ProRodeo Sports News - September 2, 2022

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O’Connell to miss remainder of regular season with injury Bareback rider Tim O’Connell, a

BY THE NUMBERS $14K The combined amount of money ($14,623) earned by tie-down roper Tyler Milligan by winning the Horse Heaven Roundup Rodeo in Kennewick, Wash., and the Golden Spike Rodeo in Tremonton, Utah. $190K The amount of money ($190,445) earned by tie-down roper Tuf Cooper in 2017, which is the most money won in that event in the regular season before the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo. As of Aug. 29, tie-down roper Shad Mayfield had earned $171,729 and was leading the PRCA | RAM World Standings. $297K The amount of money ($297,026) earned by bull rider Sage Kimzey in 2018, which is the most money won in that event in the regular season before the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo. As of Aug. 29, bull rider Stetson Wright had earned $258,141 and was leading the PRCA | RAM World Standings.

from 2016-18 and is in position to qualify for his ninth Wrangler National Finals Rodeo. “It was 50-50 if I needed the surgery or not,” O’Connell said. “It was either let it try and scar down for six weeks and have to be in a splint and see if my thumb would hold. It could have scarred in the wrong position and been loose. They call this injury ‘Skier’s Thumb’ because this injury happens

three-time PRCA World Champion, will be sidelined for the rest of the regular season after having surgery on his left thumb Aug. 26 in Austin, Texas. O’Connell said he suffered the injury during his 84-point ride on Calgary Stampede’s Cincy Whitney on Aug. 23 at the Horse Heaven Roundup Rodeo in Kennewick, Wash. “I tore the ulnar collateral

O’Connell

ligament,” O’Connell said. “I knew something was wrong because I felt it in the middle of the ride and if you feel anything after you get on a bucking horse it is bad. It doesn’t matter how tough a guy you are, if you have something happen and you feel that through all your adrenaline it is usually pretty bad. By the time I got my glove off my hand was starting to throb. The doctor at the rodeo looked at it and they scheduled for me to have an MRI (Aug. 24) and the MRI confirmed that I had a grade 3 tear of the UCL. I pulled it completely off the bone.” O’Connell is third in the PRCA | RAM World Standings with $137,760. He’s only $7,730 behind leader Jess Pope. O’Connell won three world championships

to skiers a lot. So, to me it was the same recovery time and either way I was going to be done for the regular season. I started calling around to my really good doctor friends like Tandy (Freeman) and others and we found a really good hand specialist in Austin, and he said he would get me in Friday morning, and he did, and the surgery went great. “Luckily, I have made the NFR already and all we were doing the next six weeks was shuffling for position. Everything I had read and been told I will be good to go by October.” O’Connell said doctors will let him start moving his thumb in a week. Nearly a year ago, O’Connell missed the final six weeks of the season with a tailbone injury.

NFR saddle bronc rider Casper out

Saddle bronc rider Wyatt Casper, who is sitting ninth in the PRCA | RAM World Standings with $123,802, will be sidelined indefinitely after suffering a hamstring tear on Aug. 5 at the Mountain Valley Stampede in Heber City, Utah. Casper said the injury originally started bothering him after he partially tore it during the Fourth of July run in Red Lodge, Mont.

The injury will not require surgery, just rest and rehab according to Casper. He said the timeline for the injury to heal is four to six weeks. The timeframe would put him near the end of the ProRodeo regular season, which ends on Sept. 30. His first thought was that he would be forced to miss the remainder of the regular season with hopes of competing at this year’s Wrangler NFR

Casper

“I took a couple weeks off after I initially hurt it in Red Lodge,” said Casper, a two-time Wrangler National Finals Rodeo qualifier. “I tried to come back, but it was still hurting me quite a bit. “I kept rodeoing at Dodge City (Kan.), Lovington (N.M.), and Heber City. Then, I ended up tearing it completely there because it wasn’t quite healed up yet.”

in December, but he now said he’s not ruling out a return to action in September if his body feels right. “My original plan was to be out for the rest of the regular season,” he said. “I’m thinking now that there’s a chance, I might try to make a return sometime in September. I’ll just have to play it by ear and see how I’m feeling.”

ProRodeo Sports News 9/2/2022

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