'I Ain't Coming Home Until I Make It' - Shane O'Connell
An over-$11,000 win at the K-Days Rodeo, coupled with a big paycheck at Cheyenne, means Shane O’Connell has earned himself a much more comfortable position in the PRCA World Standings. Before the weekend in Edmonton, O'Connell was sitting on the lower end of the top 15 in the world, which was not a position he was going to let himself relax in.
So he gunned it to Edmonton, Alberta, hoping to pull a big check out of the world's richest one-header.
"I bought my [CPRA] card specifically for this rodeo and the shot for the great prize money that counts towards the world standings," said O'Connell. "I drove 17 hours all night from Spanish Fork, Utah, last night strictly to make this horse today pay."
While he didn't know the horse himself, he was told good things about the young C5 Rodeo horse A11 Oney. The proof was in the final score — O'Connell tied Richmond Champion for the win with their matching 86.75-point rides.
"I had my chin down, I was grunting that whole time, I had some snot coming out of my nose, I was wanting to win real bad," said O'Connell.
Injury over the Fourth of July run meant O'Connell got passed by some of the other bareback riders he'd been holding off before rodeo's busiest stretch. The $11,570.23 he earned at K-Days would help get him back to a more optimal position in the standings.
"Today was a real big factor in my career because this will shoot me right back up there where I want to be, right in the middle of our summer run," said O'Connell.
From Edmonton, he headed to Cheyenne, Wyoming, for "The Daddy Of Them All," the Cheyenne Frontier Days. O'Connell won fifth in round two, split first and second in the finals, and third in the average for a $7,672.00 paycheck.
At press time, the South Dakota bareback rider has moved up to the No. 7 spot in the world standings. O'Connell has come close to qualifying for the Superbowl of rodeo before — he finished on the 19th spot in 2017 — so in 2018 he has a very clear plan:
“I ain’t coming home until I make it," said O'Connell.
There is still a lot of season left for this bareback rider, so watch out for the "other" O'Connell on the leaderboards and he fights his way to his first qualification.