading steers for Garrett Jess, Mote won $1,243 in team roping and $231 in bareback riding.
• Chad Masters, the 2007 world champion header, paired with Jade Corkill to win the team roping with a time of 9.6 seconds on two head.
• Three-time World Champion Bareback Rider Will Lowe had an 85-point ride on Silverado Rodeo’s Memphis King to tie Joe Gunderson (who also rode Memphis King) and Chris Harris for the title.
“These Gold tour rodeos are such a big thing to us,” Lowe told the Kansas City Star, “because when you are doing well on the Tour, you’re doing well at the biggest rodeos we’ve got. Kansas City really stepped it up and put themselves in the mix with the big dogs.”
• Two-time World Champion Steer Wrestler Luke Branquinho finished first in his specialty with a time of 6.9 seconds on two head, two-tenths better than Dane Hanna.
“The committee was great, they had great hospitality, and they try hard,” Branquinho said. “I’ve been to Kansas City a few times – I won it back in ’04 – and they try hard, which is the main thing if you want to have a rodeo at the level of the Gold Tour.”
Veteran timed-event cowboy Cody Owens pulled off the upset of the rodeo, winning the tie-down roping with a time of 16.6 seconds on two head, edging two-time and reigning World Champion Trevor Brazile by three-tenths of a second.
Jill Moody won the barrel racing title over Tammy Fischer by seven-hundredths of a second – 29.93 seconds on two runs to Fischer’s 30.00.
Home field edge works for Ashworth at Dodge Wilderness Circuit Finals Rodeo
OGDEN, Utah – It’s just 14.7 miles from Jake Ashworth’s home in Layton, Utah, to the Golden Spike Arena, and all the support from friends and family that came down the I-15 with him helped Ashworth secure the biggest win of his rodeo career.
“People kept asking me if ‘my entourage was coming,’” Ashworth said. “That was the running joke. I know I had seven family members and friends there for all three performances. And I’ve been known to have upwards of 30 in the stands.”
Ashworth has had success in that arena at the high school, college, amateur and professional levels and he says he “couldn’t have asked for a better setting” to earn his breakthrough win as steer wrestling champion at the Dodge Wilderness Circuit Finals Rodeo.
He’d come close a year ago, winning a round and finishing second in another, only to break a barrier and knock himself out of contention. This time, there were no such hiccups. Ashworth won the first round in 4.0 seconds, shared first place with Wyatt Kinghorn in round two (4.3) and placed fourth in the final round to secure the title.
Ashworth’s three-head time of 12.9 seconds was 2.4 seconds faster than runner-up Alex Hover, and assured him of qualifying for his first Dodge National Circuit Finals Rodeo next spring in Oklahoma City.
It was the nicest sort of boost for Ashworth, 30, who is not very far removed from believing his rodeo career was over.
Ashworth stepped away from the sport for three years after graduating from Weber State University and taking a job in medical sales for Professional Hospital Supply. And it’s only been two years since childhood friend (and three-time Wrangler NFR qualifier) Clint Robinson helped coax him back to the arena on a limited basis.
Ashworth schedules about 30 rodeos a year, mostly close to home.
His sales territory covers northern Utah and southeastern Idaho, so there is some travel associated with that, and he and wife, Haylee, have a 2-month-old daughter, Macklee, so he has been reluctant to extend the rodeo part of his life.
“I used to go full time with Clint,” Ashworth said, “and there is a part of me that would like to compete more. If I were to do it, I’d want to be among the cream of the crop. I’m too competitive not to go all out.”
Robinson, who won the tie-down roping average over Nate Baldwin at the Wilderness Circuit Finals, was joking with Ashworth about going back on the road, saying, “You can’t come up here with me and just leave.”
Ashworth and Robinson have known each other since they were about 11 years old, and they remain good friends. They practice together whenever they can, even though Robinson now lives an hour away in Spanish Fork, Utah.
Robinson and his dad, Lance, a six-time NFR qualifier who is about to be inducted into the Utah Sports Hall of Fame, have already offered to supply Ashworth with a good horse for the DNCFR, and Lance has offered to haze for him.
“It’s always awesome to perform in front of Lance and Clint,” Ashworth said. “It’s a little bit of pressure. There are a bunch of us (in Utah) who are sort of (Lance’s) barn crew. He taught us how to rope and bulldog. I’ve always looked up to both of them.”
The other champions to emerge from the competition at the Golden Spike Arena were bareback rider Cody DeMers (247 points on three head), team ropers Matt Sherwood and Randon Adams (17.6 seconds on three head), saddle bronc rider Jesse Wright (254 points on three head), bull rider Shawn Proctor (257 points on three head) and barrel racer Nancy Hunter (41.79 seconds on three runs).
Robinson had a rodeo-best $4,796, just ahead of Wright, who earned $4,659 in edging older brother (and 2008 World Champion) Cody for the second year in a row.
Elliott checks off another goal with win at Dodge Prairie Circuit Finals Rodeo
PARK CITY, Kan. – For nearly a year, 2004 World Champion Bull Rider Dustin Elliott has been working his way down a long list of things he wanted to accomplish in rodeo. On Oct. 29-30, he got to check off a big one – a win at the Dodge Prairie Circuit Finals Rodeo – and this one came with a much-desired bonus.
Elliott finished his work in Hartman Arena, and then he got to go home to his family.
“This has been my hardest year ever for travel,” Elliott said. “From January until last week, I hadn’t been home (in North Platte, Neb.) for longer than a week. From May to September, I wasn’t home for more than three days at a time.
‘My career’s getting along; I’m pushing 30. So, realistically I may only have five more years, and I decided to really go hard this year. It’s not as tough on me as it is on my wife (Cynthia) and my twins (Ethan and Emma), who are almost 4 years old. But this is the time to travel and go after it.”
It’s a simple fact of rodeo life: A bull rider’s career doesn’t last as long as it does for cowboys in other events, and the peak years tend to come at a younger age. Starting with Elliott’s own gold buckle season in 2004, each of the last six world champions has been 24 years old or younger, and only one of the last 11 has been older than 25.
So, if you are 29 and know the clock is ticking, you work harder, and hope that you stay healthy long enough to put some money in the bank while you can.
For Elliott, all that hard work has paid off handsomely this year. He qualified for the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo – right at the top of his to-do list – for the first time since 2006, and this latest of his seven PRCA titles in 2010 qualifies Elliott for the Dodge National Circuit Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City next spring.
That being done, he now has about a month until the Dec. 2-11 Wrangler NFR, and he goes into this much-desired break with a nice bit of momentum, a boost in confidence.
Elliott had an 86-point ride to finish second in the first round to Cody Atwood’s 88, and tied with Thad Newell for second in the third round when both scored 82 points, behind Cooper Kanngiesser’s winning 85.
With nobody managing to ride all three bulls they drew, Elliott won the average title with 168 points, two better than Atwood, and banked $3,124.
“I’m a big believer in setting goals that are achievable,” Elliott said. “Getting to the circuit finals was on my list, and once I made it, so was winning the average. Now I’m going to the Wrangler NFR with the goal of winning the average there, too.”
The other champions crowned in Hartman Arena were bareback rider Caine Riddle (244 points on three head), steer wrestler Stockton Graves (11.0 seconds on three head), team ropers Charles Pogue and Jett Hillman (33.8 seconds on three head), saddle bronc rider Travis Sheets (219 points on three head), tie-down roper Hunter Herrin (24.0 seconds on three head), steer roper Shorty Garten (34.8 seconds on three head) and barrel racer Jessi Eagleberger (40.54 seconds on three runs).
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “I’d really like to get where I can head steers as well as I can ride bareback horses. The key is that you have to get around the best guys to raise your level in rodeos like this.”
— Three-time World Champion Bareback Rider Bobby Mote, after he won the all-around title at the American Royal in Kansas City by earning checks in both bareback riding and team roping (paired with Garrett Jess).
Next Up (2011 rodeos)
Nov. 4 Dodge Southeastern Circuit Finals Rodeo, Davie, Fla., begins
Nov. 5 First Chance Bonanza, Brookings, S.D., begins
Nov. 5 Adirondack Stampede Charity Rodeo, Glen Falls, N.Y., begins
Nov. 5 Clem McSpadden National Finals Steer Roping, Guthrie, Okla., begins
Nov. 6 A Tribute to Chris LeDoux Rodeo, Casper, Wyo.
Rodeo News and Notes
Three-for-three: Roughstock records tumble in Shreveport, La.
SHREVEPORT, La. – Classic Pro Rodeo managed a rare triple at the State Fair of Louisiana Pro Rodeo Oct. 29-30, when Scotty Lovelace animals broke arena records in all three roughstock events.
• Matt Bright won the bareback riding title with a 91-point ride on Classic Pro Rodeo’s Scarlet’s Web, breaking the record of 88 points set by Noah Bayes in 2008.
• Louisiana’s own Cody DeMoss had a 92-point ride on Classic’s Lori Darling to break the record set in 2002 by Dan Erickson and equaled by DeMoss himself in 2006.
• Veteran bull rider Bryan Richardson rode Diamond Joe for 92 points, surpassing the year-old record of 89 points by Luke Haught. PRCA Bull of the Year After Party was ridden for the first time in 18 attempts – by Jeffrey Askey for 91 points – and it was only good enough for Askey to earn a tie for second place with Paul Myers.
And if that doesn’t satisfy the daily requirement for irony, try this: Jacob Duncan rode 2010 PRCA Bareback Horse of the Year Big Tex for 87 points and only came away with a tie for third place behind Bright and Matthew Smith.
Patterson looking to make history in Guthrie this week
After a 10th-round win at last year’s Clem McSpadden National Finals Steer Roping pushed him to his first world title, Rocky Patterson has done everything he can in 2010 to make sure this year’s NFSR, Nov. 5-6, at the Lazy E Arena in Guthrie, Okla., isn’t nearly as dramatic.
The Pratt, Kan., cowboy ripped through the PRCA steer roping schedule, winning 11 rodeos this season and splitting the victory in Guymon, Okla., with Neal Wood. Going into Guthrie, Patterson has already earned a whopping $83,801, which is $2,878 more than he earned in his world championship season and $4,126 shy of the regular-season record set by Guy Allen during his historic 1998 season.
Patterson, who finished the regular season with a lead of more than $32,000 over second-place Trevor Brazile, is in position to take down a pair of milestones with a good 10 rounds in Guthrie. Not only could he eclipse Allen’s total earnings record of $99,132, which was also set in 1998, but he could also become the first steer roper in PRCA history to surpass $100,000 in season earnings. Considering that he won $31,283 at last year’s NFSR, Patterson is well within striking distance.
While he would be honored by being the first six-figure steer roper, Patterson said he’s simply in the right place at the right time.
“Well, it was just a matter of time, because steer roping’s getting a little better all the time, and there’s getting to be a little more money involved in it,” said Patterson, who set a career high in earnings for the second consecutive year in 2010. “Someone’s going to do it; whether it’s me or not, it’s coming. It never was a goal of mine or anything like that, but it would be nice to do it.”
Wrangler National Finals Rodeo livestock selections online
The livestock selections in bareback riding, saddle bronc riding and bull riding for the 2010 Wrangler National Finals Rodeo were announced by the PRCA on Oct. 25. Click on the links at www.prorodeo.com to view the selections. The Finals are set for Dec. 2-11 at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas.
Notes from along the rodeo trail …
Former PRCA saddle bronc rider Billie Sutton is running for the state Senate seat in South Dakota’s District 26 in the Nov. 2 election, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, Billie H. Sutton, who was a state senator and once ran for lieutenant governor in South Dakota. “Politics is in our family background,” Sutton told the Rapid City Journal. Sutton, 26, had his rodeo career abruptly ended at the 2007 Dodge Badlands Circuit Finals Rodeo in Minot, N.D., when a bucking horse reared up in the chutes and broke Sutton’s back. “I have the agricultural background,” said Sutton, a Democrat. “Education is a huge issue for me,” and having to adjust to life as a paraplegic, he says, has informed him on health care and insurance issues. “I feel I have a pretty wide base of knowledge that I can bring as a senator.” Sutton is running against Republican John Meyer for the seat vacated by Democrat Julie Bartling, who left to run for state auditor … Brothers Troy, Daniel and Wayne Weekley, organizers of the Davie (Fla.) Pro Rodeo for 21 years and operators of Five Star Rodeo from 1986-2006, are being inducted into the Broward County (Fla.) Sports Hall of Fame Nov. 9 in Fort Lauderdale. They will be joined in the 2010 induction class by former NHL goaltender John Vanbiesbrouck, former LPGA golfer Patti Rizzo, former Florida State and Canadian Football League quarterback Danny McManus and former Notre Dame and National Football League running back Autry Denson. Troy Weekley also serves on the PRCA Board of Directors as a Rodeo Committee Director and on the Rodeo Committee Executive Council … Lance Robinson, the 1982 PRCA Steer Wrestling Rookie of the Year and a six-time qualifier for the National Finals Rodeo, will be inducted into the Utah Sports Hall of Fame Nov. 16 in Salt Lake City. Robinson qualified for the NFR five times as a steer wrestler (1982-84, 1987-88) and once as a team roping header (1987). His son, Clint, has qualified for the Wrangler NFR three times as a tie-down roper. The other members of the 2010 USHOF induction class are former NBA stars Tom Chambers and Mark Eaton, former Brigham Young University track & field athlete Tiffany Lott Hogan and former Idaho State and Oregon State football coach Dave Kragthorpe. Robinson will become the third rodeo cowboy to be inducted, joining Lewis Feild (1997) and Earl Bascom (1985) … Despite rainy weather and having to compete for fan attention with the San Francisco Giants, the Grand National Rodeo Horse & Stock Show made a solid return to the PRCA schedule Oct. 20-23. The storied San Francisco event drew about 18,200 fans, according to Joseph Barkett, chief executive officer of the Cow Palace. The Giants were at home playing Philadelphia in the National League Championship Series during the first two days of the rodeo, and those two games – plus the deciding sixth game – were nationally televised during the hours of the rodeo … Before the start of the World Series between the Giants and the Texas Rangers, Texas Governor Rick Perry made a friendly wager with California’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman on the outcome of Game 1. The Giants’ 11-7 victory worked out just fine for Whitman; she got a handcrafted pair of Justin Boots from Perry and got to keep her South Coast Surf Board ... The Lynden (Wash.) PRCA Rodeo has donated $5,000 to the PeaceHealth St. Joseph Cancer Center in Bellingham, Wash., for the care of breast cancer patients … The Colmo del Rodeo Parade, brought back this summer after a more-than 10-year hiatus to help celebrate the 100th California Rodeo Salinas, was so enthusiastically received that rodeo organizers are bringing it back in 2011. Applications and guidelines for participation will be available by Dec. 1 at www.carodeo.com … Ty Williams of Telluride, Colo., the nephew of PRCA Director of Industry Outreach Cindy Schonholtz, won his second consecutive Colorado State High School 2A Cross Country Championship Oct. 30, at the Arapahoe County Fairgrounds. He also led Telluride High to the team title ... The North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame will be accepting nominations through Jan. 15 in numerous categories, including Rodeo Cowboy (pre-1940 and modern era). For more information, call 701.250.1833 or 701.623.2000.
