OKLAHOMAN’S WINNING RIDE ‘MEANT TO BE’
Savvy American kimzey snares biggest bull riding prize at the Calgary Stampede
The crowd urged Sage Steele Kimzey to take the re-ride.
But champions know better than to give in to emotion.
Cool and composed, the Oklahoma cowboy chose to hold on tightly to the 78.5-point score aboard Panda Haus and accept what was about to unfold on Sunday’s final day of The Greatest Outdoor Show On Earth.
It was a good call.
The world-class bull rider — with such a low mark — somehow squeezed through to the championship round, where he then out-pointed three other rodeo stars to earn the $100,000 top prize to cap the 10 days of the Calgary Stampede.
“It does just seem like it was meant to be,” Kimzey said.
The odds did seem to be stacked in his favour, though, given he was a Stampede winner in 2015, 2017 — and now 2019. Every other year, the odd year, the bull rider is getting it done in Calgary.
“I guess if there’s a rodeo to win every other year, the Calgary Stampede’s a good one to do it at,” Kimzey said.
It doesn’t hurt that he’s the reigning five-time world champion, to boot. So whatever moves he makes seem to work for the native of Strong City, Okla.
“My decision was just kind of made for me, honestly ... there was this peace that came over me,” Kimzey said. “And I don’t know how else to explain it other than God was just looking out for me. It was a moment of serendipity in all this chaos that was going on.”
As it panned out, three of the five remaining riders were bucked off, giving him the lowest of the four scores that qualified for the championship round.
And in the $100,000 final, Kimzey boarded Night Moves and put up a sensational 92.50 trip to beat out the 89.0 score of Saskatchewan’s Jared Personage on Grey Tower III. Brazil’s Jose Vitor Leme was then thrown off Chrome, and Montana’s
Jess Lockwood rounded out the Stampede by being bucked off Blackstone Afterparty.
TIE-DOWN ROPING
Caleb Smidt bested three Stampede champions to wrap up the $100,000 top prize in tie-down roping, but he had help along the way from below — on a relatively new horse to rodeoing, Chico — and from above.
“When my dad passed away a year-and-a-half ago, he left Chico for me,” Smidt said. “It’s a horse that my dad bought probably when he was a two-year-old. He put him in a feed lot for a while, and then I got him. I’ve done everything on him.
“This is probably only the second or third rodeo that I’ve done calf-roping on him. So I’m glad I brought him up here.”
Smidt, the reigning world champ, rode Chico to the grand prize in his event, wrapping up his calf in 7.3 seconds. The trip was three-tenths of a second ahead of runner-up Matt Shiozawa, of Idaho. Next up was veteran Cory Solomon, in 8.7, while Timber Moore, a fellow Texan, couldn’t rope his calf.
BAREBACK
Forget the Stampede staple “Yahoo!” How about “Yippee?”
At least, that’s what Tanner
Aus was likely yelling after his $100,000 winning ride aboard bucking horse Yippee Kibitz in bareback.
“When you ride a horse like this, there’s no better feeling,” Aus told the Stampede crowd after his victory. “It felt so good. She got low to the ground at first. Then she picked up. That horse bucks hard. She had a day. Felt awesome.”
Three years ago, he climbed aboard Yippee Kibitz here but didn’t come away with the same result he did in this edition of the Stampede, his fourth.
“I knew I drew two good horses (Sunday),” said Aus, of Granite Falls, Mont. “My (championship-round) ride felt great, and when I heard my (92.5) score, I was excited. But I didn’t want to get too excited. I saw some monster rides here and some monster scores. And that was a great pen of horses and a great group of guys.”
It certainly was the closest competition of the championship round.
Utah’s Caleb Bennett gave
Aus a good run with a 91.5 score aboard Zulu Warrior, while Georgia’s Clayton Biglow, on Stevie Knicks, and Wyoming’s Seth Hardwick, on Xplosive Skies were close behind with respective 89.0 and 88.50 marks.
STEER WRESTLING
It was a reunion of southern gentlemen in the steer-wrestling finale, but Alabama’s Kyle Irwin was in no mood to be the nice guy. He just wanted to be the fastest, and was with a swift 3.8-second trip that got him the $100,000 Stampede payday.
“I knew I had to take a chance to be fast with guys like Will Lummus and Jacob Talley and Tyler Waguespack,” said Irwin of the final-round competition from Louisiana and Mississippi.
“It didn’t click until we were getting ready to come in and we looked around and said, ‘This is all the guys we grew up with and competed against in high school rodeos. That added a little icing on the cake.”
Aboard his horse Scooter, Irwin was a mere three-tenths of a second better than Talley, at 3.8, while Lummus was nearly a second slower yet at 5.1 and Waguespack, the 2017 Stampede champ, broke the barrier to take a 10-second penalty.
SADDLE BRONC
It was Rusty Wright’s turn to bring home the Stampede saddle bronc title for the legendary
Utah family.
His dad, Cody, took home the big bronze twice and his brother, Ryder, rode away with the winning paycheque just last year.
“It’s awesome,” Wright said. “It’s always nice to have family win it back-to-back. I’ve been coming to this rodeo since I was little. I rode in the novice and I’ve been coming here since then, so it’s really awesome to be able to hold the $100,000 cheque over my head.”