PUEBLO, Colo. (September 9, 2009) - Six events in six weeks. That’s all that remains of the 2009 Built Ford Tough regular season.
Who will lead going into the World Finals? Kody Lostroh, Guilherme Marchi or J.B. Mauney? Perhaps another rider entirely?
“This is how you decide a true World Champion, because they will be tested in every way,” wrote Ty Murray in his weekly blog posted at www.pbrnow.com/blog.
“They’ve been getting on rank bulls all season, and now they have to continue that for six more events and on through a PBR World Finals, which is the ultimate test for a professional bull rider.”
While the Top 3 riders – Lostroh, Marchi and Mauney – are only separated by slightly more than 1,200 points in the world standings, the Top 12 are all within 5,000 points of the lead.
After a two-month long break, followed by a trio of Built Ford Tough Series events two weeks apart, then last week’s World Cup, everyone’s focus is on Reno and the task at hand.
“Right now these guys have to be focused on their first bull in Reno, because at this point, that’s all that matters,” Murray wrote. “Then you move on to the next bull, but on some of the rank bulls you can even break the moment down to jump-by-jump, because you have to get past the first jump to get to the second one.”
Murray used this week’s blog to draw attention to the importance of each rider remaining focused on the present moment as opposed to getting caught up in season-long goals.
The nine-time World Champion and co-founder of the PBR used two examples to illustrate his point.
First he wrote that whichever NFL team that goes on to win the Super Bowl needs to be as focused in game one as they are when they finally make it to the Playoffs.
The same principle applied the year Murray won a world title by a mere 95 points.
He wrote that he could have just as easily lost that title by 95 points, and found a thousand moments during the season that could have cost him the ultimate prize. But as it turned out, there were another thousand moments he could point to that might have been the reason he won that year.
“It’s important to take advantage of every moment of every chance you get, for all it’s worth, every step of the way,” he wrote, “because it can literally come down to a few points that decides who wins and who loses.”
For the Top 40 riders in the world, that next moment will come Friday night in Reno, Nevada.
The Copenhagen Bull Riding Invitational is a three-day event with a lot of points and money available. At this point, money earned becomes as much of an issue as the number of points won, especially for those riders further down the standings.
“The dynamic of the season is going to change now that everybody can see the light at the end of the tunnel,” wrote Murray, who looks for the 2009 to be one of the most exciting finishes in the 16-year history of the PBR.
“They know they only have six weeks, and that sense of urgency is starting to set in, so for me it’s interesting to watch how they all handle it.”
