GREELEY, Colo. (April 27, 2010) - To break into bull riding’s Top 10, Josh Koschel has had to learn to hang on. And it turns out that he’s helping other riders do the same.
The tow-headed 25-year-old from Greeley is enjoying his best season ever on the Built Ford Tough Series. He’s been ranked in the Top 10 since late January, and is riding 50 percent of his bulls this year – a 12-point increase over his career average.
But there’s another reason his name is on everyone’s lips – or, more accurately, their heels. It seems that Koschel has effectively cornered the market on spur rowels.
Last year, the PBR began searching for a rowel that was effective for riders, and would further avoid inflicting injuries to bulls. Koschel, whose family owns a machine shop, had been making his own for years.
“The rule was to have a safe rowel for the rider that wasn’t going to hang up in the rope easily and was also safe for the bull,” Koschel said. “I never really campaigned for them. But one day I was sitting on the fence and (PBR Livestock Director) Cody Lambert looked at them and decided that he liked them, and they ended up being the rowels that he chose.”
Today, PBR riders are required to use either Koschel’s rowels or those of a Brazilian manufacturer.
Koschel’s clients range from 2009 PBR World Champion (and fellow Coloradan) Kody Lostroh to BFTS tour members Dustin Elliott and Jordan Hupp.
“They are really good rowels that work good,” Lostroh said. “They’re the safest rowel as far as the bulls, the riders and the bullfighters go. They’re not going to cut a bull and they’re not going to hang in a rope, and that makes it better for everybody.”
Koschel began competing on the BFTS five years ago. But he was on and off of the top-tier tour as a result of nagging injuries and getting cut periodically throughout 2005, 2006 and 2007. But in 2008, he managed to stay consistently on the BFTS and qualified for the 2008 PBR World Finals in Las Vegas.
It was a big confidence booster. He also qualified for the 2009 World Finals and has more than $300,000 in PBR career earnings.
“After staying on tour all year, having a good season and then making the World Finals, I feel like I’ve ridden a lot better,” he said. “I proved to myself that I could do it. I feel like I had the talent all along, I just needed the confidence that I could do it.”
Koschel began riding roughstock when he was in elementary school. He was reared on a small acreage in the Loveland, where the family owned horses. His mother was a former barrel racer and Koschel said he was partially inspired to ride by attending his hometown pro rodeo every year.
Koschel started riding bucking stock when he was six as he began entering sheep riding contests. He began mounting steers about two years later and working his way up through the junior ranks. He qualified for the National High School Rodeo Association three times.
Koschel finished high school in 2003 and his successes on the junior circuits helped him earn a college scholarship at Central Wyoming College in Riverton, Wyo. While in college, Koschel began having success in the PBR and began concentrating on working his way onto the Built Ford Tough Series.
Koschel, who has competed at various levels of the PBR since he was 18, said bull riding has proven to be the right career choice.
“It had the most thrill and it was the most challenging of all the events,” he said. “There was just something about it that caught my eye and I knew that it was what I wanted to do. I like the challenge and the rush that you get out of it and I just like the challenge of riding a bull.
“Riding a bull is not an easy task and I like the feeling of accomplishment. When you get on a good bull and you do everything right, it’s such a great feeling when you’re in time with a bull. It’s just an awesome feeling, pretty tough to describe.”
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Tube time: The final two rounds of this weekend's Des Moines Invitational will be aired Sunday, May 2 at 4 p.m. Eastern on Versus.
