Rodeo News

Last December, Clay Tryan texted Travis Graves a simple message.

“Do you want to win a world title?”

Now they’re 10 rounds away from the coveted gold buckle.

Tryan and Graves enter the National Finals Rodeo leading the world standings for team roping headers and heelers. By the end of the regular season, there were no hotter ropers than the pair who had been together less than a year.

The two finished 2010 with a rush, winning the Wrangler Tour Rodeo in Puyallup, Wash., and closing out a terrific year with a dominating performance at the Justin Boots Championships in Omaha, Neb.

Tryan and Graves won three rounds and placed second in another for $34,955, the most money won for a competitor at the event.

With the money won in Omaha, Tryan shattered the single-season earnings record for team roping headers. Tryan, earned $146,608 this year bettering the previous record of $127,749 by Chad Masters in 2009. Graves also set the single-season earnings record for heelers with $147,653. The previous mark was $118,277 by Jade Corkill in 2009.

The NFR begins Dec. 2 and concludes Dec. 11 at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas.

“It’s been a great year,” said Tryan, who won the world title in 2005. “It’s pretty nice how things have worked out so well.

“I don’t care what people say, winning gives you confidence and confidence is a huge deal in roping. You go in there knowing you’re going to do well. That makes a huge difference.”

The two officially began roping together in January.

“It’s a pretty small circle in team roping, we all know each other,” Tryan said of the pairing. “Our styles fit well together. Both of us can catch a lot of steers and we can be fast when we need to be fast. And Travis likes to practice like I do.”

Along with winning Puyallup and Omaha, the two also won team roping titles at six other rodeos. The wins included Rapid City, S.D., Sisters, Ore., and Colorado Springs, Colo.

“We placed in a lot of rodeos and got a few big checks at some others,” said Tryan.

Tryan leads Masters by $29,887 in the heading standings, while Graves has a $25,469 lead over Cory Petska for the heelers. Graves is from Jay, Okla.

Their pursuit of the championship actually began right after the conclusion of last year’s 2009 NFR where Tryan finished 11th in the final world standings.

“Winning a world title, that’s been our mindset since we started,” he said. (read more)

Canada’s premier saddle bronc rider Rod Hay has withdrawn from next month’s $5.8-million Wrangler National Finals Rodeo at Las Vegas.

The eight-time Canadian champion has been on the disabled list since June with a severely fractured right leg. But when entries closed in late October, the Wildwood, Alta., rancher felt he would be healthy enough to compete.

Hay planned to test out the leg during a practice session next week at the college arena in Olds.

He met with his Calgary doctor Tuesday and, after considering his views for two days, notified rodeo headquarters in Colorado Springs on Friday that he’d have to turn out.

Utah’s Jesse Wright, who finished in the crying hole (16th) in the world standings, will replace him.

“I needed more mobility in my leg to feel comfortable that I’d be competitive,” Hay said. “If I’m going to be there, I want to be a threat and believe I have a chance to win the world.

“I talked to the doctor about a (procedure) where they knock you out, go in there and break the scar tissue loose to improve the mobility. I figured that was my only chance. But, he told me there are risks involved and his advice was not to get it done. It could cause swelling and pain and it could do further damage.

“It was also clear to me I wouldn’t be able to (regain) enough strength to ride in Las Vegas anyway.”

Hay will fly to Las Vegas a day or two before the NFR starts Dec. 2, get his back number and jacket, watch a bucking horse futurity and fulfil a commitment to sign autographs for Wrangler. He led the world standings with just under $78,000 at the time of his injury and ended the season in ninth place.

“I bet it was hard for him to turn out,” said Wright. “I’ve wanted to make the finals for as long as I can remember, but I feel bad about Rod not going.”

Hay has no idea when he’ll return. “I’m on the right track doing what I’m doing and all the doctors I’ve seen are happy with (my progress),” he reported. “It (the leg) is coming, it just didn’t come along fast enough for Las Vegas.” (photo credit and link)

Good Luck Sherry!! Can’t wait to watch you at the NFR!!!

Photo Credit

In 2010, while Sherry Cervi was chasing Lindsay Sears’ 2008 regular-season earnings record of $184,756, what she didn’t realize was how close she was to 11-time world champion Charmayne James’ career earnings record.

While Cervi fell short of Sears’ record, finishing the year with $179,852, she did surpass James all-time money record and now holds the record with $1,964,821 in career earnings to date. James finished her career with $1,886,568. And if that wasn’t enough, Cervi needs to win just $35,179 at the 2010 Wrangler NFR to become the first $2 million barrel racer.

“I hadn’t realized I was that close, so that is pretty cool,” Cervi said. “I’ve had a great career, but without the great horses, none of this would have been possible. I feel very blessed.”

“Records are made to be broken, and my hope is that the sport and money continue to get better and that it takes less time for the next person to break my record.”

The ever-gracious James echoed the same sentiments about her record being broken…..(read more)

Photo Credit

Nancy Hunter, a registered nurse that resides in Neola, Utah, entered the 2010 Dodge Wilderness Circuit Finals Rodeo in Ogden, Utah (Oct. 28-30), just hoping to win enough money to pay for the fuel. She did much more than that by the end of the weekend.

Hunter added $4,796 to her wallet and an average and year-end circuit title to her resume. Hunter called upon her 10-year old Flint N Fizz better known in her barn as Fuzz. Entering the weekend she felt like both the year-end title and the average were out of reach for her. She was approximately $2,400 behind 2009 WPRA Rookie of the Year and 2010 Wrangler NFR Qualifier Kelli Tolbert for the year-end title and she had never had three clean runs on Fuzz in that pen. All that changed this year.

“What are the odds of doing what I did,” said Hunter regarding her sweep of the titles. “It was like a fairy tale and I am still not sure I believe it. This circuit is so tough with Kelli (Tolbert) winning the rookie title last year and now going to the Finals, then the winners of the rodeos in Reno and Pendleton are from this circuit. It was just an unbelievable weekend.”

Hunter won or shared the round victory in all three rounds at the circuit finals en route to the titles. She won the first round in a time of 13.98 seconds and returned in the second round to turn in a rodeo best 13.88-second run. Heading into the final round, she just wanted to keep all the barrels standing.

“That third run was pretty stressful as I just wanted to be clean,” Hunter said. “I knew if I could keep them up I could at least place in the average based on my first two runs. I was a little more cautious on that run for sure.”
(read more)

Two years ago, Lindsay Sears and her bullet horse Martha were on top of the world.

Last year, they came to the crest only to finish second by five-hundredths of a second.

Think about that: losing by five-hundredths of a second is like hitting a 3-iron 245 yards and having the ball teeter on the edge of the cup but refusing to fall in.

A year-long race, it was a 20,000-kilometre marathon that ended with Sears a centimetre from the finish line.

“Not even the blink of an eye,” she said.

Sears’ final run in the 2009 Wrangler National Finals Rodeo stopped the clocks in 13.94. That gave her a total time of 139.06 seconds for the 10 rounds compared with 139.01 for Sherry Cervi of Arizona.

It was just enough to give Cervi the aggregate title, which, in turn, lifted Brittany Pozi of Texas to the world championship. Had Sears been five-hundredths of a second faster, she would have won the aggregate, which would have given her enough money to win the world title.

“Of course I was disappointed. A competitor always wants to win,” said the affable Nanton barrel racer. “But I placed in nine of the 10 rounds, so it was a great NFR.

“The thing about rodeo is you can’t dwell on negative things. Once a rodeo ends, it’s over. You wake up and there’s another rodeo to go to.

“After the National Finals, the new year already started,” said Sears, who goes into this year’s WNFR in Las Vegas ranked second in the world. This week is the Canadian Finals, a rodeo she has never won.

A big part of the reason is that Sears goes to the bullpen for the CFR. Instead of using Martha, her faster than a hiccup, 10-year-old sorrel mare, this time Sears is opting for seven-year-old Moe.

“The conditions in Edmonton haven’t been conducive to Martha in the past and I don’t want to take a chance on hurting her before the NFR. Moe is better suited to the situation,” she said of the horse that she rode for some of this year’s Calgary Stampede — where she lost by an even closer margin than in last year’s WNFR. Texan Savanah Reeves went around the Stampede cloverleaf pattern in 17.25 seconds — a hundredth of a second faster than Sears. (read more)

Professional cowboys and barrel racers work all year to qualify for the December world championships at Las Vegas.

But, like any other rodeo during the year, they still have to phone headquarters in Colorado Springs and enter — officially confirm they’ll be there.

Entries closed last Friday and there were no surprises — everybody who made the 15-contestant cut in each of the seven events made the call.

Eight-time Canadian champion Rod Hay was one of them. He finished the regular season ninth in the world saddle bronc riding standings with $77,693 despite being on the disabled list since June 20.

He fractured his right leg that day at Innisfail, shattering the bottom of the femur where it enters a socket at the top of the knee.

Hay hasn’t crawled onto a bucking horse since and is still undergoing rehab. But he’s optimistic he could be ready to return to action on opening night of the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo.

It kicks off Dec. 2 and the finalists will get on the rankest broncs in the world for 10 consecutive nights.

“I’m not saying I’m going to get on,” he emphasized. “I’m planning to be ready to get on by then.”

Hay will first test the leg in the practice pen.

“I don’t want to get on my first one at Las Vegas,” he said. “I’ve been around long enough to know that I’m not just going to jump on 10 of the rankest horses in the world without knocking off some of the rust.

“I don’t want to go there and not be capable.”

He’s shooting to be ready for the practice pen during the third week of this month.

“I’ll get on a few, take ‘em one at a time, see how it feels, see how I feel and make a decision at that time,” he said. “If I’m not ready, I won’t go to Las Vegas. But, I’m definitely going to wait until then to decide.”

The Wildwood rancher has one more appointment with his Calgary doctor on Monday.

“The bone is basically healed, the question is whether the actual joint and everything is going to work,” Hay said. “The leg is getting stronger every day, but it still swells some. It’s a long way from 100 per cent, but I have some time to build up the strength and get what I need done.

“Some days I’m really optimistic; other days I wonder if it will ever get back to where it was.

“I’ve been able to work on it a lot harder the last two or three weeks; it doesn’t swell up as much and get as painful as it did.” (link to story)

Turtle Powell and Vegas

There will be an all-new class of superstar horses on display at the December 2-11 Wrangler National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas, including one nicknamed “Vegas.”

His registered name is RA Sonoita Silver, but owner Turtle Powell calls him Vegas. This seems fitting enough, given that Powell splurged four years ago, paying Terry Thompson $25,000 to get a team roping heading horse that he believed could give him a chance at a gold buckle.

Vegas is the 2010 AQHA-PRCA Heading Horse of the Year – his first such award – and Powell arrives at the Wrangler NFR in third place in the world standings.

“Without him, I would be struggling,” Powell told ProRodeo Sports News. “I would be in the bottom half, 20 to 25. When I didn’t have him, it was very hard for me to make money. Probably 75 percent of it is him. You have to have a really good horse. He’s awesome. I wouldn’t be where I am without him.” (read more)

A nearly perfect performance in Omaha at the PRCA Justin Boots Championships earned Clay Tryan and his partner, Travis Graves, each $35,955 at the event.

The team won the first round with a rapid 4.3-second run, followed by a 4.2-second win in the second round. In the Semi-Final round, a 4.7-second run was good enough to win second place. The team won the Final round with another consistent 4.6, clinching the event championship, a fantastic follow up to their win at the Justin Boots Playoffs two weeks prior in Puyallup, Washington.

By Saturday, Tryan had surpassed Chad Masters’ year-old record for regular-season earnings by a header with $145,524. Clay currently leads the PRCA standings with $146,608 – $30,000 more than second place header, Chad Masters; and $40,000 ahead of third place header, Turtle Powell.

“It’s always great to have a lead, because you don’t have to win as much as the next guy” says Tryan, “But the fact is we still have to rope really well at the NFR and that’s our goal.”