ProRodeo Sports News - August 2, 2019

BEST EVER?

The Grand Entry is always a highlight, and in 2018 it was the signal each night that epic moments were on the way

ANEW EVOLUTION OF RODEO ATHLETES

knowing I had to be faster than 7.4, to be able to get that done when I needed to, at this point in my career, that was really fulfilling.” More than just being a rodeo cham- pion for the ages, Brazile is also a big rodeo fan. So in his last NFR, he was certainly keeping an eye out for other memorable moments. And in a late- May phone conversation, he reeled off a few as if they’d just happened. “Tim O’Connell literally laying it on the line in the 10th round,” Brazile says of the bareback rider who snared his third straight world title while tearing his labrum and rotator cuff on his final-round ride. “He com- pletely destroyed his shoulder. He was doing whatever it took to win a world championship. And he’s still rehab- bing that shoulder. I don’t think fans who attended the 10th round realized what he did to get that win. I saw him afterward in a lot of pain, mixed with a lot of excitement.” Brazile also recounted Caleb Smidt’s emotional run to the tie-down roping gold buckle. Smidt lost his father to cancer early in 2018. Then a month before the NFR, his wife’s brother, Will

Byler, married Bailee Ackerman, but the couple tragically died in a helicop- ter accident following the wedding. Just a week after that, Smidt and wife Brenna welcomed the birth of their second child, daughter Myla. Sage Kimzey becoming the first to win five straight bull-riding world titles also got Brazile’s attention—”It’s a lot of fun for me to watch,” he says, “just because the history is so rich”— as did Wade Sundell finally capturing his first championship in his eighth NFR appearance. “That was just long overdue,” Brazile says of Sundell’s gold buckle in saddle- bronc riding. “Myself and a lot of other rodeo fans wanted him to break through. He’s done so much in rodeo.” ... While Brazile is riding off into the sunset, Hailey Kinsel’s gallop is just beginning. The 24-year-old barrel racer from Cotulla, Texas, is still in the early stages of what has already been a remarkable career. She’s stacked up nearly $500,000 since join- ing the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association in 2015, with most of that coming in the last two seasons.

In 2017, she nearly captured her first gold buckle in her first NFR appear- ance, entering the 10-day rodeo seventh in the world standings and almost climbing to the top. Although she settled for second place, she won four go-rounds—including one in an arena-record 13.11 seconds—and finished in the money in four others, pocketing $189,385 over that week and a half. Kinsel had to wait just one year to make the final step to world cham- pion—and it turned out to be an emphatic final step. Thanks to her $158,000 in NFR earnings, she finished 2018 atop the barrel-racing world standings with a whopping $350,700 in season earnings—nearly $100,000 more than second-place finisher Jessica Routier. “It was my second year in the NFR, so I got to test out all the theories I worked on the first year,” Kinsel says. “The more times you go to Vegas, the better you get at Vegasing! I’m sure that’s not a word, but the more times I can get back to Vegas, the more I’ll know better what to expect, how to focus on my job and enjoy it.”

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Photo: Steve Spatafore.

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