By Dianne Finstad
Chase Dougherty didn’t know what kind of bull he’d drawn for his first-ever appearance at the Ponoka Stampede on June 28.
But the Oregon cowboy soon found out when he got behind the chutes.
“Coming up here, I don’t know a lot of the Canadian bulls,” says Dougherty.
“I know they’re all so good. Everybody told me ‘You’ve got the best one in the pen, Chase, don’t screw him up’.
"I said I’ll try not to let you guys down! It's definitely one of those pressure bulls – the one everybody wants to have. So you can’t stub your toe on one like that.”
The Vold bull Wolf Bait went to spinning the moment the gate cracked, but Dougherty had a firm seat in the middle, and eight seconds later he had a mark of 86.25, to tie for the Ponoka Stampede bull riding lead with Cody Fraser of Sundre.
“It was an awesome trip,” says Dougherty.
“They told me you’ve got to be careful because sometimes he’ll start so close that every round he’ll almost hit his head on the bucking chutes. That’s what it felt like coming right out of there. I thought we were spinning in the bucking chute there for a little while, and then he started to fade out there. That was a cool feeling.”
After making the NFR in 2018, Dougherty switched rodeo gears to spend more time with his young family, competing only in the PBR, which just has weekend events.
“I wasn’t having a whole lot of fun doing that anymore. I missed my rodeo family," he said.
“This is my first year back to pro rodeo in about three years. My wife really made a point to me to try to go to the ones I want to, and Ponoka is one I’ve always wanted to go to. You can’t beat the people in rodeo. The greatest people you’re ever going to meet in your life are right here at this rodeo.”
Ponoka News is your source for all things Ponoka Stampede leading up to and during Stampede Week June 25 to July 1. Find more Ponoka Stampede stories here and follow us at twitter.com/PonokaNews.