J.R. Vezain’s big payday in the Super Shootout comes by Special Delivery.
Injuries open door for bareback cowboy to take home prize
Bareback rider Jake Vold, who claimed the RodeoHouston Super Series title last year, is sidelined after knee surgery, and R.C. Landingham, second last year, is out with a torn rotator cuff.
J.R. Vezain, who was third, was happy to take their place Sunday at NRG Stadium.
The Wyoming cowboy represented RodeoHouston in the eighth Super Shootout: North America’s Champions, and he did it well, winning the one-day rodeo with 90 points on Special Delivery.
The win earned Vezain a much-needed $25,000 payday.
“Money’s tight at home,” Vezain said. “We had a really hard winter. We’ve got cows and sheep at home, and we had to dump a bunch of extra feed into them, so this will make the rest of the winter super relaxed. “We needed it bad.” Vezain advanced to the fourman Shootout after winning a rematch with You C Me in the eight-man round. Then he picked Special Delivery for his ride, without hesitation.
“That’s a big-time bucking stud of Calgary’s that, if you do your job right, is going to let you be 90, and if you stub your toe, he’ll buck you off,” Vezain said. “So I knew I had to grit my teeth and do things right, and if I did, he’d take me to the pay window, and he bailed out of there and got it on. Luckily, I matched him.”
A team challenge
The Super Shootout is a team challenge, with the reigning champs from eight of the most renowned rodeos in the United States and Canada competing for a $250,000 purse in five fanfavorite events.
Houston was winning after the first two events.
Tyler Waguespack, the 2017 RodeoHouston steer wrestling champion, followed Vezain’s victory with one of his own, winning the Shootout in 4.6 seconds on the last go, giving Houston $53,000.
Waguespack’s win was sweet redemption, too.
He didn’t make it out of his Super Series in the regular rodeo, then stuck around for two weeks, waiting for this opportunity.
“This is such a big rodeo,” Waguespack said. “It’s pretty humbling. You come in and win it one year and might not go anywhere with it the next, and that unfortunately happened to me. But we came back in the Super Shootout and were able to get the win.” But Houston didn’t. Reno Rodeo representatives Heith DeMoss, in saddle bronc, and Nellie Williams-Miller, in barrel racing, won the next two events, and combined with Dakota Eldridge’s second-place check in steer wrestling, Reno finished first with $66,700. RodeoHouston placed second with $57,500.
Keep it all in the family
DeMoss won with 89 points on Yesterday’s Deliver,y a day after her brother Cody DeMoss, a saddle bronc rice, won RodeoHouston’s for the third time.
“It’s very special for me and Cody to do this,” Heith DeM- oss said. “My family is down, his family’s here, and our mom is here, so it makes it that much more special to win a rodeo of this caliber.”
Williams-Miller circled the barrels in 14.48 seconds in the Shootout. The reigning world champ barrel racer also won the regular rodeo Saturday, so she’s leaving Houston with $86,250 after picking up another $2,500 for helping Reno win the team championship.
“It’s amazing, and it’s lifechanging,” Williams-Miller said.
Four-time world and two-time Houston champion Sage Kimzey, who was eliminated in his Super Series for the first time, won the bull riding title with a hardfought, 90-point ride on Foolish Dreams.
“It’s another check mark off the bucket list, for sure,” said Kimzey, representing Calgary.
Jason McDaniel is a freelance writer.