Bull riding star injured during frightening NFR spill
After splitting first-place money in his long-anticipated National Finals Rodeo debut Thursday night, legendary bull rider J.B. Mauney spoke at length about experiencing the thrill of victory on his sport’s biggest stage.
Less than 24 hours later, he was dealing with the agony of defeat.
Mauney was helped from the arena after being bucked off a bull called Johnny Thunder during Friday night’s second go-round.
A capacity crowd watched in stunned silence as the 34-year-old former two-time Professional Bull Riders champion lay motionless in the Thomas & Mack Center dirt following the frightening incident. Mauney was bleeding from a facial cut as he climbed to his feet.
According to an initial report, his only apparent injuries were facial lacerations that required stitches. Mike Rich, program director for the Pro Rodeo Cowboys Association Justin Sports Medicine team, said Mauney would return to the Thomas & Mack Center for further evaluation Saturday, when his status will be determined.
Making his name
It was a stunning reversal of fortune for the North Carolina native who first came to prominence by riding Bushwacker — the Mike Tyson of bucking bulls — in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in August 2013.
Mauney was one of only three cowboys to best the “Baddest Bull on the Planet” — and he did it wearing a cowboy hat instead of a helmet. It was the crowing achievement of a career that had seen him accomplish just about anything a man could while competing on the rival PBR tour.
The only thing missing was the thrill of competing at the National Finals Rodeo.
But after riding a bull called Cocktail Diarrhea for 87.5 points to split the first-round win with Australian Ky Hamilton Thursday, the soon-to-be 35-year-old superstar was feeling his oats.
Raring to go
“Sixteen years of riding bulls professionally and that is probably only the second time I’ve been nervous in my entire life,” said the two-time PBR champion and its all-time money winner.
“When I was in elementary school I can remember setting my alarm clock for five minutes before the bull riding started at the NFR,” he said with a toothy grin. “I wasn’t allowed to stay up all night to watch the NFR, so I’d watch the bull riding and go back to sleep.
“My childhood goal was to make the NFR. That was it for me.”
Mauney said he could have used exemptions to remain on the jet-setting tour with his many PBR rivals and pals. But he was having too much fun traveling the rodeo circuit with his wife and little boy — Jagger Briggs Mauney was born holding the umbilical cord as if it were a bull rope, J.B. says — in the family RV to end pursuit of his NFR dream.
Bull rider J.B. Mauney talks about leaving the PBR to qualify for his first National Finals Rodeo at age 34.#NFR2021 #rodeo pic.twitter.com/ARTtbsVMhi
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No better feeling
“I had a great career in the PBR, but I’m getting older. As a bull rider, it just doesn’t last,” he said of staying healthy in the rodeo discipline that makes most men old before their time. That would prove to be an eerie bit of foreshadowing.
But when the time arrives to look back at his yesterdays, Mauney said ending the mighty Bushwacker’s record buck-off streak at 42 and making it to the NFR at an age when most bull riders are thinking about riding off to greener pastures will rank hand in glove.
“I accomplished a lot riding bulls. But one thing I wanted to do was nod my head in those yellow bucking chutes,” he said about the subtle gesture a bull rider makes before hell breaks loose for eight seconds or fewer at the National Finals.
As it did again on Friday night.
Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.
Kansas cowboy makes it 2-for-2 with bareback win
After starting the National Finals with a go-round victory on opening night, bareback rider Jess Pope said he was looking through the windshield rather than the rearview mirror.
The inference: He was looking forward to more success.
The 23-year-0ld from the Kansas heartland made it 2-for-2 at the Thomas & Mack Center Friday with a ride of 89.5 points on Big Stone Rodeo Inc's Fired Up.
"The NFR is starting the way I want it to," Pope said after pocketing another first-place check for $26,996. "This is how I put food on the table. I will go buy some cows when I get home."
At this rate, he might have enough left over to purchase a greener pasture in which those cows can graze.
"You start thinking about things that are out of your control, it doesn't make sense," Pope said of his success out of the box in Las Vegas that has vaulted him from sixth in season earnings to second place for 16 seconds of work.
"I know if I show up here and do my job every day and continue to try and win and perfect everything I do, then the cards are going to lay where they lay. God has a plan and I'm just living it."
Idaho's Dirk Tavenner joined Pope as a back-to-back winner with a 3.4 clocking in steer wrestling and climbed to second in the championship standings after starting the NFR in 10th place.
Other go-round winners:
■ Derrick Begay, Seba Delkai, Arizona, and Brady Minor, Ellensburg, Washington, in team roping (3.9);
■ Brody Cress, Hillsdale, Wyoming, in saddle bronc riding (87.5);
■ Shad Mayfield, Clovis, New Mexico, in tie-down roping (7.2);
■ Dona Kay Rule, Minco, Oklahoma, in barrel racing (13.56);
■ Parker Breding, Edgar, Montana, in bull riding (90)
Ron Kantowski Las Vegas Review-Journal
