About: Ted

LAS VEGAS – Jess Pope looks at things a little differently than most people. He’s a bareback rider, so it comes with the business. It works for him, and it worked Saturday night with an 86.5-point ride on Stace Smith ProRodeo’s Mr. Harry to win the third go-round of the National Finals Rodeo. It was not only important to his place in the race for a world championship, but he proved his mettle by winning the eliminator pen, the section featuring the hardest-to-ride broncs in bareback riding. “The eliminator pen is a kill-or-be-killed mentality,” said Pope, 24, of Waverly, Kansas. “A lot of this is connected to a wrestler’s mentality. When you step on that mat, it doesn’t matter what happened to all your buddies. It’s what’s right there in front of you. “You have to dig down deep and find that alloy, and I just have to control the strategic chaos that’s at my hand.” He controlled it quite well, pocketing $28,914 for the victory. He pushed his NFR earnings to $73,890 and holds down the top spot in the average with a three-ride cumulative score of 258.5 points. He is five points better than two cowboys in second place. “It’s a big deal,” he said. “It’s good to get things going really good at the beginning of the week. The eliminator pen, especially, makes you feel really good, because those are the hardest horses in the world. To get the win on one of those (animals) is special. “I was a little bit nervous coming into tonight, because it’s the eliminators, it’s hard. I knew Richie (Champion) had done really good on that horse last year, so I knew I had to show up and do my job and see where everything laid out at the end.” His belly full of butterflies may have played a little into it, but he was prepared down to the pre-game meal he had before Saturday’s round. As he has done every time he gets on very rank bucking broncs, he made his way to Jimmy John’s for a sandwich. “I get the Billy club, jalapeno chips and a lemonade,” he said with a smile. “That’s been my deal since I first started rodeoing with Tim. I don’t know where we were going, but we were getting on some eliminators that day, and that Jimmy John’s makes you light on your feet and makes you freaky fast. “This is the best job in the world. All year long, the places you see and the people you meet is just great. You get out here, and there are thousands and thousands of people that travel to Las Vegas to watch one rodeo. To be able to be here and soak it all in, it’s something I’ve dreamed of since I was a little bitty kid, so it’s something special.”

LAS VEGAS – Now in his seventh trip to the National Finals Rodeo, team roping header Coleman Proctor has learned to trust himself and those special things around him. It showed during Saturday’s third go-round, when he and his heeler, Logan Medlin, stopped the clock in 4.3 seconds to finish in a tie for fourth place, worth $8,083. It was the second time in three nights the tandem has placed in Las Vegas. “After Round 1, I got the start good (Friday) night, and I got the start again tonight,” said Proctor, 37, of Pryor, Oklahoma. “It feels comfortable. When you get a good roll and you get your timing out here, it gets to feeling a lot better.” A key is in the animal underneath him. Heisman is a talented bay with a great deal of speed, and Proctor’s horsepower is a major factor in why he is in the City of Lights for the seventh time. “I think he is the best horse for the set-up out here,” he said. “He definitely fits me the best. He has done a great job. He was awesome last year (at the NFR). He really contributes to how Logan and I’s run can shape up so fast, because I’m not as fast as Tanner Tomlinson or Lightning Aguilera; those kids can throw so fast. “My horse makes a lot of that up for me. I just need to stay the way that everything comes together, especially out here with these big steers that are so strong. Our steer didn’t handle very good, but my horse can set him on the end (of the rope) and open him up so my guy can have a chance (to rope the back legs).” It’s working early. Two paydays in three nights is a good step, but neither round paid out much to Proctor and Medlin. They have ach earned $12,747, plus have the $10,000 bonus for being an NFR qualifier that counts toward the world standings. But they’re doing the little things right, and that could pay off big in the long run. They have roped three steers in a cumulative time of 18.8 seconds and sit third in the average race. With seven nights remaining on the ProRodeo season, it’s way too early to look at that. There are only a few chances to catch the big checks – go-round winners earn just shy of $29,000 a night. “Our run is something we have really worked at and developed,” Proctor said of he and Medlin. “He comes to my house, and we’ve got some great folks right there by the ranch that have let us use their indoor arena and set up the pen just like the Thomas & Mack. I’ve got a lot of fresh steers; we break them in, and we go at them. “We rope 70 to 80 a day there for about three days in a row, and then it’s time for Logan to leave because my old, slightly not-as-athletic body is worn out by then. He will come back a couple weeks later, and we can rejuvenate.” It helps with the technical aspects of roping, but it does something even more for the team. “Our chemistry is much better,” he said. “Not only does he rope two feet – all heelers rope two feet out here – but our run fits together really well; he makes me fast enough to compete at this level. “Our run is going to be fast enough, and I have the confidence this year to put more of those runs together.”

LAS VEGAS – For some, earning the first paycheck at the National Finals Rodeo provides a sense of relief. J.D. Struxness has been through all this before. He didn’t let the fact that he hadn’t placed on the opening two nights of the championship bother him. He just went back to work and found his way to the pay window during Saturday’s third go-round. “We’ll take a check right now,” said Struxness, who knocked his steer to the ground in 4.3 seconds to finish fifth and collect $7,462. “It was nice to get the ice broke finally, but there is a lot of time left, so we’ll just keep moving on up.” While he is taking a businessman’s approach to the tasks at hand, there were a few emotions that may have played into his lack of success on the first two nights. It looks as though he’s got that lined out. “I’ve been trying to do too much,” he said. “It’s been (three) years since I’ve been out here, and the nerves are a little higher. Everything is just a little tighter, catching those steers and trying to turn them back or just mostly overthinking. “I went back to what (bareback rider) Jess Pope says, ‘Keep it simple stupid.’ Tonight, it worked, so hopefully we’ll keep going.” He has a couple aces in the hole in his hazer, Curtis Cassidy, and Cassidy’s horse, Tyson, which has been named the PRCA Steer Wrestling Horse of the Year. “Tyson is working good,” said Struxness, who won the intercollegiate national title in 2016 while competing at Northwestern Oklahoma State University. “We’ve caught all our steers, and he gets stronger throughout the week.” Struxness is joined by fellow Northwestern alumnus Kyle Irwin and fellow bulldogger Jesse Brown in riding the talented horse. “I’m looking for the three of us to just keep getting better and better as the week goes on,” said Struxness of Milan, Minnesota. “(Sunday) night is the first round that we know the steers. They’ve already been r un once in the building. We will know our steers and know what we need to do. We’ve all broke the ice, so it’s time to get it on.” He is now 28 years old and has learned a lot over his time in ProRodeo. He knows what it takes to win and will likely push the envelope if the opportunity arises. “The experience always helps, knowing the dry spell can only last so long, knowing what we can do or knowing what to work on or change to get out of these dry spells,” he said. “Sometimes I wish I would have learned a little faster, and maybe things would have ended up differently. I’m also being a little more mature about things.” Of course, he has a cheering section in fiancé Jayden and their daughters, Everlee and Lilly. “They don’t care how I do out there,” Struxness said. “They are just happy to see Dad when I get upstairs.”

LAS VEGAS – The sky is the limit for a bareback rider with the talent of Tim O’Connell, a three-time world champion. He may have come close to it Saturday night. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been that high in this arena for that many seconds in a row,” O’Connell said of his 82.5-point ride on Beutler & Son Rodeo’s Ghost Town. “I wasn’t trying to do anything spectacular. I was trying to get up, get down and find my rigging handle every jump. About midway through that point, she shot forward a little bit and started pulling her head up. It really dropped my rigging down and forward.” “I tried to chase it but put my foot on top of her neck once, and it pulled me off it. I tried to pull back underneath the next jump and put it over her neck. The fence luckily was there and slowed her up. I got back underneath things, and the whistle blew. She left me midair, and I’m blessed to not have one of her feet come down on top of me.” The result was a sixth-place finish in the third round, worth $4,664. “I’m glad that animal is OK; I’m glad I’m OK,” said O’Connell of Zwingle, Iowa. “We got a check out of the deal, now it’s three down and seven to go. “I’m still hungry. I’m waiting to strike for more than one of those bottom-hole checks. I’m very grateful and thankful.  This is exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to get things started, get things moving. This is a lot hotter finals than I’ve had in years past. Traditionally I’m a slow starter at the finals. To be able to come in three rounds in and take care of business every night is big.” The third and eighth rounds at the NFR feature the eliminator pen, the hardest-to-ride bareback horses in ProRodeo. The powerful gray raised in Oklahoma proved to be perfect for that group of horses. “That’s that the e pen is about, getting into a fight and never saying die,” he said. “My confidence is high. I feel great on the backs of these bucking horses. I’m being aggressive. (Traveling partner) Jess (Pope) is starting to take over in what he is planning to do when he came in here. That is exactly what our rig is about, pushing each other to be the very best. “He is riding at a very high level; I feel like I am riding at a very high level. I just need to strike (Sunday) and get myself in the (world championship) picture. This thing isn’t over until the last horse bucks in the last round. There could be five or six guys in this game, and I’m doing exactly what I need to do to make sure I’m one of those guys and have a shot to be the No. 1 guy in the world on the last day of the year.”

LAS VEGAS – The pressure-packed National Finals Rodeo can add a lot of stress to the 120 men and women that have earned the right to compete for the sport’s championship. The purse is $1.4 million, and there are big checks paid out daily. If a contestant does not beat most of the people in the field, that person doesn’t get paid. The muscles tighten a little more, and the heart races. Garrett Smith has been in this situation before. This is the bull rider’s fourth time to qualify for the NFR. On Saturday night, he rode Stace Smith Pro Rodeo’s Evil Intensions for 90 points to share the Round 3 victory with Kansan J.R. Stratford. In the process, Smith captured his first paycheck of this NFR, and it was worth $25,882. “It’s going good now,” said Smith, who rodeo his first bull, United Pro Rodeo’s Happy Days, for 82.5 points but just missed out on a paycheck. “I’ve been more relaxed. You have to sit down and realize you work so hard to get here that we might as well have fun. We deserve to be here, so let’s go out and show what we can do. “In the years prior, I felt like you always have to prove something. You have to do this; you have to do that. But if you just take a step back and realize that you deserve to be here, so now let’s have fun and make it happen, and it works out way better.” It’s working. Though he bucked off on Night 2 – as did 13 other cowboys while trying to ride the eliminator pen of bucking bulls – he sits second in the aggregate with two rides for a cumulative score of 172.5 points. He is five points behind the average leader, Utahan Josh Frost. “That was our eliminator pen, and it showed,” said Smith, 27, of Rexburg, Idaho. “I’m glad that is over with, but we still have another round of that. It’s going to work out great the next time.” That attitude has been helpful. He knew a little bit about Evil Intensions before he mounted the red bull. “I knew Creek (Young) got on him last year, and I think he won this round last year,” he said. “I was pretty excited, and the fact that he had a lot of up and down and went left … I was pumped. There’s no better feeling than one that goes up and down away from your hand. “It’s great to score 90 points, but to go 90 here is just incredible.”