Monday, October 25, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

PBR WORLD FINALS: Brown hangs on for win

Cowboy finding success in move from PRCA

By JEFF WOLF
REVIEW-JOURNAL

Zack Brown rides Muddy Moss during the third round of the Professional Bull Riders World Finals at Mandalay Bay Events Center on Sunday. Brown won the round, scoring 88.5 points. Photo by Ralph Fountain.

A spear fisherman who grew up in Hawaii and Southern California and relied on a skateboard for primary transportation as a teenager won Sunday night's third round of the Professional Bull Riders World Finals when only 16 of 45 competitors were able to withstand the twisting, snorting and jumping bulls and complete 8-second rides.

Zack Brown, of Chino Hills, Calif., won $20,000 before about 6,500 fans at Mandalay Bay Events Center for Sunday's success, but instead of using the money to add acres to a ranch like many rodeo athletes do, he plans to buy a boat to use for tuna fishing along the Pacific Coast.

Brown assumed a modest, cowboy style when explaining his success in his first PBR Finals and how he's leading the race for PBR's top rookie with earnings of $144,771.

"It's a little bit of talent and a lot of luck," Brown said.

Brown was the fourth rider of the night Sunday, and he scored 88.5 points on Don and Janelle Kish's Muddy Moss. He's covered two of his three bulls in the Finals and is sixth in the event standings. He also moved up three spots to 23rd in the season standings.

Brown, who won two of the last four events in the PBR regular season, hopes his winning continues when the Finals resume at the Thomas & Mack Center on Thursday, when it run nightly through Sunday's final two rounds that begin at 11:50 a.m.

Brown, 25, competed in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association's National Finals Rodeo at the Thomas & Mack the last two years. He finished second in the NFR in 2002, two years after being named the PRCA's top rookie, and won $41,850 last December in the event after turning in a 95.5-point ride that remains his career best.

Brown, who started to ride bulls in 1998, shifted his emphasis from the PRCA, and reaching his third NFR, to the PBR after a disappointing effort in Cheyenne, Wyo., this summer when he was bucked off two bulls.

"My NFR goal wasn't going so smooth for me, so I started to concentrate on the PBR rookie title," he said. "If I had done well in Cheyenne I'd have kept going for the NFR, but it takes a lot of time and going to a lot of rodeos to make the NFR.

"Coming to Vegas always seems to be something spectacular for me."

• NOTES -- Bullfighter Mike Matt and 4-year-old Big Deal, owned by stock contractor Page, Buck and Shippey, were the big winners at the Orleans Arena in Sunday's conclusion of the inaugural World Bullfighting Championships and Bucking Bull Classic.

Matt won the finals round with a score of 84 to edge Sam Gress by one point and win the bullfighters' title.

Big Deal totaled 272 3/4 points over two rounds to win $108,000 as the top bull in the futurity. Kish's Smooth Move won $40,000 by finishing second with 269.25 points.

Judd Mortensen of Dewey, Ariz., was Sunday's top rider in the futurity, and reigning PBR world champion Chris Shivers won the event's overall title worth $10,086.