PUEBLO, Colo. – When Dalton Kasel was a young kid growing up in Muleshoe, Texas, people thought his mother, Kristin, loved to exercise.
She’d take Dalton and his brother and sister bike riding, and then to the park, and then bike riding again.
But it wasn’t because Kristin wanted everybody to be in shape.
Dalton just always wanted to keep going.
“You could be driving home from the coolest day you’ve ever had in your life, and Dalton would be in the back and say, ‘What are we going to do now?’” Dalton’s father Tim said with a laugh.
According to his parents, Kasel has always been unable to sit still, always looking for the next activity, always going.
Anybody who’s watched his career thus far in the PBR can now attest to that fact as well.
“I’m going to put some God in here, because he was injured last year,” Kristin said. “A year and a half ago, he was stepped on and had a lacerated kidney. And the Lord told me that he would not go to collegiate finals that year, but he would go the next year, and then his career would explode.
“He went to college nationals this year, was second, and then he didn’t start in the PBR until really June. And, oh my word. It exploded.”
On June 1, Kasel had zero world points. He made his premier series debut in Tulsa in August. Three months later to the day, he stood atop the Can-Am Cage in T-Mobile Arena at the 2019 PBR World Finals to accept the Rookie of the Year buckle from PBR CEO Sean Gleason.
Kasel hadn’t even held the buckle in his hands before he was looking to what he wants to do next.
“Rest up, have surgery in a couple weeks, and then go win the world,” he said.
Kristin and Tim were on hand for the awards ceremony and, standing on the confetti-covered dirt moments later, said they weren’t surprised by his accomplishments at all.
“It’s really exciting. I don’t want to sound arrogant, but I’ve thought for three or four years that he would be here,” Tim said. “It’s all happened a little faster than I thought, but yeah, I expected him to be at this point.”
Dalton himself wasn’t too surprised either.
“I expect to go to everything and try my hardest and do my best,” he said. “So it’s nice that it all came together. So yeah, I guess I was ready for it.”
Kasel was obsessed with being a cowboy from almost the time his parents adopted him. He was two days old and weighed five pounds, born a month premature, absolutely tiny but tough from the very beginning.
Kristin’s parents got Dalton a rocking horse when he was a year old, and by the time he was 2 or 3, he’d pulled the ears and mane off of it and was riding it like a bull.
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“Luckily it was wooden, he didn’t destroy it completely, but he has just always been a cowboy,” Kristin said. “He would ride our dog. He would ride the couch. He’d be 2 and 3 years old, he’d sit and straddle the couch and throw himself off of it.”
Tim also got the honor of being one of his son’s first bull substitutes. While the Kasel family has no rodeo background, Tim enjoyed watching bull riding. He would watch football games on CBS on Sundays and then stay tuned for PBR’s 15/15 Bucking Battles.
“(Dalton) would watch with me, and then afterward, I’d get down on the floor and tie a belt around me, and he’d strap me in, and I’d buck and he’d go,” Tim said.
“Little turd was hard to buck off back then,” he added, laughing.
Though his parents thought he would eventually outgrow the desire to be a bull rider, Dalton’s passion only grew, and he attended his first camp when he was 11 years old. A year passed before he went to another.
After another year, Dalton confronted his parents.
“Finally he was kind of like, ‘You guys aren’t supporting me in what I want to do,’” Tim said. “And I said, ‘You know, you’re right. We’re not.’
“And so I got him into a junior rodeo association, and we started going, and we’ve been going ever since.”
Dalton didn’t start on sheep and steers, but was getting on bulls immediately at age 14. Kristin didn’t sleep the night before and cried all day worrying about him, and even now watching him win Rookie of the Year, is just relieved that he’s okay.
“God truly made him for this,” Kristin said, blinking back tears. “Because I question God a lot. When you have kids, you want to keep them safe. That’s your No. 1 goal. Bull riding is so far from keeping your kids safe. So he is prayered up, covered in prayer like you wouldn’t believe.”
While the Kasels were thrust into the Western sports world when they began taking Dalton to rodeos, Dalton actually has bull riding in his blood.
His birth family has a rodeo background, and his uncle, Harve Stewart, was a six-time qualifier for the PBR World Finals.
“The whole nature vs. nurture thing is kind of interesting,” Tim said. “We’re not rodeo people at all. I’ve got Wranglers on, which I bought so I could help him at rodeos.”
Dalton was a natural from the get-go, finishing fourth at the National High School Finals Rodeo in 2017. He suffered the lacerated kidney before the 2018 Collegiate Finals Rodeo, but finished second in 2019 behind fellow PBR rookie Daylon Swearingen.
Over the summer, Dalton was introduced to nine-time Stock Contractor of the Year Chad Berger, who invited him to stay at his ranch while helping him navigate the summer run of Touring Pro Division events.
Dalton climbed to No. 43 in the world standings and caught the attention of the PBR competition committee, which invited the promising young bull rider to the Express Ranches Classic in Tulsa.
There, he became the fourth rookie in the last 10 years to make a round-winning ride in his premier series debut, riding Sun Country for 88.75 points to win Round 1 and move to No. 37 in the world.
Two weeks later, Kasel won his second round of the season, riding Kamabugu for 89.25 points in Round 1 of the Music City Knockout in Nashville.
Suddenly, Kasel had cracked into the Top 35, and the rest is history. He rattled off four more round wins and finally got his first Unleash The Beast event win under his belt in Nampa, Idaho, at the regular-season finale.
Kasel went 1-for-6 at the World Finals, tying for second place in Round 1 with his 88.5-point ride on Too Dirty.
“Dalton is coming into his own. Heck, he’s got a great long career ahead of him,” 2019 world No. 3 Chase Outlaw said. “And I guarantee it, if Dalton had been here since January, he’d have been right here in the middle of this world title race.”
It’s a race that Kasel is certain he’ll one day be a part of.
“It was special,” he said of his first World Finals appearance. “The lights are bigger, there’s more cameras. People are a lot wilder out here. And it just kind of gives off a fun vibe and makes you really enjoy what you’re doing. Makes you come out, and it’s something to strive for, and it’s not just to make World Finals. It’s to be a world champ, and that’s what everybody has their eyes set on.
“If you don’t have your eyes set on that, I don’t know why you’re riding bulls, I guess.”
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All I know is Vegas better be ready because @brennoneldred @outlaw365 and I are!! #itsavibe‼️
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All the while, Kasel has been cool as a cucumber. He travels with Outlaw and Brennon Eldred and the trio has become thick as thieves, keeping each other motivated and positive.
“I’ve always been a pretty calm, relaxed person,” Kasel said. “I can’t change anything. I just kind of do what I need to do, so there’s no reason to get worked up about anything too much.”
And Kristin and Tim have been watching from afar, worrying about his safety but always cheering him on, whether he’s winning buckles or not.
“We’re very proud of him,” Tim said. “But you know, we’re more proud of the way he’s handling himself as a young man right now.”