ST. LOUIS – Lucas Divino glanced down at his right riding hand and slowly tried to move his fingers, grimacing.
Divino’s broken right hand has been an ongoing saga for him, but it is one that he hopes can become a thing of the past in due time.
The 26-year-old did not let the injury hold him back in Round 1 of the U.S. Border Patrol Invitational on Saturday night as he went on to ride Capone for 82.25 points.
“It’s been really sore, but God gave me the capability to make the ride,” Divino said with the help of Paulo Crimber translating. “I’m going to keep just trying hard, and I think it’s going to be okay. That bull was a great bull. He kind of laid down with me and stuff, but I’m really focused right now.”
Divino picked up six world points to move up to No. 66 in the world standings. He trails No. 35 Taylor Toves by 35 points heading into Championship Sunday at the Enterprise Center.
The Brazilian has drawn Bootdaddy.com (24-3, UTB) for Round 2, which airs on CBS Sports Network at 8 p.m. ET and on RidePass at 2:45 p.m. ET.
Divino still has four more Unleash The Beast events before facing the cutline seeing as he has missed three events this year because of the broken hand.
The injury first occurred back on Dec. 21 at the Touring Pro Division event in Kearney, Nebraska, but Divino tried to ride through the injury in New York and Chicago, going a combined 3-for-7.
He then missed the UTB events in Manchester, Oklahoma City and Los Angeles.
Divino also took last weekend off with the UTB on break for the 2020 WinStar World Casino and Resort Global Cup USA, presented by Monster Energy.
The time off helped, said Divino, who is still 6-for-12 on the UTB in limited action this season.
“I took three weeks off, but it’s already healing up, and Tandy (Freeman) said there’s not much he can do,” Divino said. “It’s just continue to ride and it’ll get better.”
Divino was struggling with his grip because of the injury, but he has been working with the PBR Sports Medicine team on site to get his hand taped before he attempts to ride.
After qualifying for the PBR World Finals for the first time in his career last season, and finishing 19th in the world standings, Divino had hoped to begin 2020 much better than he has.
However, he still believes he can turns things around and get back to his Top-20 form from a year ago once he is fully healthy again.
“I really wanted to be a World Champion,” Divino said. “But I believe this year I’ll place in the Top 10.”
RIDERS STILL IN JEOPARDY OF UPCOMING CUTLINE
There are six riders flirting with the Unleash The Beast cutline, which is coming up following next weekend’s Caterpillar Classic in Kansas City, Missouri, and none of them were able to reach the 8-second mark in Round 1.
No. 35 Taylor Toves (2.84 seconds on Joker) No. 44 Cody Teel (7.22 seconds on @PBR on TikTok), No. 53 Silvano Alves (1.45 seconds on Rudy Can Do), No. 62 Stetson Lawrence (6.14 seconds on Walkin Tall), No. 67 Alisson de Souza (2.47 seconds on Coy Dog) and No. 91 Luciano de Castro (2.09 seconds on Crazy Doc) all remain on the outside looking in.
Alves will have 10 World Champion exemptions if he fails to crack the Top 30 after Kansas City.
Follow Justin Felisko on Twitter @jfelisko