CHEYENNE, WY – Sunday at the College National Finals Rodeo means Bulls, Broncs, and Breakaway, and it saw three Laramie County Community College Golden Eagles get onto the arena floor for their first opportunities to ride.
The freshman duo of Dixon Tattrie and Griffin Koester took to the floor in bull riding with Payton Feyder starting her day in breakaway and while none of the three had success in the opening go, Head Coach Seth Glause said he was still proud of the effort.
“They had a little bit of tough luck today but I think they’ll bounce back and do well in the next two rounds,” Glause said.
For Tattrie, the opening ride only went about 4 seconds on the bull “Midnight”, but he said it was a good learning experience and after talking with Coach Glause, he is focused on the positive side going into his ride on Monday.
“We were just kind of talking about what went wrong and what I needed to fix and what I needed to do so that I could have rode that bull,” Tattrie said. “Just kind of focused on that stuff and I’ll start thinking about the good things in my head so I don’t just look at the bad.”
Tattrie said it was good to get into the environment right out of the gate and said the crowd really is something he is looking forward to enjoying through the event.
“I love it when it’s loud,” he added. “I’ve rode in a couple of places like the Calgary Stampede where it’s loud and people are having fun and cheering for you. It just makes you that much more hyped up and just makes you do that much better.”
Feyder was in the first round of breakaway riders and nearly roped her calf, but it just slipped under the loop and escaped giving her a no time on her first steer of the CNFR.
“It felt really good,” Feyder said of the leadup to the run. “My horse did really good and she hasn’t been a lot of places so I was really proud of her. Obviously I kind of fell on my roping a little bit but we’ll just pick it back up and go after the next two rounds and see if we can get anything done that way.”
That makes the road back to Saturday’s finals tough for the junior in her second trip to Casper but she still has a pair of calves left going with one on Monday during slack and a second on Friday night’s performance.
It was Koester taking on “Good Advice” to get his CNFR going in the matinee session of the action and he was put off balance early in the ride and wasn’t able to recover as he became another casualty to the bulls in the opening round.
“He kind of beat me off the shoot a little bit off the start,” Koester said. “When he went to turn back to the right, I just kind of over moved on him and got my hips out of place.”
Only two riders were able to stay on the bulls in the first round leaving plenty of room for both Tattrie and Koester to rally back and Griffin said he is glad to get the first one under his belt with a feel of the environment.
“It was fun finally coming here and coming to a bigger place than I have been going to,” Koester said. “It was nice to kind of get the feel of it and get the first one done.”
Monday begins the slack rounds for the college finals and the Golden Eagles will have five of their six in action and Glause said that today’s results, particularly in bull riding don’t decide the end result.
“Anything can happen at this rodeo,” he said. “We’ve seen them win this rodeo on less than four head so they are still in the mix. They just have to show up the next two days and try their butts off and give themselves and opportunity to win.”
The day begins with junior Chance Derner leading off in tie down for his first go of the rodeo. Feyder will follow in the first section of breakaway’s second go and fellow two time qualifier Bernard Girard will be the fifth steer wrestler out of the gate in their first section. Tattrie will hop on his second bull in the second section of bull riders and the day will close with junior Reece Wadhams teaming up with Rio Nutter from the University of Wyoming for their first go in team roping.