BY DWAYNE ERICKSON, FOR THE CALGARY HERALD OCTOBER 29, 2011
The Professional Bull Riders outfit is halfway through its world finals at Las Vegas and, as usual, Aaron Roy is right up there among the leaders.
The Canadian champion from Yellow Grass, Sask., posted a score of 86.5 points on Friday night on a big brindle bull called Braveheart, a leftspinner ridden only 22 per cent of the time.
Although Roy was the seventh contestant out, his score to up to finish fifth on the night for $7,500, the last money hole.
Roy, most often at his best at this shindig, was a fourthbest 88.75 the night before to pick up $10,000.
His aggregate score of 175.25 ranks fourth on the 40-man roster.
The PBR trotted out its rank pen in the third of its six rounds, described as the toughest bulls on the planet.
Only 10 bull riders went the eight-second distance. Brazilian Douglas Ferreira won the round with a 91-point score.
Florida’s Caleb Sanderson and North Carolina’s J.B. Mauney, the 2009 Calgary Stampede champion, are the only finalists to cover all three bulls.
The two outlaws in the race for bull of the year – Bushwacker and Asteroid – were spectacular.
Bushwacker threw off Cord McCoy, the Calgary Stampede’s parade marshal a couple of years ago, in three jumps. The judges marked the bull 48.5 – just a point and a half away from a perfect 50.
Asteroid through off Harve Stewart in two jumps and was marked 47.5.
Former Canadian champion Tyler Thompson was thrown off for the third time. The bull, named Guaranteed Tough, had him down in 3.82 seconds.
Two of the three Canadian bulls were in the rank pen – Wayne Vold’s Canadian champion Slash and Gas Tank, freshly sold to North Carolina stock contractor Jeff Robinson for $60,000 by the Wild Hoggs outfit of Justin Volz, Tyler Streeter and Ian Mackay.
Slash, unridden the last two years, threw off Australian Brendon Clark in 4.17 seconds and Gas Tank dropped Brazilian rookie Ruben Barbosa in 7.26 seconds.
RODEO@TELUSPLANET.NET
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