Bareback rider Waylon Bourgeois was tested by Diamond G Rodeo’s Raelynn For The Win, but the Louisiana cowboy passed with an 83.75-point score to finish in a three-way tie for fifth during Friday’s second round of the National Finals Rodeo.
(PHOTO BY GREG WESTFALL)

 

LAS VEGAS – The exam for Saturday night’s “eliminator pen” of bareback horses, and Waylon Bourgeois passed the test.

He rode Diamond G Rodeo’s Reaelynn For The Win for 83.75 points and finished in a three-way tie for fifth place during Friday’s second round of the National Finals Rodeo, pocketing $5,126 in the process. He has earned $44,000 in two nights of work inside the Thomas & Mack Center on the University of Nevada-Las Vegas campus.

“That was more of a difficult horse to ride in bareback riding,” said Bourgeois, 26, of Church Point, Louisiana. “It just boils down to getting your job done and doing the best you can. It’s good that we got another check.”

The 105 bareback horses in Las Vegas were selected by the men who are here to ride them. They are separated into five pens: souped-up hoppers, which are considered easier to ride; rank; eliminators, the most difficult; hoppers, the easiest; and the TV pen, which is described as the most electric and stylish broncs going.

Friday’s grouping set the 15 cowboys up for what they’ll experience Saturday before getting a bit of a break Sunday. Bourgeois will be matched with Pete Carr Pro Rodeo’s Dusty Roads, a 13-year-old buckskin that has overpowered most of his opponents over the last three years. The highest-marked ride came during the eighth round of last year’s NFR, when reigning world champion scored 88 points to win the night.

The match-ups are just part of the game, and Bourgeois is riding high this season. He knows there will be highs and lows that come with the roller coaster that is rodeo.

“Every day is a new day, and I’m super thankful for each day I wake up,” he said. “Being a professional athlete, you’ve just got to take it one day at a time. What happened yesterday … that was yesterday. What happened tonight was tonight, and what’s going to happen tomorrow is in God’s hands.

“Those (eliminator pen) horses are going to be a little harder than they were tonight. It just boils down to doing your job the best you can, and however the chips fall is where they lay. You’ve just got to move on.”

It’s the right mindset for the biggest stage in the game. Bourgeois has increased his season earnings to $182,000 during his first bid to the NFR.

“That’s the cool thing about rodeo: you get to move on, so we have eight more nights of this,” he said.