ProRodeo Sports News - June 12, 2020

GETTING READY

done.” Brown’s practice area draws cowboys If You Build It ... Photo courtesy Jake Brown Within a month of COVID-19 putting ProRodeo competitions on hiatus, bareback rider Jake Brown set up this practice facility at his home in Texas and bought bucking horses so he and his friends could practice until the pandemic ended.

BY MATT NABER I f you build it, they will buck – and that’s exactly what bareback rider Jake Brown did.

Brown is a five-time qualifier for the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo (2015-19). He wasn’t going to let anything stop him from making it six. “He did it up and he did it up right,” said fellow bareback rider Bill Tutor. “It was awesome to have a bit of normalcy, you know.” STAYING TUNED UP Brown started the 2020 season on the right foot, winning three rodeos in his home state of Texas – the Heart O’ Texas Fair & Rodeo in Waco, the RAMTexas Circuit Finals Rodeo inWaco and the Sandhills Stock Show & Rodeo in Odessa as co-champion. The 30-year-old cowboy didn’t want to get rusty. Nor did he want his friends to miss out. “I love bucking horses, and my dad was a rodeo coach, so helping people is all we’ve ever done,” Brown said. “It feels great, and they would do the same thing.” In 2019, Tutor narrowly missed what would have been his third

When the COVID-19 pandemic brought the ProRodeo world, and the world at large, to a grinding halt, it left ProRodeo athletes with nowhere to compete and few options for practice. Just like the gyms that were put on lockdown, so too were the arena gates, latched and shut for nearly three months. “I didn’t mind sitting at home for two weeks, but then it didn’t look like anything was going to happen, so I started hunting for bucking chutes,” Brown said. “It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.” Brown’s final rodeo before the shutdown was in Arcadia, Fla., March 15. By April 14, he had bucking chutes installed at his home in Texas and hosted his first buck-out April 18. “It all went by fast, and that was my goal,” Brown said. “I had help frommy father-in-law and TimMurphy so we could buck that Saturday. We knew it would be fun, and sure enough, we busted butt and got it

ProRodeo Sports News 6/12/2020

ProRodeo.com

40