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Meltdown at the top Six of the world’s Top 11 riders have yet to cover at the Finals

LAS VEGAS (November 3, 2009) - The love of the game.

That will be the key for a dozen riders as they try to salvage their 2009 PBR World Finals on Thursday night.

Currently, there are 13 of 44 riders who went without making the whistle in the first three rounds.

More startling is the fact that six of those riders – Guilherme Marchi, Zack Brown, Renato Nunes, Wiley Petersen, Sean Willingham and Chris Shivers – were ranked in the Top 11 of the world standings when they arrived in Las Vegas.

That means half of the cowboys without a score are in the Top 25 percent, with the other half are scattered through the lower three-quarters of the overall world standings.

“I think that speaks to the bulls that we have here (in Las Vegas),” Ty Murray said, “and I’m not making excuses, because when you get to this point, especially when you’re a Top 10 guy, you’re not supposed to fall off your first three bulls.”

“You can’t let the first bull bother you or you ain’t going to get by the rest of the event,” added Shivers. “(There are) a lot of bulls.”

At this point, Murray said that it’s important for every bull rider, especially for these particular six, to remember why they ride bulls in the first place.

The last four days of the Finals have to be about their love for the sport, and the mental and physical challenge of doing what got them to the top in the first place.

More importantly, it’s paramount that they enjoy the process.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to go for a World Championship or just trying to stay on this week,” Murray said, “enjoy the process.”

While a world title comes with a $1 million bonus, winning the Finals average brings with it a $250,000 bonus on top of the round money that’s paid out.

“If you plan on winning a lot of money here in Vegas, you gotta plan on riding rank bulls,” said Willingham, who has come down in 7, 1.8 and 4.7 seconds in each round thus far.

Willingham and Nunes, who Murray called “really talented bull riders,” are both known for leaning so far back at times, they look more like bareback riders than bull riders. As a result, the two have historically been less consistent than some of the other top riders.

Compared to someone like Marchi, Willingham has been noticeably less consistent throughout the course of the season. Willingham is riding right at 46 percent. Coming into the Finals, Marchi, who in spite of three buck offs has still covered 60.9 percent of his bulls on the season, had ridden seven in a row and 14 of his last 15 bulls. Just before that, however, he had bucked off all three long round bulls at a Built Ford Tough Series event in Reno, Nev.

So to buck off three long round bulls in one weekend isn’t unheard of for Marchi. But prior to the Reno event, it had been two years since he last had that happen, making the start to the 2009 Finals all the more surprising.

Brown, on the other hand, is dealing with a serious groin pull.

“That’s probably the most vital muscle in a bull rider’s body,” Murray said.

But for Shivers, who Murray said had “some opportunity for some big scores,” and the other three – Nunes, Petersen and Willingham – he added, “Sometimes it’s a mystery in trying to figure it out.”

Murray also said it is important for them to refrain from second-guessing themselves. “Sometimes you get to fixing things that aren’t broke and sometimes you get so turned around that you forget which way is up.”

This is an eight-round event, and everyone still has an opportunity to get on five more bulls.

“That’s the key word,” said Shivers, a two-time World Champion, who knows the importance of not losing focus, “long event.”

“You gotta be confident every round,” Willingham said, “These are the rankest bulls in the world here. … There are eight rounds here in Vegas so you can’t get down on yourself. You gotta shoot for the stars every bull you get on and just bring it every round.”

It’s that attitude that Murray says attracts him to sports.

The nine-time World Champion said that for him, it’s fun watching to see how guys bounce back from adversity or whether they buckle under the pressure and let it snowball out of control for the entire week.

Murray, who won’t be back in the broadcast booth until Sunday afternoon, will be on the back of the chutes for Rounds 4, 5 and 6 for an up-close look at how guys “handle the pressure.”

“How Guilherme Marchi is going to handle this coming week is as or more interesting to me than how J.B. (Mauney) and Kody (Lostroh) are going to handle it,” Murray concluded.

“We’re the rankest bull riders in the world and we’re going to step up our game,” added Willingham.

—by Keith Ryan Cartwright

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