GUYMON, Okla. – The newest pen of Carr Pro Rodeo bucking bulls made a statement, but MGM Deuces Night stole the show at the 2012 Guymon Pioneer Days Rodeo.
“When I heard callbacks for this rodeo, I was screaming out loud and running around like a little girl,” Vezain said of the great Carr Pro Rodeo horse, which was one of the featured animal athletes in Guymon. “I had my highest marked ride on that horse last year with an 87 at San Antonio, and I was going for the record this year.
“I was going for 90; I knew it was going to be good. I was really stoked to be here.”
Vezain and MGM Deuces Night danced across the Henry C. Hitch Arena dirt for a rodeo-best 89-point bareback ride on the final day of the four-performance competition at Oklahoma’s Richest Rodeo. But there were plenty of memories being made, and a lot of those came from the great young bulls that were in the mix.
“I thought the pen of bulls here was fantastic,” said Tim Bingham of Honeyville, Utah, a 20-year-old cowboy who won bull riding in Guymon on Carr’s Comanche, worth $3,819. “I didn’t see any bulls I wouldn’t want to get on.
“It was good for me to stay on a good bull like that, especially after going through a dry spell.”
Bingham is young and still new to the game. There are a couple of others who were part of the final performance that saw several things they liked in the Carr Pro Rodeo bull pen, including world standings leader Cody Teel of Kountze, Texas, and Trey Benton III, the rookie standings leader and fourth-ranked bull rider from Rock Island, Texas.
“I got on a little black motley bull called Private Eye, and he got me down,” Benton said of being bucked off before the eight-second whistle. “I really like the rodeo in Guymon, and I think they had a bunch of really good bulls out today.”
Teel, who is riding with a broken leg, also failed to score on Carr’s Poker Face. He knew very well that he was going to take a chance at collecting the check in Oklahoma’s Panhandle.
“I knew the bull pretty well and that if I rode him, I had a chance to place high,” Teel said. “I knew he’d never been ridden, but he has not tricks to him. In the short time I was on him, I found out a lot about that bull.”
Poker Face is one of a number of bulls that’s new to Carr Pro Rodeo, and they were all out on Sunday afternoon. They caught the attention of the world’s best bull riders.
“You don’t mind driving those long hours it takes to get to some of these rodeos like this because you have a chance to win no matter what bull you have,” Teel said. “That’s the main thing. It makes it more of a riding contest instead of a drawing contest. It’s more on you and what you can do; you don’t’ have to worry about the draw so much because Pete Carr has put together a great pen of bulls.”
Chandler Bownds is another young gun who failed to mark a qualified ride in Guymon, but he puts the blame on himself. In fact, he knows how important it is that Carr has invested into the bull herd.
“The bulls were awesome,” said Bownds, the 2011 rookie of the year from Lubbock, Texas. “Pete brought in some great subcontractors to juice up his great pen of bulls, and there were a bunch of bulls that bucked really hard. All the bulls that bucked today could definitely be in the NFR.
“I always try to make it to Pete’s rodeos. They’re always good rodeos, and you always get a chance to get on a good set of bulls, so that helps make them good rodeos to go to.”
A lot of the top cowboys in the game have highlighted Carr Pro Rodeo events for several years, but the firm’s recent investment into its herd has made believers among many others.
“This is one of the top pens I’ve seen in Guymon,” said Ardie Maier, a 2010 NFR qualifier from Timber Lake, S.D. “There were some of the top guys in the world, and everybody had a chance to win if they stayed on. When you can go to a bull riding like that, it’s saying something about the bulls.”
Since he turned pro in 2004, Wesley Silcox has qualified for the NFR six times and won the world championship in 2007. He knows a thing or two about the game of bull riding. He rode Carr’s Panther for 80 points to finish fifth, worth $891.
“This is the best pen of bulls I’ve ever seen in Guymon,” he said Sunday afternoon. “I’m excited to follow Pete around and get on more of his bulls.”