ProRodeo Sports News - September 21, 2018

BATTLINGTO RETURN The buckle was Cassidy’s second from Puyallup. He also won the Puyallup Pro Rodeo in the Tour Playoffs in 2008. That year was also one of five in which Cassidy reached the Wrangler NFR. He made the trip to Vegas in 2002, 2008-10 and 2014. He’ll be back for the first time in four years when December rolls around. Trip No. 5 should be a formality at this point, with where he is in the standings and about a week left in the regular season. But getting to this point has been a long time coming. After his last appearance in the Finals, Cassidy, who turns 40 in October, suffered a hip injury. That kept him out about six months and limited him to rodeoing in Canada in 2015. In 2016, though his hip was healing, he still played it safe and stuck mostly to the Great White North. Then came his return, 2017. “In ’16, my hip was feeling better, but for the most part I stayed in Canada that summer because I didn’t think my hip would handle going all year,” he said. “Last year, I made a late-season push and came up short to make the NFR. Having that late-season push last year spilled over into this year.” DOUBLING UPAT PUYALLUP Cassidy entered the Justin Finale fourth in the world standings. He showed he wasn’t planning on staying there from his first run at the Sept. 6-9 rodeo. Cassidy placed second in the first round with a 4.0-second run. He finished third in the average in 8.9 seconds, which bumped him into the eight- man semifinals. His success continued. Cassidy qualified for the finals with his 3.8-second run in the semifinals, second fastest of the day.

His finals time – 4.0 seconds – was more than two seconds better than his closest competitor. “The first steer I ran today was the best steer I’ve run in a while,” he said. “Then, this final-four steer was the best steer that I’ve run.” Drawing well played a big part. “My first one I knew would run but would be good once I got to him,” Cassidy said. “This steer today hasn’t been run since Walla Walla (Wash.) last week. Obviously, we have a record of them, but we didn’t know how good they were going to be.” His horse, Tyson, was also key. “I trained him,” Cassidy said. “This is about the fourth year I’ve been using him. He’s really starting to come around and get good. He’s 13 or 14 years old. His name is Tyson because they named him after Mike Tyson because he’s tough. … I left him at home most of the summer in Canada and used him at everything up there. About every other week I’ve been using him in the Northwest. I’ve been trying not to haul the wheels off him, so I have a good horse at the end of the season.” That proved true, with the win in Puyallup. “Obviously, any rodeo you go to you want to win as much money as possible,” he said. “But I feel like you can’t ever go to a rodeo expecting to win it or win good at it. You’ve got to do as good a job as you can do on what you have done. So of course, you want to have as good a horse as possible because the better horse you have the more steers you can win on. And, like here, if the drawing gods are on your side to give you some good steers, it all comes together.” Cassidy points to last year as the reason he’s sitting where he is. “August was great to me last year,” he said. “Since then, everything has been falling into place. I have a good group of traveling partners and good horses.”

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TIE-DOWN ROPING 1. Tyson Durfey............................ 7.4 sec. 2. Cooper Martin..................................7.5 3. Adam Gray......................................17.5 4. Ryan Jarret....................................... NT

BARREL RACING 1. Jimmie Smith....................... 14.41 sec. 2. Andrea Busby...............................14.56 3. Tammy Fischer.............................14.63 4. Brittany Pozzi Tonozzi...................14.77

BULL RIDING 1. Parker Breding............................89 pts. 2. Tim Bingham....................................NS 3. Chase Dougherty..............................NS 4. J.W. Harris........................................NS

Complete results on Page 55

ProRodeo Sports News 9/21/2018

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