ProRodeo Sports News - April 30, 2021

“They fly me a bunch for that,” Hosley said. “Wherever I am, I’ll try to sneak away and go ProRodeo. … “I like to think I’m a hustler.”

team who was at the riding school recruited Hosley. After two years on his permit, he bought his ProRodeo card for the 2016 season. Since, he’s competed when the opportunity has been there. But right now, his focus is on those kids he’s teaching the rodeo life to. “Honestly, their calendar is trumping mine this year,” he said. “I have some kids I’m trying to get qualified in bull riding for the Jr. NFR. This is three years in the making. I have some boys that didn’t know anything about horses. And now they compete.” “He’s honestly one of the best guys I know,” said Danny Primrose, a bareback rider who’s traveled with Hosley. “He’s down to earth and cares about everyone around him. He’s constantly trying to give to others, maybe not financially, but himself, advice, tips he might have, tricks, his time. He goes out of his way to do that.” Hosley is hoping that rodeo does for them what it’s done for him. “I feel like this saved me,” he said. “I have friends, cousins who people would say didn’t make it because of what they did, paths they took. It was the same road I was on until I decided I could do this.”

“I mentor kids here in the city. I show them what it’s like to be a cowboy, that there’s more options than football and gang- banging.”

ALL-AROUND FUN

Inside the arena, he’d love to tie-down rope. But that’s a bit too expensive. So, he’s sticking with bareback riding, at least until he can win a rodeo with a significant payout, then he’ll look at buying a horse, truck and trailer and start hauling around. Not counting last year, when he went rarely, Hosley goes as much as the budget allows (as he put it), sticking to rodeos in the West. Hosley won the 2020 year-end title in the California Circuit after placing second in the RAMCalifornia Circuit Finals Rodeo in Red Bluff in October. That earned Hosley a trip to the RAMNational Circuit Finals Rodeo in Kissimmee, Fla., in April. “It was a dope experience, I had a good time,” Hosley said. “I stayed for a full week. We got on an air boat, went kayaking. I got to walk around, eat good food. I had never been to Florida.” One of his favorite

– TRE HOSLEY

rodeo experiences was at the Pendleton (Ore.) Round-Up. “Just because it is so iconic,” he said. “There’s no other place like it. It’s huge. It was a cool deal. “By the time I got there, I was nodding my head against some of those guys I’d been watching from 10 years ago. They don’t have any choice but to respect you because you ride decent enough to be here.” Hosley didn’t get on his first bareback horse until he was 19, and he did that at Clint Cannon’s Southeast Texas Bareback Riding School. “I was the only Black kid out there, and I was like, I don’t care what you think of me, teach me what you know,” Hosley said. “Everybody got that that didn’t make a difference to me. I was out there to figure out how to be great at what we were all learning.” The encouragement immediate and gratifying. It made Hosley feel as though he’d made the right decision. From there, the coach from the Wharton County (Texas) Junior College rodeo LATE BLOOMER he received fromClint and Kirby Cannon was

Photo courtesy Tre Hosley

Tre Hosley, left, helps a little cowboy on the back of a horse in San Bernardino, Calif., in 2019.

ProRodeo Sports News 4/30/2021

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