PUEBLO, Colo. – Joe Frost’s first PBR season in 2019 showed tremendous promise and potential, but it unfortunately wound up being his last.
“This hasn’t been a fun decision,” Frost told Santos. “I knew the answer; I just wasn’t excited about it. But riding bulls is risky enough without being on blood thinners, and I need to be on them indefinitely. My biggest goal in life is to be a good husband and father. My bull riding chapter has to close, but I’m really excited about what’s next in my life, too.”
Frost broke his right leg twice during the 2019 PBR season, which led to a series of blood clots. The Randlett, Utah, native first broke his leg attempting to ride Midnight Rain in Houston on August 18, 2019, as he was trying to win his first premier series event. He underwent surgery and had a steel rod inserted into his leg, but nothing was going to stop the tough-as-nails Frost from riding at his first PBR World Finals.
Frost admitted to PBR.com last year that, in hindsight, there was a sliver of doubt in his mind when he stepped foot inside T-Mobile Arena for the 2019 World Finals. The doubt was not that he could compete at the highest level of competition, but rather if his leg would hold up.
Two bulls later, he got his answer.
Frost had his spur/ankle stepped on during his 2.67-second buckoff against Frequent Flyer. His leg then twisted, resulting in a spiral fracture around that recently inserted rod.
“The thing that sucked about it was I knew it wasn’t 100%, but I thought it was going to be good enough to go,” Frost said last year. “There is a big difference between what I was getting on for practice bulls and getting up to ride them vs. going to get on those bulls at the Finals. In the back of my mind, it was like, ‘It is not 100%, but if I can just ride it and get off good, it will be fine.’”
Frost did not need to undergo surgery following the World Finals, but he learned a few weeks later that he developed some blood clots in his leg.
“Not being able to move my leg and get that blood flow going, it just sat there and clotted up,” Frost said. “It clotted from not moving, basically. The first time I broke it, after they did surgery, I could move my toes back and forth, and I didn’t lose range of motion in my ankle. The break didn’t even hurt, and I was able to keep the blood flow going. This time, with the break and having a rod in there, the bones were almost loose a little bit. Any movement where there were muscles attached to the bone, it just screamed. I didn’t move it hardly for about 10 days before it got bearable.”
Frost explained to Santos this week that his recent bout with blood clots was not his first. In 2008, he developed blood clots during his freshman year of high school when a bull stepped on his lower left leg, and he had to start taking blood thinners for the first time. Frost then developed clots again in 2016 when his right leg was stepped on at RodeoHouston.
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Frost has a family history of blood clots as his grandmothers and aunt are on blood thinners. He will likely need to be on blood thinners for the rest of his life, which significantly increases the risk of internal bleeding and brain bleeds if he were to be injured in a traumatic event – such as a bull riding wreck. Being on blood thinners also means his body will not stop bleeding when it needs to in certain situations.
Therefore, Frost had to make the decision to retire after he met with a specialist who works with athletes.
Frost qualified for the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo five times, and he finished runner-up for the 2014 PRCA bull riding championship before giving the PBR a full-time go in 2019. He also won the 2007 National High School Rodeo Association Junior High Bull Riding title, the 2010 NHSRA Bull Riding championship and the 2014 National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association championship.
“I know for me, probably the biggest (title) as a bull rider was the junior high national title,” Frost said. “At that point, I was still really scared as a bull rider. I could ride really good, but I was having trouble with that fear factor.
“If I didn’t win that, I don’t know if would even be a bull rider today. I may have just been a calf roper. At that time, that was something I really needed. It helped me and propelled me to have the confidence to keep going.”
Frost began his 2019 season by first winning the Oakland, California, Velocity Tour event, and he seemed poised to ride on the UTB before he tore his groin at the Denver Velocity Tour event. Frost finished in 12th place at his premier series debut in St. Louis on Feb. 15, and he would eventually earn a spot full-time on the UTB at the end of March with a career-best second-place finish at the Tacoma Invitational.
RELATED: Frost’s first PBR 90-point ride puts him on the Unleash The Beast
Ultimately, Frost went 12-for-33 (36.36%) in 11 UTB events.
Life is more important than bull riding, of course, and Frost has since turned the page toward new chapters.
He and his wife, Kylee, are raising their daughter, Luella, and have started a business – Frost Stockdogs – raising and training quality working dogs.
“I have peace about my decision to retire from riding bulls,” Frost told Santos. “People feel worse for me than I feel for myself. I got to do something—ride bulls at the highest level—that a lot of people only dream of getting to do. The small amount of success I had was awesome. I enjoyed every minute of it. So I’m happy. I can look back and say I got to do what I wanted to do, and got to be one of the best.
“My career was cut short. But I got to meet a lot of great people, and I made lifelong friends. Getting to see everybody is what I’m already missing most about rodeoing.”
Follow Justin Felisko on Twitter @jfelisko
Photo courtesy of Christopher Thompson/Bull Stock Media