About: Ted

REXBURG, Idaho – Garrett Smith wasn’t happy. He’d arrived in Heber City, Utah, the first weekend of November with hopes of a dominating performance in bull riding at the Wilderness Circuit Finals Rodeo, the regional finale for contestants and rodeos primarily in Utah and Idaho. Things didn’t go as planned, so he opted for Plan B. He had already planned to spend a couple of days in Clarendon, Texas, with his older brother, Wyatt, and get on some practice bulls. Those two days turned into a week, and he spent his time to focus his talents and his mind on the tasks ahead of him, his fourth appearance at the National Finals Rodeo. “I wanted to get everything lined up, and after the circuit finals, I just decided to stay little longer,” said Smith, 27, of Rexburg. “My confidence is getting better. I just got on some practice bulls, and it felt really good. We should be ready by the time we go to Vegas.” That time is coming soon. ProRodeo’s grand championship will take place Dec. 1-10 at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, its home since 1985. After three years away from the NFR, he returns after having a stupendous regular season, one in which he earned $141,658 riding bulls. He enters the 10-day finale No. 4 in the world standings. “The highlight of my year was winning the Reno Rodeo’s Xtreme Bulls title,” said Smith, who credits much of his success to his sponsors, Idaho Project Filter, Cinch, Resistol, Rodeo Vegas, Rodeo Tax, Rodeo Graphics, Truth Bucking Stock and Crown Royal. “I’d never won a big Xtreme Bulls like that before. “I’d stayed on two of them one time before and ended up sixth or seventh, so I was pretty pumped to get that win.” He wasn’t just excited; he capitalized on that momentum. Two weeks later, he added another Xtreme Bulls championship at Cody, Wyoming, and the ball was officially rolling in his favor. Smith’s propulsion toward the top actually began a month and half earlier. During the first week in May, he battled through the heat at the Xtreme Bulls in Uvalde, Texas, to finish second overall, riding two bulls and winning the championship round. He then won the bull riding crown at Guymon, Oklahoma, and just padded his earnings – he pocketed just shy of $15,000 that week alone. “That was a pretty good confidence boost to get through the rest of the season,” Smith said. “I feel like it started there.” He hopes his roll continues through the 10-night championship in the Nevada desert. He first appeared on the sport’s biggest stage in 2014 when he served as a hazer for his bulldogging brother, Wyatt, for the final five nights of the NFR. That relationship is why he spent time in the Texas Panhandle, where Wyatt Smith is the assistant rodeo coach at Clarendon College. Garrett Smith was offered the chance to hone his skills inside the school’s rodeo and equine facilities, and he took advantage of it. By returning to the basics of rodeo on practice bulls, he is hoping that will help him transition to his performance in Sin City. While he had a big financial windfall through the 2022 regular season, he still trails the leader, Utahan Stetson Wright, by almost $180,000. That may seem insurmountable for some, but bull riders have a different mentality. With nearly $29,000 paid to go-round winners each night, there are amazing chances to move up in the standings. There’s also the fact that “ground money” counts toward the bull riding standings. The NFR pays out six places in each of the 10 rounds, and there’s an opportunity for more income if fewer than six ride their bulls on a given night. If Smith is the only cowboy to stay on in a round, he will add $93,270 to his earnings. That’s the kind of move that could make a difference in the world-title race. “You can’t think about the money to much through the regular season,” he said. “The big money is in Vegas. You make Vegas to break even, and in Vegas is when you make your money.” In his three previous trips to the NFR combined, Smith has earned nearly $170,000. That’s good for the profit margin, but he’d like to do a bit better. There will be 10 more nights to the 2022 campaign to make that happen. “I’m just looking at it one bull per night down there, and I’m going to do it with that exact attitude,” Smith said. “We’re all competing in this together. We all have to ride our bulls and not worry about what the other guys are doing. I can’t control what they do or whether they stay on their bulls. “I need to worry about staying on my bull, then moving on to the next one. The more bulls you ride there, the more chances you’re giving yourself to win money.” He’s done pretty well at that this year. Yes, he had some key victories – he had nine event titles – but the way to earning more than $140,000 was finding a place near the top when he wasn’t finishing first. It’s an old lesson handed down from one rodeo cowboy to another through the history of the sport. Second place still pays well, and he had a lot of paychecks through the course of the campaign. “I just chipped away at it,” he said. “Wyatt’s always told me since I was little, ‘You nickel and dime your way to the finals, and it all adds up.’ He wasn’t wrong.” While in Las Vegas, he will also be trying to collect money for people who have been affected by breast cancer through his fundraiser, PinkChaps.com. The plan is to help those individuals and families cover expenses that come with their battle with the disease. “Not everybody sees the cost of having breast cancer,” Smith said. “I can actually help a  Continue Reading »

WAVERLY, Kan. – The truest form of competitor comes out at the most unexpected of times. Michael Jordan’s defining moment came in Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals, when he battled the flu but still scored 38 points in the Chicago Bulls’ victory over the Utah Jazz. For bareback rider Jess Pope, that moment came in early July when he was sidelined with a torn plantar facia in his right foot. The injury can cause intense pain for an extended time. Pope took a few weeks off; when he returned, he quickly jumped into a race for the 2022 world championship. “I’m excited about going back to the finals and being in a race for the world title,” said Pope, 24, of Waverly, Kansas. “Other than the injury, it was a fun year to be rodeoing. There’s a lot of young talent out there that pushes everybody to become better bareback riders.” He actually fits into that category, though he’s now an established veteran at a young age. He earned $159,259 through the season and returns to the National Finals Rodeo for the third straight year as the second-ranked bareback rider in the standings. He did pretty well in his first two adventures to ProRodeo’s grand finale, winning the average title by having the best 10-round cumulative score in 2020 and ’21. During those two seasons, Pope earned more than $560,000, with about $401,000 coming over 20 go-rounds at the NFR. He’ll have 10 more nights to add to that total during this year’s championship, set for Dec. 1-10 at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas. “What happens with everybody else is out of my control when I get there,” said Pope, who credits much of his success to his sponsors, DewEze, Mahindra, Roxor, Mack Steel, Phoenix Performance Products, Graham School for Cattlemen, Resistol, Bloomer, Panhandle and Rock and Roll Clothing, Veach’s Custom Leather, Emporia Livestock Sales and T Bar T Cattle Co. “I’ll control what I can control. I’m going to ride each horse to the best of my ability and see how that falls each night.” In rodeo, cowboys are scored by how well they perform against the animal they are matched with via random draw. For a bareback rider, scores are based on a 100-point scale, with half the score coming from the bucking horse; the other half is based on how well the cowboy spurs the animal in rhythm with its bucking motion. He can’t control how well his animals will buck each of the 10 December nights. He can’t control how other bareback riders perform their tasks. His is a tunnel vision, and it’s worked well so far in his career. It’s a grown-up approach for a talented man who also has taken the right steps with his injury. Since that day in early July, he’s taken some herbal and prescribed medicines to control the pain. Beyond that, he’s proven just how tough he is and what kind of cowboy it takes to ride bucking horses on days when it may be difficult to walk. His pointed focus has been a main contributor to his place in the standings and his ability to overcome adversity. “I think the big thing for me since I started out is just growing up quite a bit,” he said. “When you travel as many days throughout the year, you have responsibilities at home; you have a fiancé and a family and other things you have to take care of. It makes you mature and learn how to slow down and smell the roses. “Everybody learns how to do that, but for some people, it happens faster than others. For me, it had to come really fast. I wanted to be able to do these things and enjoy this life. You have to find the positives and make every day count.” That’s just how Pope looks at each day. From taking care of himself and his place to feeding his animals and handling day work as a cowboy in the Kansas Flint Hills, he accepts each opportunity for what it is. “I enjoy my life,” he said. “I enjoy every day I get to be around my house, and I wouldn’t change my life for anything.” There are some changes on the horizon, though. It comes with that maturity and seeing what the future might hold with his fiancé, Sydney Odle, to whom he proposed this past May while at her family’s place in eastern Colorado. That was the highlight of his year, but he had some pretty special moments in the arena, too. He won 13 individual rodeos, including the prestigious RodeoHouston, in which he pocketed more than $60,000. He also has some other key victories scattered throughout to keep him in the middle of the world-championship race from the spring to the fall. “I’d say the best parts of being a bareback rider are the places I get to see and the people I get to meet,” Pope said. “I don’t have to show up at an office every day. I work at my own schedule. I also know if I’m pretty well anywhere in the United States and need something, I’ll have somebody I can call.” That extensive travel may be enjoyable, but it can have its downsides to a man with responsibilities back home. He has his own herd of cattle, and they need tended to whether he’s there to do it or not. “The toughest part is trying to have a plan for after rodeo and to make everything work,” he said. “To focus on rodeo, I have to make sure to get everything done when I’m at home. I have my cowherd. It’s just an ongoing process to make everything better so I have a good retirement one day.” For now, though, he’s making a pretty good living in rodeo. Unlike most professional sports, there are no guaranteed contracts, and no team is going to cover his business expenses. He  Continue Reading »

CLARENDON, Texas – Cole Franks made an impressive statement in 2021 during his inaugural season in ProRodeo: He’d claimed the collegiate all-around and bareback riding titles. He was named the Bareback Riding Resistol Rookie of the Year. He qualified for his first National Finals Rodeo and finished third in the world standings. It was a remarkable beginning for the second-generation cowboy from Clarendon, and he bounded into his sophomore campaign during the 2022 season with plenty of confidence and talent. With that, he’ll make his return to the sport’s biggest stage, the NFR, set for Dec. 1-10 in Las Vegas. “This year was a little more challenging in a way,” said Franks, 21, who won the intercollegiate title while competing for Clarendon Colleges. “It was a lot different. They changed the rule to where we couldn’t double up on rodeos on the same day. It was easier in that sense, because we didn’t have to decide between two rodeos, but it made it a little harder. “When we were rodeoing, because of that rule, everyone else was in the same places we were. It made it to where sometimes it was so crammed full of people that it was a lot harder to win.” He found his way to the winner’s circle anyway, proving talent and a powerful mindset can go a long way. Through the course of the campaign, he picked up 10 victories and earned $116,426; he heads to Las Vegas No. 10 in the world standings and will have a chance to battle for the coveted world championship. “I honestly think the key was staying at it, making every horse count,” said Franks, who credits much of his success to his sponsors, Pete Carr Pro Rodeo, Cinch, Western Legacy Co. and 287 Ag. “You want to do the best you can with what horse you’ve drawn. If you don’t have one you can typically win on, then you’ve got to flash it up and do what you can.” It takes a combination of key victories and making the most of one’s rides count in order to qualify for the NFR. He is $45,500 behind the leader, Wyoming cowboy Cole Reiner, but that deficit can be surpassed in just two rounds in Vegas, where go-round winners pocket just shy of $29,000 each night. Just a few years ago, round winners were making $10,000 less. It’s a good trend in a sport where there are no guarantees. Unlike other professional sports where athletes have surefire contracts that pay them whether they’re in the game or not, rodeo cowboys make their livings eight seconds at a time. They don’t get paid unless they score better than most others in the field. The rise in payouts is a boon for the men and women who are part of the rodeo trail as a business. “We do this because we love it, but it does make it a lot more fun to have a shot at that much more money every day,” he said. “Every rodeo I went to this past year, they just keep raising the stakes. That’s what keeps you wanting to go more. “I don’t think I’ve ever been ready to go home; I like staying out on the road. You may get worn out a little bit, but you know there’s all that money out there you can get.” Money is vital in rodeo. It’s not only how the contestants pay their bills, but it’s also how points are tallied. Only the top 15 on the money list in each event advance to the NFR. The contestants in each event who conclude the season with the most earnings will be crowned world champions. Last year, Franks earned more than $150,000 over 10 December nights in the Nevada desert, finishing the season with more than $225,000. He’ll need a similar showing this season if he hopes to earn the Montana Silversmiths gold buckle. “I’d say I improved quite a bit,” said Franks, whose father, Bret, was a three-time NFR qualifier in saddle bronc riding and whose brother, Clint, is a PRCA bronc rider. “Mainly, I’d say, I’ve gotten better at being able to handle those big, strong bucking horses, the ones that everybody wants and the ones you can win on. “Last year, I dropped the ball sometimes on those kinds of horses. I feel like I’ve gotten better at keeping the ball in my court on those horses while being able to flash up on the weaker end of horses and making them look better.” It’s a formula that has worked quite well. He made his second straight NFR even though a broken wrist in May and a damaged finger on free hand in July put him on injured reserve for nearly two months. The latter injury was actually scarier and happened at one of the largest regular-season rodeos in Cheyenne, Wyoming. “One thing I realized was that you don’t take your good draw as a sure sign you’ll win,” he said. “At Cheyenne, I knew I had it in the bag based on paper. That went out the window a bit during the short round. The horse flipped all the way upside down on top of me, and I was laying in the bottom of the chute. I don’t know for sure what happened, but it ripped my finger open.” He rebounded well, built up some style points and closed out his campaign in fine fashion by winning his last rodeo of the regular season in Stephenville, Texas. A week later, he won the first rodeo of the 2023 season in Hempstead, Texas. He’s been doing the things he needs to stay in shape. He’s been riding some practice horses to prepare his body for the rigorous week and a half in Las Vegas, which will pit the best 15 bareback riders of the year against 100 of the greatest bucking horses in 2022. “This is why I do this,” Franks said. “I love it, and  Continue Reading »

GRANITE FALLS, Minn. – Any athlete can attest to injuries throughout a career and even through a season. In bareback riding, the strain and stress the body takes during an eight-second ride can make injuries stack up. Cowboys wedge their hands into a tight-fitting handhold on a rigging that is strapped tightly to a bucking horse; they are nearly tied to 1,100 pounds of dynamite in bucking flesh. Tanner Aus has been doing this for more than a decade, and he’s become one of the preeminent athletes in ProRodeo. He had another terrific season, pocketing $127,132, and will return to the National Finals Rodeo for the seventh time in his career as the ninth-ranked cowboy in the world standings. “I was lucky I drew good horses all year, and I stayed healthy,” said Aus, 32, of Granite Falls. “That was the main thing. I’ve still got a little bit of fight in me that when I draw a horse I can’t win on, I still might go try it to see what I can do.” What he did was excel all season long. He won at least a share of the title at 14 rodeos, an incredible feat. “I attribute the money I made to just staying on the road and riding bucking horses,” he said, noting that many cowboys leave their families in late June and don’t return home until the regular season concludes the end of September. “I love riding bucking horses. I had kind of a slow winter and a pretty good spring, and I had a few licks in the summertime that kept me (high in the standings).” Rodeo cowboys travel tens of thousands of miles a year in order to make a living. They may be in North Platte, Nebraska, one day and need to be in Reno, Nevada, the neext. There are times throughout the year when they may ride two rodeos in the same day, traveling many miles to make it happen. But being on the road means being away from home. That’s tough on anyone, especially fathers. When he left home in June, he and his wife, Lonissa, had two little ones – 4-year-old Bristol and 2-year-old Rowan – and another on the way. Aus had been home for both their births and wasn’t going to miss out on No. 3. “We were due Aug. 2, and Cheyenne (Wyoming) got over on (July) 31st,” he said. “I took off like wild heading home. I talked to Loni on the way, and she told me she wanted me rested and that I didn’t have to race home. I got to Mitchell, South Dakota, and I slept for the night. “At 7 o’clock the next morning, she called and asked where I was. I told her I was in Mitchell, and she asked why I was still there. She said it was about time, so I took off and got home about noon. I showed, we ran into town, and they said, sure enough, it’s time. She ended up coming a day early.” And Dad was there to be part of it all. It may not have gone as planned, but it worked well enough for the family. “Everyone was just waiting on me for a few hours,” said Aus, who credits much of his success to his sponsors, Midwest Agri, Salty Dog Sister Boutique, Granite Falls Dairy Queen, Jug Waterers, Carroll Spur Co., Phoenix Performance Products and Wrangler. “It was an awesome way to spend a little time at home.” Those times are always good, but he wasn’t home for long. It’s the life of a rodeo cowboy, and he knows all about that. His father, John, rode bareback horses for years and was the Great lakes Circuit titlist in 1988. Tanner Aus has been around the game all his life. “I remember from the time I was very young – I was probably 9 years old when I started – I always wondered what it would be like to set making the NFR as a goal,” he said. “When you’re that young and have so many other things that can snag your attention, it feels like a pipe dream.” Now, though, he’s a regular. Since his inaugural trip to Las Vegas seven years ago, he’s only missed returning one time. That year, injuries slowed him down, and he finished 18th in the world standings; only the top 15 on the money list at the end of the regular season qualify for the sport’s grand championship, and he’s been among that field more often than not. “I pretty much take the same approach every year,” said Aus, who attended Iowa Central Community College before winning the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association title in 2012 while competing at Missouri Valley College. “You know it’s 10 in a row at the best rodeo you’ll ever get to go to. You show up, you take it one horse at a time, you make the best ride you can make on the stock that you have drawn and you fall back on your fundamentals and your training. “Competing inside the Thomas & Mack is unreal, so much more than you expect. That first time, you’re about to nod your head at your first NFR, and you try to prepare yourself, but just the electricity in that place makes your hair stand up. I think it’s a shared sentiment with all the bareback riders no matter how many times you’ve been there. It’s a feeling that’s unlike any other I’ve ever experienced.” In a year when the financial gains of ProRodeo are unprecedented, all 15 NFR bareback riders earned at least $100,000. Only $57,000 separates first to 15th, and with go-round winners earning $28,914 per night, that difference can be made up after Night 2. “The competition this year stayed very tight,” said Aus, who recently was inducted into the Iowa Central Hall of Fame. “Now, it comes down to the next 10, and it’s pretty exciting.”

MERRIMAN, Neb. – Oftentimes there is a fine line between great and awful. Garrett Shadbolt walked that line over the summer of his 2022 ProRodeo regular season. In a two-week stretch from the end of July to the first of August, he experienced the highest of highs as a bareback rider, but it also led to some pretty big lows. “The highlight of the year actually was those couple of weeks where I was just on a roll and was drawing really well,” said Shadbolt, 26, of Merriman, Nebraska. “It all started when I finished third in Cheyenne (Wyoming), but I won my performance and my semifinals. I got a check in Deadwood (South Dakota) that week, then the next week, I got a good check out of the long round in Dodge City (Kansas) and in Lovington (New Mexico), and I won Phillipsburg (Kansas). “I went back to Dodge City and won the short round and got the Dodge City win. It was a really good stretch.” In all, he pocketed nearly $22,000 in just two weeks of riding bucking horses, and it’s a big reason why he returns to the National Finals Rodeo for the second straight year. He finished the regular season with $103, 949 and holds down the 15th and last spot to qualify for the December championship in Las Vegas. His championship round- and event-winning ride in southwest Kansas came on Aug. 7 when he rode Frontier Rodeo’s Gun Fire for 91.5 points. That ride capped off an impressive stand, and he added $6,014 to his earnings. Gun Fire is also impressive, a powerful buckskin mare that was named the 2022 PRCA Bareback Horse of the Year based on voting by the cowboys that have ridden bucking broncs all season. Her power came into play right as the eight-second buzzer sounded, as she launched Shadbolt forward and the two combatants smacked heads together. Shadbolt crashed to the dirt, and the victor needed a bit of assistance getting out of the arena after having suffered a concussion because of the collision. That incident, in essence, put him out of competition for the better part of the final two months. “I’ve been rodeoing for quite a while but a career wrestler who competed at the college level was also part of that, so it’s been a pretty rough lifestyle,” said Shadbolt, who has support not only from his family but also his sponsors, East Sandhills Beef, Romsa Farm & Ranch, The Lodge at Deadwood, Raise American and Fuel Grill. “When you have that kind of history and you take a hit like that, it can affect you for a while. I didn’t really feel right until recently, and that was affecting me. I tried to go at it again, but I just didn’t feel right.” All the while, he kept watching more bareback riders pass him in the standings. Because of his excellent run in the winter and spring, he was able to hold on to his spot among the top 15, but he had fallen from fifth in the standings to 15th. “I was pretty confident I could make it this year,” he said of the NFR. “I had a great winter, spring and early summer, then I was having some hard luck. I wasn’t drawing very good. I got on a lot of questionable horses in a row. I went to six rodeos over the Fourth of July run and didn’t win any money. “I don’t think I made any mistakes, but bareback riding is just so competitive right now that it’s hard to win, especially over the Fourth run when everybody’s rodeoing.” Cowboys are matched with their animals by random draw, and the better the horse, the better the score and the better the opportunity to win big money. While he was being matched with good horses through a stretch of the season, he was hoping other match-ups would help increase his earnings. That’s just an aspect of rodeo that remains out of his control, though. He can control how he rides and how he approaches the game mentally. That’s been a big plus for the Nebraska cowboy. It’s also why he’s been a bit conservative when it comes to his head injury. “I’ve had concussions in my past,” said Shadbolt, who lives on his family’s ranch outside Merriman with his wife, Katie, son George and daughter Mavis. “I don’t want to be brain dead when I’m 40. I’ve got a wife and kids to think about. It’s definitely not a fun injury to have. It’s hard to tell when you’re ready to go back and when you need to just stay home.” There’s definitely a competitor deep in the heart of his 132-pound body, and it’s what drives him. Having been able to match moves with a powerful horse like Gun Fire is something that he can build on. “For me, getting a match-up like that and getting tested and coming out on top is the pinnacle of success in bareback riding,” he said. “That’s the feeling I’m chasing. I like to say every man should know what he’s capable of. I enjoy that; some people don’t. There were a couple jumps on Gun Fire where I was riding a razor’s edge.” That’s what happens when two determined athletes meet. When the NFR begins its 10-day run Dec. 1, he will have more opportunities to ride rank horses. Not only does the NFR feature the top bareback riders from this past season, but it also is home to the top 100 bucking horses in the game. “Everything’s going to buck really hard, and I may have been a little overconfident in that first round and came out swinging for the fence last year,” Shadbolt said. “It really pays to recover from mistakes you make and finish your rides. I don’t want to safety up; that’s not my style or my strategy. I’m definitely going to try to finish all my rides.” Only  Continue Reading »