About: Ted

Bareback riding: 1. Richmond Champion, 88 points on Hi Lo ProRodeo Pretty Woman, $26,231; 2. Clayton Biglow, 86.5, $20,731; 3. Jake Brown, 86, $15,564; 4. (tie) Tim O’Connell and JR Vezain, 85, $8,885 each; 6. Bill Tutor, 84.5, $4,231. Steer wrestling: 1. Chason Floyd, 3.7 seconds, $26,231; 2. Rowdy Parrott, 3.8, $20,731; 3. (tie) Jon Ragatz and Dakota Eldridge, 4.1, $13,327 each; 5. (tie) Tanner Milan and Ty Erickson, 4.4, $5,500 each. Team roping: 1. (tie) Luke Brown/Jake Long and Clay Tryan/Jade Corkill, 4.1 seconds, $23,481 each; 3. (tie) Dustin Egusquiza/Kory Koontz and Erich Rogers/Cory Petska, 4.2, $13,327 each; 5. Chad Masters/Travis Graves, 4.3, $6,769, 6. Garrett Rogers/Jake Minor, 4.7, $4,231. Saddle bronc riding: 1. Ryder Wright, 92 points on Powder River Rodeo Show Me Again, $26,231; 2. Jake Wright, 88, $20,731; 3. Clay Elliot, 87.5, $15,654; 4. CoBurn Bradshaw, 87, $11,000; 5. Hardy Braden, 84.5, $6,769; 6. Heith DeMoss, 84, $4,231. Tie-down roping: 1. (tie) Caleb Smidt and Cory Solomon, 7.6 seconds, $23,481 each; 3. Marty Yates, 8.4, $15,653; 4. Marcos Costa, 8.5, $11,000; 5. (tie) Trevor Brazile and Cade Swor, 9.1, $5,500 each. Barrel racing: 1. Amberleigh Moore, 13.54 seconds, $26,231; 2. Tillar Murray, 13.73, $20,731; 3. Ivy Conrado, 13.86, $15,654; 4. Nellie Miller, 13.87, $11,000; 5. Lisa Lockhart, 13.93, $6,769; 6. Kellie Collier, 13.95, $4,231. Bull riding: 1. Jordan Hansen, 86 points on Corey & Lange Rodeo Tequila, $28,981; 2. Ty Wallace, 84, $23,481; 3. Guthrie Murray, 82.5, $18,404; 4. Joe Frost, 81, $13,750.

LAS VEGAS – Bareback rider Clayton Biglow’s Wrangler National Finals Rodeo is like an old truck engine: It took a little while to get warmed up, but it’s humming right along now. Biglow, 22, of Clements, Calif., failed to catch a check in the first five rounds of this year’s 10-round finale. Since the second half began, he hasn’t missed a lick. He’s placed in three straight rounds, including a second-place finish during Thursday’s eighth go-round on Beutler & Son Rodeo’s South Suds, worth $20,731. “It was déjà vu,” he said. “I actually got on him here last year in the same round, except today I feel like I rode him better. That’s a rank son of a gun, the rankest horse I got on last year and so far the rankest horse this year.” He must like powerful bucking horses. Thursday’s bareback riding featured the “eliminator” pen, the hardest-to-ride horses in the sport. “That is what you want to do,” Biglow said. “That is why we are bareback riders. Getting by the hoppers (the easiest-to-ride broncs) is fun and all, but this is what you live for, to slay the dragons.” He has pushed his NFR earnings to $72,404, with all but $10,000 coming in the last three nights. He now sits fourth in the world standings with $200,577 in season earnings. What’s more impressive is that the group of bareback riders has worked like a team. “We are feeding off each other,” he said. “We are all brothers in that locker room. We are all pulling for each other. Everyone wants to win first, and it would be cool if we could all win first. No one is against each other. We are not here to beat Tim (O’Connell) or Richie (Champion). We are there to beat our horses, and that is all we are worried about.” Now Biglow has just two more chances to cash in during his Vegas tenure this season. He’ll do everything possible to make it work.

Defending champ, Inman advance to final day of BFO Las Vegas Championship LAS VEGAS – Fifteen stitches and a bum hamstring had nothing on Weston Rutkowski. The reigning Bullfighters Only world champion suffered those injuries a week ago, but what hurt him more was the doubt that was cast on his ability and his work ethic. He answered those doubts Thursday afternoon with a 90.5-point fight during the second Preliminary Round of the BFO Las Vegas Championship at the Tropicana Casino and Resort. “This was about redemption,” said Rutkowski, the No. 1 man in the Pendleton Whisky World Standings and the frontrunner to repeat as the world champ. “There were a lot of people wondering if I could, if I could come in and take over. “The Roughy Cup (last week) didn’t go as good as I wanted to, and I got 15 staples and reaggravated a hamstring injury. So, this was getting back to the basics to prove to everybody that I know how to fight bulls. This is a very dangerous sport, but in order to be a world champion, you have to battle through that and make yourself fight your fight.” His bout was so strong that it didn’t look like the injuries even hampered him. He admitted, though, that he had to block it out to a point. “Winning my round today means I get a day off, another day of rehab over here at the Fit N Wise sports medicine,” he said. “It’ll be nice to have an extra day off to be able to get ready to fight at the finals Saturday.” Trainers have outfitted Rutkowski with a specialized wrap to help protect the hamstring as much as possible. He tested it out Wednesday night to make sure everything was good to go for his round. “I went down to the arena, and I pretended to fight bulls for 45 minutes to an hour,” he said. “I proved to myself that the wrap would hold up.” That was all he needed to help his confidence and put on the fight necessary to advance to Championship Saturday. “One slip or one fall, and people think you’ve lost your step,” Rutkowski said. “If you can’t get up from some bumps and bruises, then this isn’t the sport for you. “I’m not going to bow down. The world title goes through me, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let go of it without putting up a fight.” While he is the No. 1 man in the game, there is one man that can catch Rutkowski: Toby Inman of Davis Junction, Ill., who joins Rutkowski and Kris Furr of Hamptonville, N.C., in advancing to Saturday’s finale. Furr won his three-man bout with an 80, while Inman scored 85 to advance. “I thought my fight went great,” said Inman, who returned to the sport in 2016 after retiring five years before. “That was maybe the happiest I’ve ever felt before a fight. Today I wasn’t overthinking stuff. “I had a fun little red bull, and I knew I just needed to play my cards right to advance. Thankfully I didn’t have Weston in my round. I just did a simple fight and made it work.” Results Weston Rutkowski, 90.5; Toby Inman, 85; and Kris Furr, 80.

LAS VEGAS – Hardy Braden doesn’t have to look too far to find his bronc riding hero. It’s his dad, Butch, who rode broncs professionally for a number of years before becoming a PRCA pickup man. Hardy Braden learned everything he knows about the game from his dad before furthering his education at both Fort Scott (Kan.) Community College and Oklahoma Panhandle State University. Earlier this week, after failing to place in the sixth round of the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo, Braden reached out to his father for some advice. It has paid off in spades; he won Round 7 and finished fifth in the eighth round. “I’d been sitting on my right foot a little bit and getting up in my saddle,” he said. “I called him just to verify what I had done. I take my binds up a half hole to make it a little tighter and to keep my foot from coming all the way up in the saddle. “I asked him if that was the right decision to make and clarify what I was thinking. He agreed, and he mentioned that he thought that a couple rounds ago that I probably should have done that. Hee is always the one to call for me as far as advice or to justify my thinking.” That’s because Butch Braden is his son’s trainer and coach and has been before the 28-year-old cowboy began riding bucking horses. “He is my everything; he is my world,” the young Braden said. His ride Thursday added $6,769 to his pocketbook, increasing his NFR take to $90,173. “That is pretty unbelievable,” he said, noting that he might have to do something special for his family after the NFR concludes. “Everyone is getting special Christmas presents, I guess.” He laughed a little, but he was serious. His family has been by his side since the beginning. While Dad serves as a pickup man, his mom, Tammy, is a PRCA timer who worked the NFR from 2013-15. He also has a sister, Tara, who has been beside her brother every step of the way. On Thursday, he matched moves with Outlaw Buckers Rodeo’s OLS Tubs Magic Carpet for 84.5 points. “I had seen t hat horse go; Sterling (Crawley) had it in the third round,” Braden said. “He told me what he did with the horse, and I was just trying to do the same day. She had a decent trip with Sterling, and I was just trying to match that. “She tried a little harder than I was expecting. She almost ran me out of the back of the saddle.” He stayed in the buggy and looked strong doing it, but he’s been doing it most of this year’s NFR. He has placed in six of eight rounds and pushed his earnings to $192,947. He sits fifth in the world standings and is excited to ride in the final two go-rounds. After having so much success through the first eight nights, there’s no reason he wouldn’t be excited.

LAS VEGAS – Tim O’Connell had a gut feeling the match-up was going to happen. The reigning world champion bareback rider had already been matched with the 2017 Bareback Horse of the Year, Virgil, in the third go-round of the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo. The result was an arena-record tying ride of 91.5. In his heart, though, O’Connell just knew he would be matched with the 2016 Horse of the Year, Powder River Rodeo’s Craig at Midnight. Both are powerful gray horses, athletic and extremely hard to ride. “John Franzen would always send me videos of Craig running through the pastures and getting him beefed up and ready to go to the NFR,” he said, referring to the son of Powder River’s owner, Hank Franzen. “God has a funny way of just letting you know. “I knew I was going to have Craig at Midnight at the second ‘eliminator’ round.” That happened Thursday night during the eighth round of ProRodeo’s grand championship. The two powerhouses slugged it out across the Thomas & Mack Arena dirt for 85 points. That was good enough to finish in a tie for fourth place, worth $8,885 and increased O’Connell’s NFR earnings to $96,731. His dance with what he dubbed as a “fire-breathing dragon” helped push his season earnings to $298,647 – just a stone’s throw from crossing the $300,000 barrier. He has ridden eight horses for a cumulative score of 683 points and leads the average race – should he stay there through the final two rounds, he will pocket an additional $67,269. That means he has a very good chance to earn more in 2017 than he did in his first gold-buckle campaign. But Thursday night was not easy. Craig at Midnight did everything he could to get O’Connell to the ground. “My trainer and I talked about it, and we prepared for stuff like this,” he said. “The stuff that makes champions champions is when you have to dig down deep. You show up not knowing if you’re going to win or not. “There’s a saying: ‘It’s not the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog.’ I kept telling myself that before I nodded my head (to start the ride). ‘It is not his night tonight. He can have it any other night, but not tonight. It’s my night. There is nothing that horse can do tonight to get me on the ground.’ ” It was like a prize fight, and it’s quite fitting that it happened in Las Vegas. There were no tricks; it was just two champions going blow to blow for 8 seconds. “I didn’t make the pickup horse; he launched me in the air,” O’Connell said. “I feel like I was 20 feet in the air before I started to come down. He had a shot to kick me if he wanted, and he chose not to. I was just very thankful that I had faith and that, now, the ‘eliminator’ pens area done.” There are two nights remaining for the 2017 season. O’Connell has a lead of more than $93,000 over the No. 2 man, Texan Richmond Champion. But no lead is secure, especially with so much money on the table. O’Connell leads Champion by just half a point in the average race. Still, he will appreciate his ride on a big gray horse on the eighth night of the NFR. “I had to bear down tonight,” O’Connell said. “I don’t know if my form was very great, but I just fought tonight. When you have to fight to stay on one you have to give it everything you got, and I gave it everything I had. That is a win for me. I don’t care if I would have won the round or if I would have been last, but I knew I left if all on the table.”