There’s no question about who the happiest cowboy in Ponoka is after the fourth performance of the Ponoka Stampede. Hands down, it was Craig Weisgerber. The genial steer wrestler had the kind of day dreams are made of. After catching his morning steer in an impressive 4.4 seconds, he came flying down the long score in the afternoon, and handled his second steer in a mere 3.9 seconds, the fastest he’s ever been here. The 8.3 second tally moved to the overall lead by nearly two seconds.
Fresh off tossing his cowboy hat like a bullfighter, plus whooping and raising his fists in the air, Weisgerber could still hardly believe what had just happened.
“I’m almost shocked,” gasped Weisgerber. “I felt like I was going to do good, but I’m blown away right now. This is nuts!”
“I threw my hat, guys! I don’t do that.”
It’s not that the Ponoka cowboy is a stranger to success at his hometown show. In fact, two years ago, he also led the aggregate.
“Then I had some bad luck in the short go, but we’re back in the driver’s seat, to try it again,” grinned Weisgerber.
The ironic thing is that Ponoka is the very first rodeo Weisgerber has entered this year. He’s been farming, working on the movie ‘Billy the Kid’, and busy with their two young sons.
“It’s the only rodeo I entered this weekend! Like I literally have all my irons in this fire, to even keep going to the next one. I guess I’m not going to work on Tuesday now,” he giggled.
Weisgerber can count on two hands the amount of steers he’s run since last October. Five practice ones and a couple at the Hoover Hays Memorial Jackpot in May.
“I bought my (CPRA) card on June 4th, the last day you could possibly wait for it. I’m just fresh, and maybe that’s half the battle, I don’t know. But I couldn’t be any more excited about this. I live six minutes away from here, and they add a lot of money. It’s hard not to come to this one. We’ll see how it turns out. My summer might look a heluva lot different than when it started.”
“Opportunity knocks and you’d better answer it.”
Cowboy Christmas means a lot of driving for contestants to take advantage of the many rodeos in far and away places. Ponoka was definitely far for the tie-down roper who’s now at the top of the leaderboard on two runs. Brushton Minton came all the way from Witter Springs, CA.
“It was a long drive up here from California, but I’m glad I went. It was like thirty hours – we drove for two days,” says Minton, who managed to put together two smooth runs – in 8.6 and 8.7 seconds, to sit first at 17.3 seconds.
“This is a new horse I got, right before the summer. He’s been doing really good with me. We’re starting to click pretty good.”
“Me and another buddy, we did a trade on horses. It’s working out for both of us. It was a good trade.”
Minton was able to see his calf go in the morning run, and got some valuable intel.
“You kind of know what the calf’s going to do from the first round. I knew he was going to go left, but he was good on the ground and I knew if I just caught him, I’d get back to the short round.”
Before Minton comes back to Ponoka though, he’ll have to spend some more hours in the truck.
“I’m up at Williams Lake. It’s my first time, so I guess it’s a long drive over there.”
Saddle bronc rider Quentin Taylor seems to have a magnet for drawing the storied Vold horse Pedro. The brown gelding has been a Canadian Champion bucking horse, and made many trips to both the CFR and NFR. But he continues to perform at the age of 20. Taylor drew him at Ponoka, the third time the two had danced together in the month of June. This time the mark of 84.5 is one Taylor is hoping will hang in among the top twelve, to bring him back on July first.
“I think the only trip he’s been bucked this year that I didn’t get on him was in Stavely!” says Taylor. “Ol’ Pedro just goes out there and does his same old trip. You know he’s going to have that rare out of there and hit, and then circle around either direction and be pretty good. He’s real wide built – he wintered well – so your saddle feels a bit different on him than on other horses. You’ve just got to be aggressive and set your feet, and it all works out.”
Vold bulls dominated in their event, bucking off every cowboy but one. Two-time Canadian Bull Riding Champion Jared Parsonage comfortably made eight seconds, on Super Fly for 83 points, tying for sixth place in the standings, where there are eleven qualified rides so far.
“That’s a young bull I’ve seen a couple times,” says Parsonage, who ranches in the Maple Creek, SK area. “He was just really good in Wainwright, really good in Grande Prairie. I knew he could go either way, and I kind of expected that, but if I could just sit up there and do my job, I’d stand a good chance.”
“There was nothing too out of the ordinary there. Just popping and spinning. If you want to be successful at this level, you’ve got to ride those ones.”
Parsonage is also the defending Ponoka Stampede titlist, but feels like he still has some unfinished business here.
“Yea, I do. I didn’t stay on in the four-round last year. So it would be a good year to ride one in the four round. Hopefully make it back first.”
“It’s fun when you get to wake up every morning and do something you love.”
A cloudburst came along and presented some challenges for the ladies in the barrel racing. But Montana cowgirl Madison Wilkerson trusted her horse, and he handled the suddenly wet ground well. They raced home in 17.58 seconds, just a tenth of a second longer than leader Jennifer Neudorf. Caitlyn Dahm posted a 2.8 second run for fastest of Saturday’s performance in breakaway roping, but missed her first calf. Brittany Shuk and Tehya Sargent both roped their way into a top twelve spot in the aggregate. Team ropers Logan Spady and Trey Gallais posted a time of 13.2 on their pair of runs, and that slots them into fourth spot overall. South Dakota’s Steven Dewolfe had the high bareback mark of the day at 79.75 on Mucho Dinero, but it’s barely hanging on to a top twelve spot.