SAN ANTONIO – Tim O’Connell is back solid – and perilous.
The three-time PRCA Bareback Riding World Champion – 2016-18 – showed his title structure in winning the elimination round at the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo Friday.
O’Connell had a 88.5-point ride on Pickett Pro Rodeo Company’s Shady Nights at AT&T Center.
“That resembled the seventh or eighth time I have been on that pony and of the multitude of times I have been on that horse that by a wide margin was the buckiest she has been,” O’Connell said. “She generally has that enormous dip not too far off to one side of the chute and it is truly great for me since she pulls me around the bend.
“I planned to pursue the round regardless. I realized I had presumably the best pony in the pen, and I had been on her so often. I planned to pursue it, I would have rather not go through that (Wildcard round). I needed to go directly to the finals. I attempt to go for the round without fail, however I was truly going to allow it to hang out today.”
The San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo finishes up Saturday and will be communicated in real time on The Cowboy Channel and spilled on the PRCA on Cowboy Channel Plus App at 8 p.m. (ET).
The finals will comprise of 11 challengers – 5 from every one of the elimination rounds and one
from the trump card. The Wildcard round is at 2 p.m. (ET), Saturday.
O’Connell recognized nothing came simple for him with Shady Nights.
“Part of the way through she was truly bringing it harder than I have at any point felt it,” he said. “I needed to begin slowing down there and I could feel without a doubt we were at the center of the out door, and I was swinging and hitting, and I was dialing it back and truly plant my feet toward the finish of my stroke to hold her back from bringing me over the highest point of my handle. I knew after I got off that we had quite recently accomplished something important.”
O’Connell, an eight-time qualifier for the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo, presently can’t seem to win the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo something he needs to change.
“I think I have been second here like three unique times and I couldn’t imagine anything better than to mark this off my list of must-dos,” O’Connell said. “I really feel great. It’s anything but a reason, yet I displayed at the (2021) NFR in the wake of having my tailbone taken out. It was 100 days to the first round of the NFR after I had a bone removed from my body. It’s anything but a reason, yet I simply felt really awkward under my riggin by then.
“Things simply weren’t turning out well for me. I didn’t feel like I was drawing awesome and I was not riding the best. I wasn’t helping the ponies out like I typically do, and the outcome was the outcome. Being harmed isn’t a reason, yet I simply wasn’t truly prepared I don’t accept. I felt amazing and I felt solid yet with regards to sitting on the rear of a kicking horse with a crude bone on your butt things don’t feel totally right. I was having some shoulder issues also and I think we at long last have this sorted out where I feel like Tim O’Connell once more.”
Friday was verification.
Other elimination round victors Friday were steer grappler Will Lummus (3.9 seconds); group ropers Chad Masters/Cory Petska (4.4 seconds); saddle bronc riders Zeke Thurston (89.5 focuses on Pete Carr Pro Rodeo’s Hired Gun) and Lefty Holman (89.5 focuses on Pete Car Pro Rodeo’s Dirty Jacket); secure roper Riley Pruitt (7.1 seconds); breakaway ropers Cheyanne Guillory (2.3 seconds) and Amber Crawford (2.3 seconds); barrel racer Cheyenne Wimberley (13.95 seconds) and bull rider Trevor Kastner (88 focuses on Andrews Rodeo’s LZ Full Throttle).
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