LAS VEGAS – Call it good fortune or willing things to happen, but Wyatt Casper is still climbing the ladder that is the National Finals Rodeo.
After failing to place on opening night, he has collected nearly $70,000 in Las Vegas money by placing four straight nights, most recently finishing in a tie for fifth place during Monday’s fifth round. He rode Summit Pro Rodeo’s Cat Walk for 87.5 points and earned $7,063, increasing his annual earnings to just shy of $290,000.
In a round that featured four cowboys with scores even higher, it was an electric night of saddle bronc riding inside the Thomas and Mack Center.
“Yeah, I’m just lucky to get a check,” said Casper of Miami, Texas. “You put that pen of horses together, it’s not going to take very many points to separate first to sixth.”
He is fourth in the world standings and trails the leader, two-time world titlist Ryder Wright, by $67,000. It may seem insurmountable to some, but that’s never the case at the NFR, where go-round winners will collect more than $34,000 per night. Casper also has an ace up his sleeve in Sin City; he has ridden five horses for a cumulative score of 427 points. He’s No. 1 in the aggregate race, and the bonus for winning the average is more than $86,000.
“I’ve never really had to think about the average very much,” he said. “Coming out there, I think you need to be up there high in the average to have a chance to win the world title, so it’s pretty well on my mind every day to ride every horse as good as I can and to stay in it.”
Having horses like Cat Walk helps. While each of the five pens of livestock are set up to be as even as possible, there are some animals that stand out a little more. Casper had ridden the big bay before, and that history played a role in his success on Night 5 in Las Vegas.
“That horse has been phenomenal all year,” Casper said. “I felt like I rode him as good as I could. He must have just gotten a little soft at the end, because it felt like he started out really good and fired out of there, hit and came right down the chutes like you want them.”
He holds just a half-point lead in the aggregate race over Canadian Dawson Hay, but anything can happen during the second half of ProRodeo’s grand finale. The goal now is for Casper to continue to hope the random draw works in his favor and for him to take advantage of it.
“In every pen out here, there’s a top and a bottom,” he said. “We’ve still got to draw them top six horses to be successful.”
Only the best men are in this field, and Casper has proven his place among the elite.