ProRodeo Sports News - June 21, 2024

PRCA ProRodeo photo by Clay Guardipee Wright hopes to return to ProRodeo action in late June after missing the last six months of the 2024 season. He is aiming to qualify for his sixth straight Wrangler National Finals Rodeo.

Stetson Wright nearing comeback after 6-month absence from injury

BY ALEX DODD E ight-time world

we will be back (in Las Vegas) in December.” Wright said missing his shot at a triple-crown stung but that there was too much to be grateful

champion Stetson Wright entered last year’s Wrangler National Finals Rodeo with a six-figure lead in the all-around world standings but set his sights on capturing a triple crown. Wright burst onto the PRORODEO scene in 2019 becoming the first Resistol Rookie to win an all-around world championship. Since then, he’s won five straight all-around titles (2019-23), two bull riding championships (2020, 2022) and a saddle bronc title (2021). The 24-year-old, from Beaver, Utah, started a run of dominance that garnered him the nickname ‘Superman.’ But in Round 2 of last year’s Finals, Wright bowed out of the competition with a hamstring injury. Three days later, he underwent surgery, and for the last six months, he’s been rehabbing to get back in rodeo shape. “I got the nickname Superman, and everybody knows that you’re not invincible. But after five years of running away with everything, I’m not going to lie, I started to believe I might have a little bit of Superman in me,” Wright told the ProRodeo Sports News during World Champion Media Day on June 4. “That was a tough pill to swallow. I’m just like everybody else, and I can get hurt.” After his surgery, doctors ordered Wright to stay in bed for six weeks before moving him to crutches for 12 weeks. Then he started to rehab and train to start gearing up for his return to rodeo. “Now I’m at the point of breaking scar tissue, getting my full range of motion back and getting back in the saddle,” Wright said. “I’ve been on a bull and a horse. Everything is looking up at this point, and we’re set to return here in maybe a week or two. “On paper, everything is looking good, and hopefully, well not hopefully,

for to dwell on disappointment. “Yeah, I had my days where I was like, ‘Why would this happen to me?’,” he recalled. “But it was all pretty short-lived. As soon as I went into surgery and came out, all I could think about was a triple crown in 2024.” Until this past season, Wright remained relatively healthy in his rodeo career. His run of success and perceived invincibility translated into confidence in the arena but led to disappointment this past December. “It’s good to have the mindset that you can’t because it does make you pretty tough to beat when feel like you have the upper hand,” he said. “That was a tough pill to swallow when Round 2 came, and I realized that the triple crown wasn’t in the cards that year. I just watched everything slip away round by round after that.” Between bull riding and saddle bronc riding, Wright got used to hopping on multiple stock per day, but the hamstring injury hampered him in Las Vegas. “You guys have seen it, I can get on four, five or six in a day and be fine,” Wright said. “When I got off that bull I was fatigued. I had lost all of my rodeo muscles.” The months of sitting around and rehab are now in Wright’s rear-view mirror. He said as of right now he’s eyeing late June to climb back on at PRCA rodeos. “There are many things you can change, but the great part of life is that you never know what tomorrow brings,” Wright said. “I’m just having fun, and we’re about back to me being able to do what I love, and I’m pretty excited about it.”

ProRodeo Sports News 6/21/2024

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