Riders saddle up for big one

ELISABETH CHAMPION A TULLY bull rider is hoping to wow the crowds at Australia’s biggest Professional Bull Riding event next weekend.

Off the back of an impressive year of performances on the 2018 PBR Australia Tour, Michael Smith, 21, has officially made the top-18 Australian rider cut-off to qualify for the PBR Grand Finals, which will run at Townsville Entertainment Centre.

Smith said bull riding is in his blood.

“My dad rodeos, so when me and my brother Luke turned 15, parents got the Tully Bull and Bike Ride running again, so we jumped on and just kept going and ended up here,” he said.

“We’ve grown up in this background although we didn’t know we would be going this far with it. It just kept going and we practice every night pretty much.

“We have our own bulls and arena here – Dad said if we were going to do it, we had to do it properly so we went and set it up and made sure we practised.”

It paid off, with Smith entering the PBR this year after dozens of amateur shows.

“I started off doing amateur rodeos and open shows, and I won a bunch of them and then I got recognised and did my PBR membership,” he said.

“I started riding well there and got enough points to stay on tour.”

Before he makes it to Townsville, he will be competing at the 2018 PBR Iron Cowboy in Tamworth today.