PRORODEO Sports News - July 12, 2024

Zeke Thurston strikes holiday paydirt

BY TANNER BARTH T he Cowboy Christmas run can be fruitful for cowboys and cowgirls, but it can also be grueling. Contestants weave their way through the United States and Canada in search of paydays to move themselves up the PRCA | RAM World Standings. That stretch of rodeo this season ran from July 1-8. Big Valley, Alberta, Canada, saddle bronc rider Zeke Thurston found himself at the top of the earnings list for roughstock contestants at the end of the lucrative stretch. Thurston added $29,049 to his 2024 ledger from six rodeos. A big reason for his success over the holiday weekend began at the Ponoka Stampede. Thurston didn’t walkout out of Ponoka

buckles at the Home Of Champions Rodeo in Red Lodge, Mont., and the Killdeer (N.D.) Mountain Roundup PRCA Rodeo. He accomplished the feat with an 89-point ride on Brookman Rodeo’s Flirtacious in Red Lodge and an 88-point ride on J Bar J’s Straight Moonshine in Killdeer. “All my rides in Ponoka felt great and like I said that kind of got the ball rolling. Then I had Flirtacious of Brookmans in Red Lodge, which was a really good little horse that’s been to the Finals a lot of times,” Thurston said. “I made a really good ride on her and she had a really good day. “I carried that momentum into Killdeer, where I had Straight Moonshine, that’s a Round 10 horse at the NFR. He really bucked too…it was a good day in the mud. It seemed like the rain kept following us that week. At three of the four rodeos we went to down there we got rained on.”

TOP ROUGHSTOCK 1. Zeke Thurston...........................$29,049 2. Richmond Champion................$27,807 3. Zachary Dallas..........................$27,590 4. Kade Bruno...............................$27,037 5. Chase Dougherty.....................$26,904 6. Josh Frost..................................$26,253 7. Ty Bertand..................................$24,674 8. Chase Brooks.............................$24,671 9. Jacob Lees.................................$23,447 10. Wyatt Casper............................$21,531 11. Dean Thompson......................$20,645 12. Jeter Lawrence ......................$20,593 13. Keenan Hayes.........................$20,091 14. Brody Cress.............................$19,506 15. Weston Timberman...................$19,141

with the win but still pocketed $14,027 for his third-place finish. He said that rodeo north of the border got the ball rolling and from that point on it was about trusting his preparation. “I kickstarted Cowboy Christmas in Ponoka and had some really good ones in Canada,” said Thurston, a four-time PRCA World Champion. “That kind of got the ball rolling for me. Then I drew three or four really good horses down there in the states. I went down there and tried to make the best ride I could on every single one of them. I knew I had good enough draws that if I did my part, they were going to pay me.” Thurston did his job and then some in the U.S. He won back-to-back

The Cowboy Christmas success and a number of solid outings at the Calgary Stampede have Thurston knocking on the top 5 of the world standings once again. He believes this is the time of the season where the cream begins to rise to the top. “It has been a really good couple of weeks that’s for sure,” Thurston said. “All the rodeos are starting to happen now. So, that’s why you are starting to see a lot of shuffling in the world standings. That’ll happen for the new few months, but every year the cream always rises to the top. We will see where we are at.”

Chuck Miner photo Thurston was the top money earner among roughstock contestants during the Cowboy Christmas run. His 88-point ride on J Bar J’s Straight Moonshine at the Killdeer Mountain Roundup PRCA Rodeo helped his cause.

ProRodeo Sports News 7/12/2024

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