ProRodeo Sports News - Oct. 28, 2022

EDITOR’S LETTER TRACY RENCK 22 NFR first-timers this year, led by seven bull riders

Q ualifying for the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo is a dream for PRCA cowboys. It’s a reward for years of hard work to get to compete for a gold buckle against the sports elite. At the 2022Wrangler NFR presented by Teton Ridge there will be a slew of newbies – 22 in all will be competing at theThomas &Mack Center in Las Vegas. Clay Long also makes his National Finals Steer Roping debut in Mulvane, Kan., Nov. 4-5. The list of Wrangler NFR newcomers is as follows: Bareback rider Rocker Steiner; steer wrestler Timmy Sparing; team roping headers Tanner Tomlinson; Lightning Aguilera; Jake Orman; team roping heelers Brye Crites and Jonathan Torres; saddle bronc riders Logan Hay; Kade Bruno; Kole Ashbacher and Tanner Butner; tie-down roper Zack Jongbloed; Riley Webb; Macon Murphy and Kincade Henry; and bull riders Tristen Hutchings; Maverick Potter; Jared Parsonage; Trey Holston; JR Stratford; Lukasey Morris and Reid Oftedahl. Nearly half the field of bull riders – 7 of the 15 – are new. Reigning and seven-time PRCAWorld Champion bull rider Sage Kimzey also didn’t qualify after suffering a season ending left shoulder injury, June 10. With so many first-time bull riders who better to give them advice than eight-time PRCAWorld Champion Bull Rider Donny Gay. No one has won more PRCAWorld Bull Riding World Championships than Gay.

“What that signals is potentially a changing of the

guard,” Gay said.

“Competing at the NFR is so difficult on you mentally it is not even funny. It is one of those things that nobody knows what is going to happen. “The one thing that will be for sure is the bull riding will be exciting because it is not going to be focused on one guy with Sage being hurt. These young guys have to step it up. Everything that they do from now on out it is not because of their physical abilities or limitations, it is mental. ‘How bad do they want it?’ and ‘Where do they want to go?’ Those are the questions. “If their goal is just to get there (to the NFR), they will be a flash in the pan, and nobody will remember them. But if they really want to go somewhere they have an opportunity.” Of the 15 bull riders who will be at the 2022Wrangler NFR, the only cowboy with a gold buckle is StetsonWright. Wright accomplished that feat in 2020, when the NFR took place at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, because of COVID-19 restrictions in Nevada. “The (NFR) is truly one bull at a time,” Gay said. “What you did getting there or what you did the last day of the season, that has nothing to do with anything. That is in the rear-view mirror. “The bulls that they picked (for the NFR), they are not the rankest bulls in the rodeo business, they are the ones they all want to get on. They have no excuses. If you are in the

Tracy Renck is the editor of the ProRodeo

Sports News . He previously served more than seven years as a media coordinator at the PRCA. He has three decades of experience in sports journalism with the last several consumed by ProRodeo.

right spot, you have a chance to be 90 (points).”

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ProRodeo Sports News 10/28/2022

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