TORKELSON STORMS OYEN BULL RIDING
July 22, 2010

Jesse Torkelson is sitting comfortably in first place in the Canadian bull riding standings, but that doesn’t mean he’s taking it easy.

The 26-year-old cowboy from Winfield, Alta. took the 12th annual White Lightening Dodge Professional Cowboy Crunch by storm on July 21, placing in the long go before winning the final round and the average at the RCMP Centennial Park Corrals in Oyen, Alta.

“It was real good,” Torkelson grins shortly after adding total winnings of $4,829 to his bank account.

Torkelson had a confident 85-point ride aboard Courage Canada in the eliminator round, splitting second place with Kyle German and Kyle Loudin.

“He was real good,” Torkelson says of the Ellie Skori bull. “I actually got on that bull a couple weeks ago at a PBR event and I was 82 on him. I wasn’t sure if he was going to be enough to get to the short go (in Oyen), but he had a really good day with me.”

The top six riders headed into the short go, where Torkelson took the high score aboard Big Country Rodeo’s Hell Bent.

“He’s been to the CFR a few times and he’s a pretty good bull. You know what he’s going to do every time and he did it,” the bull rider says. “He’s kind of a bull that if you sit there and just try to ride him, he’ll buck you off, but if you keep going at him you end up doing pretty good.”

The ride worked out to an 88.5, and Torkelson is adamant about the quality of stock the contestants got to compete with.

“They had an awesome pen of bulls out there,” he stresses, referring to the four-legged line-up comprised of bulls from Girletz Rodeo Stock, Big Country Rodeo, Ellie Skori, Wayne Vold and Todd Braithwaite.

“When you’ve got that many different contractors, it makes it a lot easier to put together a real good pen of bulls and they did just that. Everything bucked really well.”

“And,” he added, “for a Wednesday night they get a real good crowd out there every year, which makes for a pretty good bull riding.”