ProRodeo Sports News - July 12, 2019

Breding injuries leave him out for several months Down & Out SHORT ROUND

P arker Breding’s strong 2019 PRCA season was sabotaged July 10 by injury. Breding, who was third in the July 9 PRCA | RAM World Standings with $105,169, suffered a severe, left knee injury while competing in a non-PRCA rodeo. “I tore my ACL (anterior cruciate ligament), MCL (medial collateral ligament) and there were some smaller ligaments that go with the ACL that were torn and the very top of my tibia on my left leg got some small fractures,” said Breding, 26. “Right now I’m in a big knee brace that’s locked, and I’m trying to get in to to see renowned-surgeon (Guy Schmidt) in Billings (Mont.). They said

Breding

the surgery would be an ACL reconstruction, and they are telling me that (recovery) would be nine to 12 months, but I’m really hoping if I do have the surgery I would be able to come back in four months for the NFR.” Breding, who qualified for the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo in 2013, 2015 and 2018, made the whistle while riding Kesler Rodeo’s Late Nite Host. “I made a pretty good ride and I had a little tiny bull, and he wouldn’t quit spinning when I was trying to get off him,” Breding said. “The rope was pretty sticky so I couldn’t get my hand out either, and I put one foot down in the dirt and (my other foot) was still on his back as I was trying to step off him. He took my right leg with him spinning and my left knee stayed in the dirt and it got buckled sideways. I felt a big pop when it happened, and I knew right away it was something pretty bad.” Breding, who finished a career-best fourth in the world standings last year, has had his share of knee injuries, but nothing to this extent. “I have no posterior cruciate ligament in either

of my knees, and in my left knee I had two surgeries for my meniscus but they were minor,” Breding said.

Former Turtle Vernon “Dude” Smith Jr. passes

Vernon “Dude” Smith Jr., one of the oldest living Gold Card members (No. 159) and one of the few remaining members of the Cowboys’ Turtle Association, passed away July 3 in Wichita Falls, Texas. He was 91. Smith joined the Cowboys’ Turtle Association two years before the association’s name changed to the Rodeo Cowboys Association, which eventually became the PRCA. During that time, he was rubbing elbows with some of the ProRodeo Hall of

Fame’s most notable cowboys who helped shape the sport as it stands today. “We all knew each other back then, but the guys today don’t all know each other,” Smith said in a June 9, 2017, article in ProRodeo Sports News . “I don’t know what happened, but there’s not as many cowboys anymore.” Smith competed in every event except team roping, since it wasn’t a common event during his ProRodeo career.

ProRodeo Sports News 7/12/2019

ProRodeo.com

20