Ep. 101 - Round 7 Recap, National Finals Rodeo 2021
It’s time for the Round 7 recap - it was a wild night of rodeo and it was also a bit strange considering we predicted most of it in our Round 6 recap!
Top Gun
Going into Round 7 Top Gun Race was Kaycee Feild, Jess Pope and Dirk Tavenner, but, as a haunch, we are guessing Jess Pope, Kaycee Feild and then Caleb Smidt. The award goes to the NFR competitor that takes home the most money in one event at the NFR. They get to take home a RAM truck along with a plethora of other cool sponsor awards plus all the money that they are taking home.
Event Recap & Projections
Bareback
Jess Pope and Kaycee Feild are out here battling every night. Each of them has won checks in six of the seven rounds so far! They have won six checks a piece for a total of 12, with the top 4 people entering the finals has only won 9 between all of them. Jess won the round with Kaycee right behind him.
Tim O’Connell got bucked off in Round 6 and you could see how just sad he was at that - you could FEEL his pain. It dropped him down one horse in the average with 11 guys still riding a perfect seven for seven. That dropped him from 6th in the average and 3rd in the world standings to 12th in the average and 6th in the world standings - again these are all our own unofficial projected standings.
For Jess, he reclaims the projected* world title while still remaining first in the projected* average. It’s not just “stay on and stay consistent,” there is no “safetying up” because he has to win day money. He has a 4.5 point lead on Kaycee for the average and has to be no less than 1.0 a day behind Kaycee in order to win the world. His goal for the rest of the three rounds is to ride his ass off.
Projections
If Kaycee and/or Jess cracks in the last few rounds here, which we hope they don’t, but anything can happen, Cole Reiner, Cole Franks, Tilden Hoper and Richmond Champion are all within striking distance. Cole Reiner is 4th in the projected average and 3rd in the projected world standings. He stands a chance to move 2/2 or 1/1 depending on who gets bucked off.
Cole Franks is kind of next in the line of “if Kaycee/Jess mess up.” We would need to have them bucked off for Cole to have that happen.
Tilden Hooper is out of the average due to not getting the horsepower he wants. However, if he won big in the day money placing at least second or third, he could make up the distance. It goes to show how important the lead heading into the finals can be.
Steer Wrestling
A lot of fast times but a 3.3 second run by Tyler Waguespack gave him the round lead and a big change up in the projected* steer wrestling due to a miss by Dirk Tavenner who has been so hot.
Dirk who has been so hot, has the no-time in Round 7 and that’s huge and also so sda. We also had no times from Stockton Graves and Scott Guenther. Staying safe in the first few rounds is important, but the guys at the bottom of the average are realizing they have to put the pressure on and, with that, we are going to see some errors.
Projections
Right now the projected* average winner is Tristan Martin who got to the NFR in 14th! The projected* winner of the world title is Tyler Wag. The striking distance contestants after the change up is Jacob Talley, Tristan, Will Lummus, and Dirk.
Jacob came in in 2nd and missed his steer in the 4th round and has been going hard and fast - which is what we have said he has to do. He has gotten checks in 5 of 7 rounds and hasn’t won a round yet. Our expectation is that he’ll win the round tonight for the first round win of the year, which will also help move him up to the average money and he needs Wag to not get day money.
Tristan Martin is the dark horse of the event but he hasn't won money in the last three rounds and he’ll have to do that in the next three rounds. He’s first in the projected* average race by one-tenth of a second.
Right behind him is Will at second in the average which he has held since round 5. He’s projected* to finish 4th but he’s only $17K behind Wag. Will’s only gotten checks in three rounds so far but these are some big steers and as people get tired, Will stands a chance at using his size and strength to put some heat on the leaders.
With seven rounds - we have had six projected* world lead changes. We knew Steer Wrestling was going to be tight coming in.
Team Roping
Dustin Egusquiza/Travis Graves tied with Clay Tryan/Jake Long for the round win with a 3.7 second run.
Saddle Bronc
Wyatt Casper took the Round 7 win and looked really good in that win. Three of the six horses that placed in the top 6 were from Canada with Calgary Stampede and C5 Rodeo. Shoutout to Chase Richter for the purchase of the United Bucking Horse Association as well over the past weekend - make sure to check them out throughout the year and the Benny Binion Bucking Horse Sale next year at the South Point during the first week of the NFR.
Tie Down Roping
Shad Mayfield, Hunter Herrin, Ryan Jarrett and more all go no-times last night. Westyn Hughes had ANOTHER great quick run and is definitely in the zone. He’s not having the fastest NFR but he’s doing very consistent. Haven Meged got the win and was nine-tenths ahead of the second place time.
Barrel Racing
A couple barrels got knocked tonight; six barrels tonight for four contestants. That was a bummer to watch that event be all over the place. Jordon Briggs is now the only one left with all clean runs, which means, since Brittany Pozzi-Tonozzi knocked a barrel, means that Hailey Kinsel is second in the average and won the round last night. It’s her first round win of the NFR, which is mind-blowing since we are always expecting her to win every round.
Jordon has been pretty quick and is about 4 seconds ahead of Hailey in the average, but there’s only about 1 second between second through fourth place. Hailey Kinsel, Emily Miller-Beisel, Jordon Briggs and then Dona Kay Rule are the unofficial projected world standings.
Bull Riding
In our Round 6 recap, we talked about how the only way for Sage Kimzey to not win the world title, was a radical series of events of fate that would have to happen to have it happen and… it happened last night! If you were like us last night, you were freaking out!
First and foremost, there were only four rides and three were Stetson Wright who took two re-rides to get his score last night. Stetson didn’t nod his head and got fouled in the gate on the first bull and was quick to look at the judge and got the re-ride. The second bull tripped and fell, thankfully not on him, and he got another re-ride.
Stetson gets on his third bull and, at that point, Josh Frost had been about number eleven rider out and had made a qualified ride for a whopping 52.5 point ride. He got offered a re-ride but he didn’t take it - which I think was the strategic best move. Stetson needed a qualified ride and to beat 52.5 point ride. Stetson did that and some, has a HUGE ride for 90.5 points, and he moves to the projected* first in the world by only $4K. Sage had a $60K lead over Stetson leading into the NFR. That meant that
Projections
Sage Kimzey, Parker Breding, Josh Frost, Creek Young and pretty much everyone else has some striking to do because anything can happen in the bull riding. Stetson moved to 2nd in the projected* average after being 9th after Round 6, with Parker Breding being first in the projected* average, a slot he’s dominantly held. Parker has about $90K to make up for the world title so he’ll need a lot of day money.
The one thing that the striking distance number guys to do is if JB Mauney, Shane Proctor, Josh Frost, or Beadreaux Campbell get hot and take up ground on the day money. It could get wild depending on how people do. After round 8 we will know who will be the “either/or” in the world title race.