PUEBLO, Colo. – Texas Rattlers head coach Cody Lambert spent plenty of time at the Ruidoso Downs Race Track while growing up in Artesia, New Mexico.

Lambert’s father, Cliff, was a racehorse trainer and the first jockey to win the All American Futurity at Ruidoso Downs aboard Galobar two years before Cody was born. The All American Futurity has since become the “World’s Richest Quarter Horse Race.”

Cody would accompany his father to the racetrack throughout his childhood. Ruidoso has always been home to him as he continued to rise through the ranks of professional rodeo and eventually helped found the PBR in 1992.

As Cody once told Rick Cantu of the El Paso Times in 1985, his father’s advice to him and his brother, Casey, who eventually became a talented jockey like his father, was, “If you’re going to try something, jump into it fully with both feet, not halfway.”

Cody is still living with that mentality 40 years later, and he is attempting to instill those characteristics in his Rattlers bull riding team in the inaugural PBR Team Series.

It is one reason why the Rattlers will not be taking this weekend off with the PBR Team Series on a one-week break.

Instead, Lambert is taking his entire team to Ruidoso for the All-American Cowboy Fest PBR Challenger Series event on Saturday night (7 p.m. ET, RidePass on Pluto TV).

2002 World Champion Ednei Caminhas, Joao Ricardo Vieira, Rafael Jose de Brito, Daniel Keeping, Braidy Randolph, J.C. Mortensen and Brady Fielder will be representing the Rattlers this weekend. Cody Jesus was originally going to join the team in New Mexico, but he has decided to doctor out of the event because of a groin injury.

“We are going to spend a lot of time together in the next two weeks,” Lambert said. “It is a Challenger Series, so it won’t be the same type of bulls they ride (at Teams), but it will be good bulls and a good competition. We don’t want to get lazy or complacent or have guys spend their week in some dusty practice pen.”

RELATED: Ruidoso daysheet

The Rattlers have won four games in a row and six of their past seven to turn their season around.

Texas was flirting with the basement of the PBR Team Series standings and has since risen to No. 6 in the league. The team is four games out of first place heading into their homestand – Rattler Days on Oct. 7-9.

Oddly, the riders stepping up for Texas recently have not been the expected heavy hitters like Jesus or Vieira. It has instead been Daniel Keeping, Braidy Randolph and Brady Fielder doing the bulk of the damage.

Keeping won Texas Thunder Days this past Sunday with his 88.5-point ride on Willis to defeat the Nashville Stampede (5-16-1), which came less than 24 hours after he rode Show Me Homie for his first career 90-point ride in the team’s win against the Kansas City Outlaws.

Two of Texas’s three wins at Thunder Days came by less than 2.25 points.

“We got lucky, but we were almost good,” Lambert said after Texas defeated Nashville. “Braidy Randolph made a great ride (on Baptism Fire). I never saw him come close to slapping him, and I saw the replay, and it looked like he did, but he still made a great ride on a great bucking bull. And Daniel keeps coming through every time when you need him. He is a real bull rider, and I am glad he is here, and he is just getting started.”

RELATED: Fielder heating up for Rattlers

Keeping was signed as a free agent at the end of August and has been an infusion of talent into the Texas lineup.

The 23-year-old is 5-for-8, but he also is bringing some swagger and confidence to the Rattlers amidst his humility ahead of Rattler Days at Dickies Arena.

KEEPING: ‘I can be as Western as you can get or as pretty as you want’

“No, I’m not a hero. Just another guy on the team who likes riding bulls,” Keeping said in Missouri. “We’re all heroes at the end of the day. I wouldn’t call (our winning streak) so much luck – I would call it a blessing. Some days, it might have to take one of the guys. Some days, it may have to take the entire team. These are the circumstances, and there are little things that we have to work on, but it’s nothing we can’t overcome, and we’ll get it under control.

“If you thought we were hot today, wait until the hometown gang comes to support us at Rattler Days. We’re going to be even meaner, and we’re going to ride all of them.”

Follow Justin Felisko on Twitter @jfelisko

Photo courtesy of Josh Homer/Bull Stock Media