PBR Notes: San Antonio

Right up through the third round, I was liking this weekend of bull riding.  It just had a good feel to it.  There were some nice rides and a lot of really good bulls.  There was even a near-poetic save by Wendel Runyan of Josh Faircloth from the wild & brockle-faced Whiskey's Rebel.  I was happy.  After three weeks of decent but ho-hum bull ridings, this was a really good one.

Then it turned out to be one of those games in which everything happens in the last quarter.

• Guilherme Marchi makes a last minute surge with a 90.50 ride on Back Bender to lead Shane Proctor by 2 points with two rides left.

• Reese Cates rides like he's stuck to the bull and makes his fourth ride of the weekend, edging out Marchi.

• Shane Proctor shakes off his Built Ford Tough slump, rides his fourth bull of the weekend, and wins the event over Cates by 1.75 points.

• Silvano Alves walks away from a bad wreck with a trashed vest and hoof-shaped bruises all over his chest.  

• Asteroid knocks the socks off Josh Faircloth and just about everyone else with a massive out, winning high bull score over Bushwacker for the second time in a row. 

• And I'm a Gangster goes down and gets up three times in his effort to get Fabiano Vieira off his back.  Then he goes down again.

All of this in the last ten rides of the weekend, a period of maybe 30 minutes, when everything about bull riding, the good, the sad, and the scary, played out in the arena and kind of took your breath away.

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Read more about San Antonio bull scores and pedigrees in Bulls and Bloodlines.  And check out San Antonio by the Numbers to see what the facts and figures say.

San Antonio by the Numbers

90 point rides: 1 (Guilherme Marchi on Back Bender)  

45+ bulls: 3  (See Bulls and Bloodlines for details)  

Number of bull scores under 40:  5  

Reride options: 2  

Muley count:  5 (Set me straight, muley counters.)  

Scurs count: 1 (Okay, nearly impossible to tell with scurs.)

Clone count:  2   

Number of times blacklisted phrases were used: 1 ("turfed")  
Times Craig Hummer mispronounced Silvano Alves' first name:  Zero (Check You've Got Mail  to find out why.)  

Number of times announcers and commentators referred to "The Brazilians":  4 (As opposed to about 100 on all previous broadcasts this year.  Someone had a word with someone.  Individual sport, individual riders.  The most important thing about someone is not their nationality.)  

Riders with 4 rides:  2  

Riders with 3 rides:  2  

Riders with 2 rides:  2  

Riders with 1 ride:  14  

Riders with 0 rides:  19

Riders in going into Championship Round with only one prior ride:  4  

Riders placing in event top ten with only one ride:  5  

Most money won:  $45,026  

Riders winning no money:  19  

Times the chute judge yelled at riders to get out of there:  I counted 7.  (As opposed to 17 last week.  Someone's working on this.)  

Bulls with sponsorship names: 3  

Bulls with names they'd get beat up for if they were in 7th grade:  7

Bulls and Bloodlines: San Antonio

I don't have anything on I'm a Gangster except what was reported by the PBR, and what we saw.  He went down on his front legs and then down on his rear legs twice, but kept bucking.  Then he went down on his rear legs again after getting Vieira on the ground.

According to a PBR press release on Monday, veterinarian Gary Warner says that Gangster has pulled and torn ligaments in his rear left leg and possibly some nerve damage, but Robinson is reportedly "cautiously optimistic" about Gangster's return to competition by the World Finals in October.

Here's the video from PBR TV:

High Scoring Bulls (45+)

781 Asteroid - 46.50 (Circle T)
13/6 Bushwacker - 46.25 (Moreno/Oliveira)
JR070 Movin' On - 45.50 (Frontier Rodeo)  

Head to head  

For the second week in a row, Asteroid outscored Bushwacker.   

Say what?

034 Say When's bull score:  43.75.  I know he didn't spin, but okay, I say spinning is overrated!  (I'd last two seconds as a judge.)  I mark him 44.25.   Same deal with 59 Whiskey's Rebel (Boyd/Floyd).   

Broadcast bull talk

He wasn't scheduled to be on last night, but J.W. Hart soothed the soul that was pining for bull talk.   

In case you were wondering where Stubby went...

Stubby, formerly owned by D&H Page, is now known as Stanley Fatmax and is owned by Jeff Robinson.  I don't know if this is a sponsorship deal or what, but Stubby got robbed.   

Pedigree of the week

373 Hard Times:

Sire:  Chaos
Grandsire:  White Sports Coat
Granddam:  Rafter 7r 71   (Houdini daughter)

Dam:  Rafter 7r 65
Grandsire:  Spook
Granddam:  CP1 Kung Foo        

Other pedigree notes

-215 Amy's Pet (Robinson) is a son of Hot Damn.  His dam is a Broke Back V daughter.

034 Say When (Martinez/Hooper/Richards) is a Rapid Fire son.  His dam is a Bodacious daughter.

717 Hannibal (Robinson) is a grandson of Kish's Wolfman on the sire side and Kish's Velvet Hour on the dam side.

924B Immigrant (Frontier Rodeo) and 723 Panther (Circle T) are Houdini grandsons.

606 Big Cat (Box K) is a Happy Hour son and a Grasshopper grandson.

7032 Snowstorm (Ohl/Stockton) is a Panhandle Slim grandson on the sire side.  

Bull of the weekend

781 Asteroid  (Circle T).  Yeah, whoa.