OH! CANADA!

THURSTON WINS

Third World Title

Junior Nogueira, made it back-to-back World titles, finishing second in the average and topping $340,000 in season earnings.

Waverly, Kansas bareback rider, Jess Pope added his first world title to an already impressive resume. Pope ended up with 860 points over the ten rounds for his third Average win and won $390,620 in season earnings. The lone Canadian in the field, Orin Larsen, went out after the fourth round with a thumb injury that required surgery.

When steer wrestling leaders, Will Lummus and Stetson Jorgensen, broke the barrier and took a no-time respectively in the final round, the door was opened for Tyler Waguespack to claim his fourth gold buckle. The Gonzales, Louisiana hand wound up third in the average and earned $268,881 to edge Lummus by just $2700. Kyle Irwin and Jesse Brown finished 1-2 in the average; both men rode Canadian Curtis Cassidy’s award-winning bull dogging horse, Tyson

Big Valley, Alta. bronc rider, Zeke Thurston, continued to fashion a storybook career as he won his third World Championship at the recently completed Wrangler National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas, Nevada. With $399,915 in season earnings, the second-generation cowboy placed in all but one round over the ten days, earning a record-tying 876.5 points to capture the NFR Average title along with the Top Gun Award that goes to the top money earner in a single event.

“Those other fourteen guys in that dressing room are the bronc-ridingest sons of guns you will ever see… I really had to work for this one,” Thurston acknowledged.

Fellow Canadian, Logan Hay, competing at his first NFR, wound up second in the average and third overall. The other four members of a strong Canadian bronc riding contingent were Dawson Hay, Kolby Wanchuk, Layton Green and Kole Ashbacher.

Team ropers, Jeremy Buhler and Rhen Richard, came alive in the final two rounds. Buhler, the 2016 World Champion Heeler, from Arrowwood, Alta. and his Utah heading partner, Rhen Richard, were 3.8 for the win in round nine and 3.7 for a three-way split of top spot in round ten. Kaleb Driggers, from Hoboken, Georgia, and the talented Brazilian,

Cotulla, Texas cowgirl, Hailey Kinsel, collected her fourth barrel racing championship despite hitting two barrels and finishing only eighth in the lucrative average. Kinsel and her mare, Sister, won the second, third, ninth and tenth go-rounds and split 1-2 in the fifth round in capturing the title. South Dakota veteran, Lisa Lockhart, a four-time Canadian Champion, rode her way from fourteenth place at the outset of the Finals to third in the average and fourth overall.

Caleb Smidt locked down his fourth tie-down roping championship in a masterful 10-round performance that saw him win $374,736, leaving him more than $100,000 ahead of second place finisher Shad Mayfield.

Stetson Wright continued to re-write history, riding eight of ten bulls and finishing with $592,143 in season earnings to win both the Average and overall honours.

It was one of two titles for Wright as he was, once again, the All-Around Champion, establishing records in both the bull riding and All Around. Maple Creek, Sask’s Jared Parsonage, concluded an outstanding season that saw him win the Canadian bull riding title, and the PBR Canada Finals before wrapping up his year with his first NFR appearance.

Canadian NFR competitors brought home $796,052 US dollars while stock contractors from north of the 49th parallel sent 42 of their four-legged stars to Las Vegas, including all of this year’s Canadian champions: Duane Kesler Championship Rodeo’s Alberta Prime Devil’s Advocate, Macza Pro Rodeo’s OLS Tubs Stevie Knicks in bareback riding and the much celebrated (and now retired) OLS Tubs Get Smart in the bronc c