{"id":133290,"date":"2026-06-15T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorados-jacoby-campbell-lives-on-the-edge-as-bareback-rider\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T16:50:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T22:50:16","slug":"colorados-jacoby-campbell-lives-on-the-edge-as-bareback-rider","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorados-jacoby-campbell-lives-on-the-edge-as-bareback-rider\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado\u2019s Jacoby Campbell lives on the edge as bareback rider"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Colorado\u2019s
Colorado\u2019s Jacoby Campbell rides Powder River Rodeo\u2019s Shady Deal to open up the Ute Mountain Roundup rodeo on Thursday night at the Montezuma County Fairgrounds. Campbell won the event in the 2025 UMR rodeo, and scored another strong finish with a ride of 79.5. (Erika Alvero\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

CORTEZ \u2013 The debate may never cease between rodeo competitors \u2013 which event is the toughest? Perhaps the entrant total sheds some light on resolving that matter.<\/p>\n

If the Ute Mountain Roundup rodeo is any indication, bareback riding brings in only the most intrepid riders, prepared to take the full brunt of their rides during the spine-jolting eight seconds. While most of the UMR events included a full card of competitors, just a scant few threw their hats into the ring for the night\u2019s opening event.<\/p>\n

Among them, Brighton\u2019s Jacoby Campbell, the 2025 UMR champ, is working his way back from a late-season injury in search of a back-to-back on the Montezuma County Fairgrounds dirt. A collection of athletic training tape and gauze \u2013 and that\u2019s before he ever sidled onto his bucking horse \u2013 Campbell geared up for another run under the setting summer sun on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

Asked why he took on bareback riding, \u201cI want to give the saddle bronc riders someone to look up to,\u201d said Campbell with a laugh.<\/p>\n

While saddle bronc served as one of the foundational pieces of the early rodeos, the rodeo community has viewed bareback riding on a different intensity level where only the most fearless dare to tread.<\/p>\n

On Thursday night, Campbell lasted the full eight seconds on Powder River Rodeo\u2019s Shady Deal, scoring a 79.5 \u2013 not good enough for a UMR repeat title, but certainly enough to electrify the crowd with the night\u2019s opening ride.<\/p>\n

Like many riders, UMR fit into his jigsaw puzzle schedule for the summer, with Campbell set to ride four horses in four nights in four different towns \u2013 Cleburne, Texas, followed by Cortez, then Monticello, then Eagle Mountain, Utah. It\u2019s an unforgiving schedule coupled with an unforgiving event.<\/p>\n

Last year near the end of the rodeo calendar, Campbell rolled his leg up after a competition, only to learn that he had been riding the past four years on a torn ACL. A surgery and extensive rehab later, Campbell made sure to highlight the UMR rodeo on his calendar \u2013 after all, he had a title to defend.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been injured before, but knee surgery has been one of the hardest,\u201d Campbell said matter-of-factly about his litany of challenges before stepping back to the ring, \u201cbut it\u2019s just like riding a bike, you have to do a few tries to remember how.\u201d<\/p>\n

He now has a piece of his quadriceps where the ligament used to reside, postponing the start of his 2026 rodeo campaign until June \u2013 so the UMR Rodeo gave him a chance to get back \u201cin the saddle\u201d to kickstart his recovery journey.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of good people in my corner, my coach, my trainer \u2013 they helped me make sure I didn\u2019t lose as much muscle mass after the surgery,\u201d he said, \u201cand thanks to them, recovery was pretty simple.\u201d<\/p>\n

Campbell splits his time between Colorado and Fort Worth, Texas, where he started his rodeo journey \u2013 enjoying the pleasant Rocky Mountain summers while also getting his fix of time in his old stomping grounds during the winter months.<\/p>\n

The four rides in four nights kicks off Campbell\u2019s summer aspirations, which include whistle stops in towns all across the Rockies and Great Plains as he seeks a profitable, and more importantly, healthy bounceback season.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you get the first adrenaline rush, you don\u2019t think about the injury much,\u201d said Campbell of his first climb back into the bucket chute.<\/p>\n

Injury aside, Campbell fondly remembered his maiden ride in Cortez, a 78.5-point ride, his first of four wins on the 2025 calendar and second-highest score of the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe crowd was amazing, everyone here took really good care of me, and I drew a hopping horse \u2013 it was a good rodeo,\u201d he said of his inaugural UMR rodeo, \u201cI like the weather and the great views.\u201d<\/p>\n

Compared to Fort Worth, \u201cthere\u2019s a lot less traffic here,\u201d he added with a smile.<\/p>\n

Early in his career, the Brighton cowboy tried his hand at every rough stock option on the rodeo menu, initially favoring bull riding, but eventually switched to his signature event.<\/p>\n

\u201cI realized that the bucking horses were paying for my entry fee for the bull riding, so I asked myself \u2018why am I doing this?\u2019 and switched to riding bareback full-time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Campbell\u2019s gritty attitude is what fills the stands every second weekend in June in the Four Corners, as the UMR rodeo continues to bring out the heart of the West.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2025 UMR rodeo champ battles through the one of the sport\u2019s most unforgiving events<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":133291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6313],"tags":[28,29,937,6419,2295],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-133290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports-2","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-rodeo","tag-tj-trueanthem","tag-ute-mountain-roundup-rodeo"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133290"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133424,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133290\/revisions\/133424"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133290"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=133290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}