Ryan Dirteater gets first BFTS win

By Barbara Pinnella
Posted Thursday, January 29, 2009

Dallas, Texas was the site of the Dickies Invitational, and there was a lot going on during and after this fifth event of the season. Since this report is a bit late, I will not do my normal coverage. Instead, I will mention the things that occurred and are important to the BFTS.

First though, I must congratulate the winner of this event, young Ryan Dirteater. In round one he tied with Chris Shivers for the win, after riding #10 Bucking Bulls’ Cat Man Do to a score of 89 points. In round two he was third with an 87.75 on Stiffler, owned by Boyd/Floyd Bull Company. Easily into the Championship round, he was seventh on The Geetus with a score of 83. D & H Cattle Co. owns The Geetus.

Ryan found himself on top of the average, thus grabbing event win. In second place for the average was J.B. Mauney. Third was Ryan McConnel, fourth was Austin Meier, and fifth was Brian Herman.

There was a change in the standings for the BFTS. Mauney jumped into the lead, and Kody Lostroh, without a qualified ride in Dallas, found himself dropping into second. Dirteater moved into the third spot, Meier fourth, Zack Brown dipped into fifth, Kasey Hayes sixth, Mike Lee seventh, Wiley Petersen eighth, Shane Proctor ninth, and Valdiron de Oliveira finishes up the top ten.

A big story this week was the cut, which occurs at the end of every fifth BFTS tour stop. But now there is a new twist. Instead of the top 45 bull riders, after Dallas it changes to the top 40 riders. That top 40 will be made up of the top 30 riders in the BFTS, and the top five in the 2009 Copenhagen Bull Riding Challenger Tour. There is also a World Champion exemption for five events, and an injury exemption. The money won in the 2008-2009 Challenger Tour will decide alternates. Ten riders were cut after The Dickies Invitational. They were Harve Stewart, Reese Cates, Pistol Robinson, Clayton Williams, L.J. Jenkins, Vince Northrop, Clayton Foltyn, Dustin Hall, Aaron Roy, Brian Canter, Colby Yates, D.J. Domangue, and Ednei Caminhas. Due to their standings in the Copenhagen Bull Riding Challenger Tour, and as a previous PBR World Champion, Canter and Caminhas will remain.

After each five events, the bottom five riders are dropped, and the top five riders in the Challenger Tour move up. Money earned in any of the lower level PBR tours (Copenhagen Bull Riding Tour, Enterprise Rent-A-Car Tour, Discovery Tour, and international tours) counts towards that end. There is a World Champion exemption for five events, as well as an injury exemption. The money won in the 2008-2009 Challenger Tour will decide the alternates. I hope that’s not too confusing.

I’d like to finish with a topic I closed last weeks’ article with – Kasey Hayes. I won’t belabor the point, but Hayes was supposed to make a public apology for his actions last week. He did so, and in a classy way, I thought. He said he was ready to move on from the incident. He did just that, not only qualifying for the short-go, but posting a 90-point score on the Frontier/Teague/McBride & Wegmen bull, California Dreaming to win that round. Hopefully this occurrence will quickly become old news.

Andy Watson photo

Be safe and God Bless,
Viva La Raza,
Barb.