ProRodeo Sports News - Feb. 21, 2020

BY SCOTT KANIEWSKI R .C. Landingham distinctly remembers the first time he met AnthonyThomas while giving him a lift to a rodeo. “J.R. (Vezain) tells me, ‘Hey, we’ve got to pick up this Australian guy,’” Landingham said. “We pick Anthony up and he’s got this big, goofy-looking hat that’s all beat up. Oh boy, I didn’t know what we were getting into.” What the pair of bareback riders didn’t know was what Thomas had already gotten into in his life. It also wasn’t the first time AnthonyThomas was looking for a home. Thomas takes wild ride from Australia to ProRodeo tour Outback Up Front FROM TO EXTENDED WALKABOUT Thomas, 32, always wanted to be a cowboy. But to say the native Australian had little idea what it took to be a ProRodeo cowboy in North America would be a great understatement. Thomas was born in Perth, Australia. But that’s not home to him. It never was. His childhood was so rough (including being drugged by his parents, he said) that by age 12, he’d run away. “I have no ties to that because I don’t remember it,” Thomas told ProRodeo Sports News recently. “My psyche just deleted it because it was traumatic. I count my childhood as starting pretty much from when I ran away. Being a colored, young, confused man, I should’ve been a statistic. I should’ve been the same statistic as kids growing up with me whose parents didn’t support them.” OUTSIDE THE ARENA

James Phifer photo Bareback rider Anthony Thomas competes at the 2018 Fort Worth (Texas) Stock Show & Rodeo.

ProRodeo Sports News 2/21/2020

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