PUEBLO, Colo. – What motivates 2002 World Champion and Texas Rattlers veteran Ednei Caminhas?

The love of bull riding, sure. Supporting his family, most definitely.

But these days, it’s mostly variations of cheese.

Before Caminhas signed with the Rattlers this summer, Head Coach Cody Lambert had a stipulation. Caminhas was riding well, but had to be riding better, and Lambert needed him to lose 10 pounds.

“In 20 days, I lost more than 18 pounds,” Caminhas said in a feature that aired on CBS. “I don’t eat meat for two months. Only a little fish, salad, a piece of chicken.”

“He asked me at one of the events, ‘If I ride all my bulls, can I have a cheeseburger?’” Lambert said, holding his hands up to mime the size of a gargantuan burger.

A deal was struck, and when Caminhas kept up his end of the bargain, he looked to the back of the chutes to see his whole team miming holding giant burgers.

“Now he wants some cheesecake,” Lambert said.

All joking aside, Caminhas is one of the best stories to emerge from the inaugural season of the PBR Team Series. At 47 years old, Caminhas is by far the oldest rider on a roster. He’s 7-for-20 (35%) during the regular season, helping the Rattlers to the No. 2 seed and a first-round bye at the PBR Team Series Championship (Nov. 4-6 in Las Vegas).

But until recently, he was on nobody’s radar.

“I’d seen him at a smaller event or at a rodeo somewhere, but it was like, ‘Look at him! That’s cute that he can still ride at 40-something years old,’” Lambert said.

Caminhas, of course, had retired in 2018 and competed in no PBR events until dipping his toe back in the water at Touring Pro Division events early in the 2021 season. He graduated to the Pendleton Whisky Velocity Tour and was inches away from qualifying for a wild-card berth at the 2021 PBR World Finals, finishing ninth at the Velocity Tour Finals that year.

“I think God brought me back, because in 8 seconds, I can show everything God do in your life,” Caminhas said.

He turned it on in 2022, returning to the premier series in Billings, Montana, in April before becoming the oldest rider ever to qualify for the World Finals.

“All of a sudden, last summer I noticed that he was moving up in the standings, and then he winds up making the World Finals,” Lambert said. “The (PBR Team Series) Draft was right after the World Finals. Nobody thought a 46-year-old guy stood a chance, but we’re going to have a training camp after, and we’re signing some free agents to the practice squad and stuff. You want to come and be part of the practice squad and talk to these young guys? I thought he might have an inspiring story here and there. I didn’t expect him to make the team or anything like that.”

That’s when Lambert issued his weight-loss challenge, and Caminhas worked his way up from the practice roster. Now, he’s firmly entrenched in the Rattlers’ starting five.

“You can say anything you want, but if you don’t lead by example, it’s just talk,” Lambert said. “He obviously loves the riding part of it, but he also does it to inspire people, I think, and show them that all things are possible, and it’s a lot more than you think.

“He’s a legend in the PBR, and he still feeds his family riding bulls. You don’t expect that. Nobody else better expect it either, because we’re likely to never see this again.”

For his part, Caminhas isn’t considering retiring again anytime soon.

“In Brazil, they say, ‘Look at the old guy. He’s really good,’” Caminhas said. “Some of them call me grandpa. But in America, they respect me. They say, ‘You’re a hero. You’re different.’

“I can go 10 more years, hm? Why not?”

Photo courtesy of Josh Homer/Bull Stock Media