Sports

By Ted Harbin

LAS VEGAS – It may have taken three rounds, by Wyatt Casper has found his comfort zone in Sin City.

He’s put together four solid rides in a row, placing in three of them and just missing out on payday on Night 6. He rode Big Bend’s Broken Camp for 89 points to win Wednesday’s seventh round of the National Finals Rodeo to collect just shy of $27,000.

“I talked to my traveling partner, Jake Clark, about him,” Casper said, noting that Clark lined out the rein measurement that fit the horse. “He said (the bronc) was going to feel awesome, and he wasn’t lying. I thought he was a little stronger than what Jake put on. Every jump coming around there, he was just getting stronger. I just lifted on my rein a little harder, and it worked out good.”

It’s bronc riding at the most basic level, but Casper and others who have qualified for ProRodeo’s grand finale have perfected it. Lifting on the bronc rein helps the cowboy make a better spur stroke, starting over the breaks of the horse’s shoulders and back to the cantle of the saddle while in rhythm with the horse.

“It all goes hand to hand,” he said. “I think bronc riding is a real basic sport. It might not look that way, but the mental side of it is. I just try to get a good start on every horse I can: Two jumps, spur out and never miss a lick. I feel like that helped me out a bunch.”

It goes with his training, first at the Deke Latham Memorial Bronc Riding School in Goodwell, Oklahoma, as a youngster, then while attending Clarendon (Texas) College while under the training of rodeo coach Bret Franks, a three-time NFR qualifier.

“They all drilled that into my head,” said Casper, who was living in the Oklahoma Panhandle town of Balko as a youngster but has since moved to Miami, Texas. “When I was in high school, I’d go over to Goodwell and practice with (the Oklahoma Panhandle State University rodeo team). I was over there a bunch.”

Robert Etbauer, a two-time world champion, is the coach at Panhandle State. Even though Casper didn’t attend college there, he learned a great deal at those practices.

“I think Robert says if you fall off, it’s probably because you weren’t lifting hard enough,” Casper said. “Maybe that’s what I wasn’t doing earlier in the week. Finally, thank goodness, I got it figured out.”

He has pocketed $62,688 in seven nights in the Nevada desert and pushed his season earnings to $147,635. He sits seventh in the world standings, but there are three nights remaining in the ProRodeo season, and he has his eyes on the prize.

“It’s been good,” he said. “I’m just trying to get as much money out of here as I can, get a little nest egg to go back to Texas with.”

By Ted Harbin

LAS VEGAS – Cole Franks seems to be a young man on a mission.

Still two months away from his 21st birthday, the bareback rider from Clarendon, Texas, has placed in three of the first four rounds of the National Finals Rodeo and pocketed $37,759. On Sunday night during the fourth round, he rode J-Bar-J’s Blessed Assurance for 86 points to finish in a four-way tie for third place, worth just shy of $10,000.

“They’ve placed in every round they’ve been on that horse at the NFR,” Franks said. “He was a good one to get on in this pen.”

He’s had some good fortunate, but he’s also earned his money eight seconds at a time. Riding bareback horses is no easy task. The riggings are cinched tightly to the animal’s back, and the cowboys wear specially designed riding gloves with binds, then wedge their hands into the rigging. They are virtually locked onto the horse.

It can take a toll on the body, even on the easier to ride broncs. That’s what the bareback riders faced in the fourth round, the “Hopper Pen.” Unlike the “Eliminator Pen” they face in the third and eighth rounds, the horses out Sunday night were more user-friendly. It was a spurring contest, and it was difficult to judge the rides for the ProRodeo officials, which is why there were four cowboys tied for third.

“I just have to keep it going, just keep rolling,” said Franks, a second-generation NFR cowboy whose father was a three-time qualifier in saddle bronc riding. “It’s awesome to keep picking up checks. It makes you feel like you belong here a little more with all these guys.”

He’s actually one of three cowboys competing at ProRodeo’s grand finale that were part of the Clarendon College rodeo team coached by Franks’ father, Bret. Cole Franks and saddle bronc riders Wyatt Casper and Tegan Smith have all been in the money. Smith won the third round, and that set off a spark in the others.

“I went to the buckle presentation for Tegan (Saturday) night, and it made me think like, ‘I’m going to be here at the South Point for this,’ ” Franks said. “I was shooting for it today, but it didn’t quite work out. Just seeing those guys come in here and compete, it is just as awesome as coming in here and doing it by myself.”

By Ted Harbin

LAS VEGAS – In the City of Lights, something finally clicked for saddle bronc rider Wyatt Casper.

“I was excited for the first round, and it didn’t go the way I wanted it to go, and neither did two or three,” said Casper, who suffered no-scores in the first three rounds. “I feel like we’ve been in Vegas for a while. Getting this, I think, will spark a light in me.”

This was an 89-point ride on Vold Rodeo’s Sun Glow to finish second in Sunday’s fourth go-round of the National Finals Rodeo. That paid $21,336. It was a great way to get on the roll he needs at ProRodeo’s grand finale.

“I knew by having that horse, I was plenty capable to win the round today,” he said. “I’m tickled with 89.”

He wasn’t so tickled in the first three nights. He was bucked off his first and third horses, and he was flagged with not making his markout – securing the heels of his boots over the breaks of his horse’s shoulders – in the second round. It all added up to no scores and no money.

“It’s hard,” said Casper, the 2016 college national champion from Miami, Texas. “It feels like everyone might think you forgot how to ride broncs. I’ve just not been looking at all the negativity, just put it in the back of my head and forget about it.

“I just needed to remember how I got here, and that’s riding every horse the best I can every time. That’s what I tried to do tonight, and it worked.”

This is Casper’s second straight NFR qualification. He finished the 2020 season as the reserve world champion. Still, this is his first time to compete at the championship in its typical home in Las Vegas.

“This experience is really cool,” he said. “This is what I always dreamed of, riding here in Vegas. To finally come true, it is awesome. The crowd is energetic. It feels like they are right on top of you, and they pretty much are. There is a lot more pressure in this arena.

“I just go into each night … I feel the dirt. It feels like any dirt in any other arena.”

It’s also a bit different for his wife, Lesley, and their two children, Cooper and Cheyenne.

Having them with him during this 10-day championship is a valuable tool for the bronc buster.
“They’re good to have here,” Casper said. “They are a good distraction from the rodeo. It’s been good having them around.”

They bring normalcy to his life, which is anything but normal in the Nevada desert. They also make him realize that a few no-scores mean very little in the grand scheme of things.

By Ted Harbin

LAS VEGAS – Throughout his first regular season in ProRodeo, Cole Franks looked like anything but a bareback riding rookie.

He rode well, and did it often, and he pulled off some big wins along the way. He won the bareback riding and all-around national titles at the College National Finals Rodeo in June, helping his Clarendon (Texas) College to the men’s team title. He finished the 2021 regular season 12th in the world standings and the bareback riding Rookie of the Year.

“I was very nervous when I realized I was gunner (first out), and I knew it was either going to be really good or not good at all,” said Franks, who rode Hi Lo Pro Rodeo’s Midnight Kid for 87 points to finish in a tie for third place in the first round of this year’s NFR. “Everybody knows I’m a little slow in the chute, and I was really thinking about that.

“Then I realized I was gunner at San Angelo (Texas): First performance, first guy out in the long round, so I was like, ‘Maybe that’s where I need to be.’ I changed my mindset to start off and got some of the money.”

Just like he did when he won the first round in west Texas, Franks found his way to the pay window. He pocketed $13,716 and moved up one spot to 11th in the world standings. But winning is nothing new to Franks, whose father, Bret, was a three-time qualifier in saddle bronc riding and his son’s coach through his first two years of college. Cole Franks is now a junior at Missouri Valley College in Marshall, Missouri.

While his father was an NFR veteran, the younger Franks looked like one in his first ride inside the famous Priefert gates wrapped around the arena that hosts ProRodeo’s grand championship.

Only the top 15 contestants in each event at the end of the regular season advance to the NFR, which is a pressure-packed situation no matter how many times a cowboy has been in Las Vegas. Add into the fact that Franks is still in college, and it’s a small wonder he’s in position to make some big-time money over 10 days in the Nevada desert.

“It was surreal when I got here the other day,” Franks said. “There are so many emotions that I don’t even know what I was feeling. It was like a big boom. I don’t even know what emotion it was. It was just incredible.”

It was also incredible that he was matched with a horse that fit his style pretty well in Midnight Kid.

“I’ve seen that horse a few times, and from the very first time I saw him, I knew I wanted to put my riggin’ on that thing,” he said. “There’s no better place than to do it than here.”

He may be new to the City of Lights, but he looks pretty comfortable already. He’s pushed his season earnings to $101,110.

“Yeah, I like it here,” Franks said.