Utah cowboys try to ignore injuries during the final push to qualify for NFR
Utah cowboys are competing with injuries and trying to stay healthy enough to qualify for a trip to the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo to be held in Las Vegas next month. The cowboys and cowgirls from Utah are traveling to San Francisco and Kansas City during the first weekend in Nov. for the final two chances to earn more prize money and qualify for NFR.
A pair of world champions got knocked around during the Wrangler Summer Tour Finale in Texas. Lan LaJeunesse suffered a concussion and laceration during the bareback competition. The defending world champion has battled elbow injuries for much of the year and finally underwent surgery in June to repair the elbow.
Blue Stone got hung up and was stepped on during semi-final round action in bull riding at the Texas Stampede, but the Ogden, Utah native picked up enough cash to move into seventh place in the world standings. Stone is not stranger to injury after suffering a broken breastplate, following his gold medal winning bull riding performance during the Winter Olympics rodeo in Utah.
Cody Wright is also fighting for his first appearance at NFR. The top rated saddle bronc rider is recovering from a broken leg suffered at Albequerque earlier in the summer. The former high school and college national champion struggled to regain his form after experiencing the broken leg and tried get back in stride during his first rodeo after the injury, which happened to be the Texas Stampede and the Summer Tour Finale. The Millford bronc rider came away empty handed. He is sitting in the 15th spot in the world standings with only San Francisco and Kansas City remaining on the schedule of rodeos to qualify for NFR.
Brock Andrus is fighting for prize money survival and a shot at a return to NFR. Andrus has also been hampered with injuries over the past year after suffering a knee injury last Nov. during the Wilderness Circuit Finals last year. The steer wrestler from St George is currently in the 19th spot in the steer wrestling world standings with $8,000 separating him from the 15th and final qualifying spot in the standings.
Danyelle Cambell of Washington, Utah is the lone healthy rodeo athlete with a shot at NFR and she is ranked 11th in the barrel racing standings. The NFR veteran has not been without the added challenges of keeping her barrel racing horses healthy. A few years ago Campbell watched her lead in the barrel racing standings fade away as her horse went down with an injury and dashed her hopes for a return trip to NFR.
The cowboys and cowgirls from Utah split time between Kansas City and San Francisco in hopes of picking up enough prize money to seal up a trip to NFR.
LaJeunesse's wife Natalee reported that her husband scored 74-points on his bareback horse in San Francisco on Tuesday night and then he was off on a flight to Kansas City to compete on Wed. night. He was scheduled for a return trip to the west coast the following day with hopes of making the short round, followed by another trip back to Kansas City for the short round. All of this travel and competition in hopes of earning day money and average money to push him into the top-15 by the end of the weekend to earn him a trip to Las Vegas to defend his world title in the bareback event.
Wright's wife ShaRee reported that her husband was walking a couple of days a week and trying to get his leg back in shape for the end of the season and the final push to earn a trip to NFR. "He is healing surprisingly fast and he is off of the crutches and walking on it now," ShaRee reported a few days before he was scheduled to ride in Texas. The saddle bronc rider would have been out of the cast for only two short weeks before trying to earn his first shot at NFR during big rodeos in Dallas, Kansas City and San Francisco.
The Utah contingency is making the final push for that trip to NFR in Dec. and then they will return to the Golden Spike Arena in Ogden over New Year's Eve to compete for the title in their home region during the Wilderness Circuit Finals.