Saddle bronc riders get jump on Canadian Night at NFR
If you go by the schedule, Canadian Night at the National Finals Rodeo isn’t until Thursday.
But you could make an argument that every night in this year’s saddle bronc riding has been one for Canadian cowboys.
Six of the 15 qualifiers hail from the Great White North.
Two have combined for three wins in the NFR’s first six rounds.
As Corb Lund, the country and western crooner from Alberta who will sing “O Canada” before Thursday’s performance will testify, the home and native land is commanding lots of true patriot love at the NFR.
“We have all been buddies since we were little, and we’ve been talking about (competing in Las Vegas) since we were able to walk,” Logan Hay, 25, said after winning his first career NFR round Monday at the Thomas &Mack Center before collecting his second Tuesday with 87.5 points aboard Duane Kesler’s Chucky.
“Now that we can put those dreams into action, it’s pretty amazing.”
Hay is a son of Rod Hay, a 20-time NFR qualifier in the saddle bronc, and the nephew of Denny Hay, who won three Canadian titles in the discipline. Logan Hay’s brother, Dawson, also is riding at the NFR, along with compatriots Zeke Thurston, Layton Green, Kolby Wanchuk and Kole Ashbacher.
Ted Stovin, a Canadian rodeo enthusiast who operates a website dedicated to the sport, says the six-man saddle bronc contingent hearkens to the 1960s when Alberta’s Marty Wood was winning world championships in the event.
There also are Canadians competing in bareback riding (Orin Larsen, before he missed Monday and Tuesday with a broken thumb), team roping (Jeremy Buhler) and bull riding (Jared Parsonage), and Curtis Cassidy was ranked 14th in the all-around standings entering the NFR, giving his homeland an additional presence.
Seven of the nine qualifiers hail from Alberta, the rodeo-centric province north of Montana that hosts the famous Calgary Stampede in July and sends its best bucking horses to the NFR. Another thing the Canadian cowboys have in common is that most played ice hockey, which should come as no surprise.
Rod Hay grew up with Clint Malarchuk, a former NHL goalie who finished his career with the Las Vegas Thunder of the old International Hockey League. Logan Hay played bantam and midget hockey before switching his focus to rodeo. He recalls his dad and uncle firing pucks on Malarchuk during one of their frequent Las Vegas visits.
There is no mention of goals and assists or even high-sticking penalties in Zeke Thurston’s PRCA biography. But the 2016 and 2019 saddle bronc world champion also remembered receiving a hockey stick under his Christmas tree when he was a young boy.
He admitted to not being a good hockey player. But he became a world class bronc rider, and his two gold buckles have been an inspiration for youngsters back home now pulling up bootstraps.
“I was the first one to kind of accomplish this dream we’re all after,” Thurston said of the current crop of Canadian saddle bronc riders after winning Sunday’s go-round and placing in the three before that. “I felt like I kind of paved the way for a lot of those guys who are following in my footsteps, and they’re doing a great job. I’m proud of every one of them.”
Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.