PUEBLO, Colo. – All eyes will be on Riley Webb on Saturday night when the 17-year-old competes in the Gold Medal Round of the Days of ’47 Cowboy Games & Rodeo.
Webb is attempting to win his third consecutive WCRA Major Rodeo tie-down roping event and become the first athlete to win the WCRA’s Triple Crown of Rodeo $1 million bonus since the organization launched the program last year. If Webb indeed takes home $1 million, he would become the youngest millionaire in rodeo history.
There is a catch, though. Webb may not get the full $1 million if any of the other seven event winners from the WCRA Rodeo in Corpus Christi, Texas, are victorious in Salt Lake City too. That would set those winners up for a potential third consecutive win, and a chance for a share of the $1 million, in the final WCRA event of 2021 – The WCRA “Cowtown Christmas Championship Rodeo” on Dec. 15-18 in Fort Worth, Texas.
Derek Kolbaba, one of the richest cowboys in WCRA history, is one of those seven event winners from Corpus Christi.
“Hats off to the kid,” Kolbaba said of Webb. “To be at such a young age, and to put himself in that position to win that kind of money, is pretty unheard of. But I think I have a pretty good spot for a chunk of that myself.
“At the end of the day, it is as much pressure as you want to put on yourself. For me, it is going there and riding the bulls they put underneath me and getting the job done one at a time. The $1 million is a big amount of money to think about, and that can easily put a lot of pressure on a guy. I figure, go in there like we would any other day and stick it on them.”
The No. 7-ranked bull rider will attempt to punch his ticket to the Gold Medal Round when he competes in the final Semi-Finals Round on Friday night at Days of ’47 Arena.
Fans can watch all the action LIVE on RidePass on PlutoTV beginning at 9:30 p.m. ET.
Also expected to compete on Friday in the bull riding are Alex Cerqueira, Sonny Murphy, Evan Betony, Evan Golliday, Jordan Spears, Ruger Piva and Steve Roy Ballentine.
Kolbaba has won three WCRA bull riding titles since the rodeo organization launched in May 2018, including two consecutive WCRA events prior to the TCR. He has earned upwards of $160,000 in WCRA competition.
“It is pretty crazy to think that was in just a handful of events,” Kolbaba said. “The WCRA hasn’t been bad to us at all. I am mostly just excited to get back to riding again.”
Kolbaba is returning to competition in Salt Lake City for the first time since spending nine days in a Great Falls, Montana, hospital after he punctured his lung at the Dusty Gliko Bull Riding Challenge Touring Pro Division event on June 5.
The 25-year-old underwent surgery on June 9 to help with blood clotting in his lungs, and he needed a chest tube for eight days.
“So that bull stepped on my chest, and I thought I felt pretty good or got the air knocked out of me,” Kolbaba said. “Then I sat behind the chutes for a while and figured it wasn’t really getting a whole lot better. So my wife took me to the hospital there, and they said, probably within about 30 minutes by the time I got to the emergency room, ‘You have a collapsed lung, and we have to get you in and shove this tube in there.’ They were hoping to let it drain out for a couple days, and I would be good to go. So two or three days went by, and it wasn’t getting any better, and they did a surgery. They pulled a couple pop cans full of blood and fluid out just to finally relieve that lung. After that, it started getting a lot better.
“Everybody said it sounded pretty bad, but to not even break a rib – things could have been so much worse. I feel pretty damn lucky. It took a couple of weeks of just being sore where they cut in between those ribs. Other than that, I felt like I had it pretty easy. It wasn’t long before I slowly got back into the routine of things. Now we are good.”
Less than 24 hours before Lil Bit Crazy stepped on him in Great Falls, Kolbaba had gone 2-for-2 to win the Kalispell Automotive Group PBR Touring Pro Division event in Kalispell, Montana, on June 4.
Kolbaba won two TPD events, including the WCRA Rodeo Corpus Christi, in a one-month span before sitting out for the last six weeks.
The Walla Walla, Washington, cowboy had also injured his leg in Corpus Christi during his 91.5-point winning ride on County Jail. He then sustained a concussion a week later on the Unleash The Beast in Billings, Montana, which prevented him from competing in Jacksonville, Florida.
Therefore, in many ways, the break was something Kolbaba needed, he admits.
“It was one of those things you kind of have to take it with what it is,” Kolbaba said. “For me, I am excited to get rolling, and I guess I couldn’t have really picked a better time to get wrecked out, if there is a good time.
“I figured it was time to dust them off and go to Salt Lake.”
Healthy and recovered, Kolbaba may be a threat to not only win the Days of ’47, but he could be one of the top dark-horse contenders in the second half to enter the World Championship race.
Kolbaba is 759.50 points behind world leader Jose Vitor Leme. One rider could earn up to 300 world points at Last Cowboy Standing at Cheyenne Frontier Days on Monday and Tuesday when the Unleash The Beast begins its second half.
Fans can watch Last Cowboy Standing LIVE on CBS Sports Network at 10 p.m. ET.
Kolbaba could face the possibility of getting on four bulls in one night on Tuesday.
“I don’t think anybody gets their body ready to do that,” Kolbaba said. “You could be riding all year and be like, ‘Yup, I am ready to rock and roll.’ You just have to get tough and knock them out. It is another one of those events that is going to test anybody. It is one of those things where it is a pain, and it is going to take everything you’ve got and then some, but the reward is certainly worth it.”
Follow Justin Felisko on Twitter @jfelisko
Photo courtesy of Andy Watson/Bull Stock Media