2018 PRCA Media Guide - Bullfighers and Barrelmen

2017 Wrangler NFR Personnel Dusty Tuckness – Bullfighter

They say the National Finals Rodeo gets in your blood. After nine consecutive years (2009-2017) in the Thomas & Mack Center, Dusty Tuckness is thoroughly infected with NFR fever. “One of my goals since I was a kid has always been to go to the Finals, and another is to beat the records of other bullfighters who have gone there. To go once is an achievement, but to go 12 times like Darrell Diefenbach or 14 times like Joe Baumgartner (13 consecutive, 14 overall), that’s the ultimate goal. I want to push forward and get myself into their category.” But Tuckness is driven by more than competitive fire. “I try to be as consistent as I can, domy job day in and day out, and hope that

will lead to a good outcome at the end of the year. Every year I get to go back, it means I’ve been consistent and the bull riders trust me and want to see me in the arena, so to keep going back is a real honor.” Tuckness always knows going in that he’ll get a little beaten up at the NFR, but it’s all part of the sport as far as he’s concerned. “Rodeo is a game where there’s not a set pattern,” says the former high school football standout. “When guys are riding for world championships, they tend to hang on a little longer, and that can put them in a more hazardous spot when they hit the ground. And some of the new bulls have some hook to them. But I always go in thinking that every bull is the meanest one around, because I want to be on guard and always ready to take the shot for the cowboy if needed. I felt like we all did a good job of that this year – we step up our game at the NFR. Getting to go back was, and is, a dream come true.”

Nathan Jestes – Bullfighter Every bullfighter waits for that call – that he’s been selected by PRCA bull riders to protect them at the National Finals Rodeo. At age 30, Nathan Jestes had been waiting longer than some, and that just heightened his appreciation of the moment. “For years I’ve looked down on that arena from the stands in the Thomas & Mack Center, dreaming of being down there looking up,”says Jestes.“So when I got the phone call, I couldn’t have beenmore excited – andmore nervous at the same time. I had a great sense of accomplishment, and I also knew I had a lot to prepare for, because I wanted to fight bulls better than I ever had.” Ten years into his bullfighting career, Jestes still gets nervous before each rodeo performance – and that’s a good thing.

“I try to use my nerves as a positive thing – to hone my mind into focus and get into a zone,”he says. “Bullfighting is such a mental job. I’ve trainedmy mind to use my nerves to tune out the distractions and tune into the situation at hand. What we do is all reaction. If you stop to think about what to do, you’ll be too late to do it. All you can do is focus on the bull rider’s position, react to where he’s coming off as it happens, and be in the right place at the right time.” While Jestes says he tunes out the crowd noise, announcer’s voice and music as part of that focus, working in the Thomas & Mack arena has a special kind of energy. “The first day, when the barrel racing was done and we stepped out into the arena, I looked up into the crowd in the stands and I realized my dreams had come true, my body went numb,”he remembers. “But as soon as I saw Shane Proctor pull his bull rope, I had a calmness and I was able to go to work with no problems. You can’t really appreciate the caliber of rodeo it really is until you’re on the dirt – the quality of the animals and the riders. It made me step up – I fought bulls better than I ever had, just because of what I was surrounded by.” And the NFR requires that step up, no doubt. “We fight 15 bulls, 10 nights in a row, which is more than you usually see at a typical summer rodeo, so there’s more chance of something happening,”Jestes notes.“But at the NFR, all those bulls are proven – they have timing, so you can predict where the rider is going to come off and it’s easier to read the situation as it happens. Those bulls turn back and buck hard, and when they do that, they throw the rider farther so you have more time and space to work – but those guys are riding for so much money, they sometimes hang on longer. But if I get knocked down, I know the other bullfighters will pick up the bull and save me from getting run over.”

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BULLFIGHTERS, CLOWNS AND BARRELMEN