{"id":72515,"date":"2017-06-10T07:28:52","date_gmt":"2017-06-10T13:28:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/friday-night-riders-put-on-show-at-ute-mountain-rodeo\/"},"modified":"2017-06-10T13:28:52","modified_gmt":"2017-06-10T13:28:52","slug":"friday-night-riders-put-on-show-at-ute-mountain-rodeo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/friday-night-riders-put-on-show-at-ute-mountain-rodeo\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday night: Riders put on show at Ute Mountain rodeo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><!-- gallery:8c93ad7c-186f-4398-adae-d8d23c245d5a --><\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video wp-block-embed-youtube naviga-video-embed\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/O_DjAgfZVcg\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>With Queen\u2019s rendition of \u201cWe Will Rock You\u201d blaring over the loud speakers and more than 1,000 fans vigorously exercising their voice boxes, 14 bull riders stood Friday night near the Montezuma County Fairgrounds arena in preparation for the Ute Mountain Roundup\u2019s most popular event.<\/p>\n<p>Hailing from states as far away as Florida and as close as Utah and New Mexico, the young and wiry cowboys stretched and tended to various injuries while talking among themselves about their recent trials and tribulations at events that took place as recently as the day before.<\/p>\n<p>By the time the gates finally opened for the night\u2019s first rider, Cullen Telfer of Brandon, Florida, audience members could hardly contain their excitement.  Unfortunately for Telfer however, the eight-second buzzer never sounded as the former high school wrestling state champion lost his balance and fell to the ground after his bull made a hard right turn.<\/p>\n<p>Over the course of the night, 12 riders would face similar fates thanks to an athletic array of bulls brought to Cortez by the Honeycutt Stock Co., which has been breeding bulls for eight decades.<\/p>\n<p>At times during the evening, several of the animals became enraged to the point that cowboys and rodeo clowns alike were forced to avoid angry charges, leading announcer Jody Carper to comment that one animal looked \u201cas mad as Tiger Woods when they posted his picture the other day,\u201d following an alleged DUI.<\/p>\n<p>Among the most exciting rides of the night was that produced by La Salle, Utah native Jacob Smith, who overcame his bull\u2019s wildness in the shoots and produced an evening-best score of 74 points while Ram Jam\u2019s 1977 classic, \u201cBlack Betty,\u201d blared in the background.<\/p>\n<p>Also on display throughout the evening was an innate toughness displayed by several riders, including Dustin Muncy, who broke his nose after getting his hand stuck in the rope. He limped out of the arena, followed a small blood trail.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen it\u2019s good it\u2019s good; when it\u2019s bad, it\u2019s bad,\u201d said cowboy Drew Flynn, when asked about the injuries that result from bull riding.  \u201cAbout four weeks ago in Franklin, Tennessee, a bull hit me coming out of the bucking chute \u2026 and damaged some ligaments.\u201d  It can be a little brutal \u2026 but if you love it, you love it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>By the time the evening concluded, Ty Wallace sat atop the Roundup\u2019s bull riding standings with a score of 78, which he posted on opening night. Smith\u2019s score of 74 was good enough for second place, and Australia native Matty Pfingst\u2019s score of 50 points was good enough for third.<\/p>\n<p>Other standout performances from the evening included those of saddle bronc rider Chance Darling, who posted an evening-best score of 76, and steer wrestler Josh Peak, whose time of 5.2 seconds was the top performance of the night and placed him in second overall.<\/p>\n<p>In the team roping event, Clayton Van Aken and Cullen Teller just missed the arena record of 4.1 seconds with a time of 4.5 seconds.<\/p>\n<p>At the end of the evening\u2019s festivities, several cowboys and cowgirls signed autographs for young fans outside the arena while chatting with rodeo staff members, friends, and family members.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve all been raised to treat one another the same and treat everybody with love and respect,\u201d Flynn said.  \u201cThe people I\u2019ve met through rodeo and traveling \u2026 I\u2019ve always got a place to stay. If I go broke, somebody\u2019s got my back. They go broke, I\u2019ve got their back.  It\u2019s a family, and we try to treat everybody that way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With two nights of the Ute Mountain Roundup Rodeo now complete, fans still have one more opportunity to see live action as a full slate of events will take place at the Montezuma County Fairgrounds on Saturday at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>and skilled cowboys highlight exciting night at fairgrounds<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72516,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[281,21,13,28,937,346,316],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-72515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-agriculture","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-rodeo","tag-sports","tag-video"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72515","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=72515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72515"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=72515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}