 OMAHA, Neb. – J.W. Harris arrived at the Sept. 24-26 Justin Boots Championships with an $82,000 lead in the PRCA World Standings and the nagging sense that it might not be enough to assure a gold buckle. Harris is a cautious sort.
Three days – and an event-best $26,099 – later, Harris’ concerns were eased, and he was looking even more certain of becoming the first bull rider to win back-to-back world championships since Blue Stone in 2001-02.
“Omaha is a place where you want to do well,” Harris said. “You get that momentum going into the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo and maybe pull away from the field a little more and give yourself a little more distance from those guys because they ride too well to be that close to you.”
Harris closed the books on his latest triumph by earning 91 points on Velvet Elvis of the Four L and Diamond S Rodeo string in the final.
He also won the first round (with the rodeo’s only other ride of 90 points or better) and the average on two head.
“I had never seen Velvet Elvis,” Harris said, “but everyone said I would like him and that he was probably the one to have (in the finals). They said he just turned back and would be kind of up underneath himself and just not to fall off him.
“He had a lot of timing, and you could just sit there on him and have fun. He’s the kind of bull where, if you stub your toe once, he’s going to throw you off, but he gives you a chance. I’d like to have had him everywhere I went.”
Harris ought to have a pretty good handle on the myriad benefits of momentum – to his confidence and his bank account – by this time. The May, Texas, bull rider has been on a non-stop high since winning his first world championship last December in Las Vegas.
He has won 20 PRCA rodeos this season and shared the title in two others, zig-zagging across the country to claim buckles and cash in San Antonio, Fort Worth, Texas, Reno, Nev., St. Paul, Ore., Austin, Texas, Dodge City, Kan., Pocatello, Idaho, and Prescott, Ariz.
With $216,723 this season, he has almost exactly double the total of second-place Steve Woolsey ($108,444), and he has a chance to break the regular-season earnings record for bull riding of $228,766, set by Matt Austin in 2005.
Harris needs $12,044 at the Oct. 9-17 Heartland Championships in Waco, Texas, to break the record. He won $12,749 there a year ago.
Whatever Harris wins at Waco will simply widen his margin. Neither Woolsey nor third-place Corey Navarre qualified for Waco, the last rodeo that counts toward the 2009 PRCA World Standings and qualification for the Wrangler NFR.
“What this means,” Harris said, “is I can go (into the Wrangler NFR) and just have fun and relax and try not to put any more pressure on myself than already is there. Just go in there and have fun with it and do what I did all year, just stay on.”
And if all of this didn’t already add up to this being the year of life, there is this: Harris is getting married Oct. 3 to Jackie Woosley of Harrison, Ark.
“We’ll have our honeymoon in Waco,” Harris said, with a laugh. There should be time, and money, enough to have a proper honeymoon after the Wrangler NFR.
Nobody benefited more from their weekend in Omaha than Leavenworth, Kan., team roper Blaine Linaweaver. When partner Brandon Bates failed to qualify for the Justin Boots Championships, Linaweaver hooked up with eight-time World Champion Heeler Rich Skelton. They won a preliminary round and the average, then finished second in the final behind David Key and Brad Culpepper.
It all added up to an event-best $24,194 apiece for Linaweaver and Skelton, moving Linaweaver from 19th place in the PRCA World Standings to eighth, seemingly assuring of his first trip to the Wrangler NFR since 2005. Skelton advanced from 11th to fifth.
Josh Peek moved himself into position to join Trevor Brazile as two-event cowboys in Las Vegas with a big week of steer wrestling competition. His $23,138 at Omaha was second only to Justin Boots Champion Luke Branquinho, and Peek added bulldogging checks in San Bernadino, Calif., and Albuquerque, N.M., to climb from 26th place a week ago to 10th.
Even though he is not competing at Waco, Peek should be able to hang on and make the field in Vegas. His tie-down roping chances are far more tenuous. He is 15th in the world standings with defending Heartland, Wrangler NFR and World Champion Stran Smith entered in Waco and just $4,641 back. Smith moved up from 24th to 17th in the world standings by winning $11,145 at Omaha.
Heartbreak award for the week goes to 2007 World Champion Wesley Silcox, who made $3,080 at Omaha, leaving him just $410 short of Zack Oakes for the 15th spot in the standings. Silcox is not competing at Waco.
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