Standout riders highlight fair rodeo

By DAVID LESNICK

The Daily Inter Lake

The three-day lineup for the Northwest Montana Fair PRCA Rodeo at the Flathead County Fairgrounds reads like a Who's Who for the saddle bronc and bareback riding events.

The overall card also features a healthy number of National Finals Rodeo performers, Canadian champions, a strong contingent from Australia, and even one cowboy from France, who is starting to make some noise on the circuit.

All the non-stop action begins tonight at 7:30 with performances to follow Friday and Saturday at the same time.

Bobby Mote, of Culver, Ore., leads the PRCA world bareback riding standings with earnings of $117,505. He's up during the final performance Saturday, along with three other top-20 cowboys - Ryan Gray (7) of Cheney, Wash., Jason Havens (13) of Prineville, Ore., and Evan Jayne (18) of Marseille, France.

Mote has drawn the horse Golden Boy, Gray will be on Alley Ways, Havens on Mystic River and Jayne will test Cool Pieces.

Alley Ways is a former world champion horse in the superb Kesler Championship Rodeo of Magrath, Alberta, and Kesler Rodeo of Helena stable of bucking horses.

"Cool Pieces is a pretty good horse," Judy Kesler said. "He hasn't won any awards, but he's the kind of horse you can win the bareback riding (on)."

And Jayne?

"He's pretty tough," she said. "He's a good bareback rider. He could win it."

The top 15 in the final standings of all events advance to the NFR in Las Vegas in December. Jayne is $6,200 short of cracking the top 15 and making that trip.

The lineup in the saddle bronc is stacked with eight of the top-20 cowboys in the standings entered. Five are on Friday night's card, led by Chad Ferley of Oelrichs, S.D.

Ferley is currently fourth in earnings with $68,129. He has drawn the tricky horse Ticket Line.

Also up the same night are Jake Hayworth (9) of St. Anthony, Idaho; Jesse Bail (10) of Camp Crook, S.D.; Rod Hay (11) of Wildwood, Alberta; and Jeff Willert (14) of Belvedere, S.D.

Going Saturday night are: Cody DeMoss (8) of Heflin, La.; Heith DeMoss (13) of Crowville, La.; and JJ Elshere (16) of Quinn, S.D.

Bail is fourth in the PRCA's all-around standings with Cody DeMoss ninth.

Montana cowboy Adam Bink of Sun River is not among the leaders, but he has drawn Cool Alley, a world champion bareback and saddle bronc horse. He's up Saturday.

Of the seven rodeo events, only two (bull riding and team roping) have no top-20 entrants. Barrel racing and tie-down roping will have two each. Steer wrestling has one.

Fred Whitfield, a seven-time world champion tie-down roper, is up Saturday night. He is from Hockley, Texas. He has passed the $2 million mark in career earnings and won the all-around cowboy World Championship in 1999.

On the local front, Polson's John Robertson will compete in team roping, Polson's Tim Bagnell in tie-down roping, Ronan's Matt Aipperspach of Ronan and Andy Bauer of Kalispell in bull riding.