SUPER SERIES V CHAMPIONS NAMED AT RodeoHouston™

Posted Wednesday, March 14, 2007

MARCH 13, 2007 — HOUSTON — FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — Fans electrified Reliant Stadium as 70 riders competed for the chance to advance to the Super Series Semifinals round during the March 13, Super Series V Championship performance of RodeoHouston.

Twenty-eight riders from seven events in Super Series V advanced to the semifinals by earning the top four places in their respective events.

Blair Burk, professional cowboy and part-time horse trainer, won the Super Series V Tie-Down Roping Championship. “Reliant Stadium is the biggest rodeo of the year,” he said. “The fans make it exciting and get me pumped up.”
Jason Jeter won the Super Series V Bareback Riding Championship. His advice to youth interested in rodeo: “They need to go to a rodeo school that has knowledgeable teachers before they jump into it,” Jeter said. “It will save them a lot of pain and grief.”

Full-time rodeo competitors Luke Brown and York Gill won the Super Series V Team Roping Championship. The team spent two weeks getting ready for RodeoHouston by practicing in Brown’s home state of North Carolina.

While competing, Brown and Gill said they have only one thing on their minds. Brown added that when they “make the catch and the fans stand up and holler, it’s the coolest part, it’s all worth it.”

J.J. Elshere, who operates a horse and cattle ranch in South Dakota, won the Super Series V Saddle Bronc Championship.

Layna Kight won the Super Series V Barrel Racing Championship and is one step closer to $50,000. “You need a special kind of horse to fit this type of pen,” she said.

Cody Hancock, a cowboy with RodeoHouston championship history, won the Super Series V Bull Riding Championship. Hancock won Bull Riding Champion at the 2006 RodeoHouston.

Hancock did not prepare any differently for the 2007 Rodeo. “Bull riding is basically the same if it is for practice or for $50,000,” he said. “I go out the same way every time.”

Super Series V Champions received $6,000 in additional prize money, a 75th anniversary Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo™ watch and RodeoHouston garment bag.

Winners of Super Series Semifinal I will be announced Wednesday, March 14, at a 6:45 p.m. performance.