CBR Checks in an Elite Squad at #11 Joe Frost and Elite Bucking Bulls #3
#12 Joe Frost
For any parent, getting one of your kids into the ranks of professional sports has to be considered an amazing accomplishment. The amount of time, energy and luck involved makes the odds against it happening astronomically high. For more than one kid to make it to the pro level defies pretty much all logic.
“You have to block out the pressure and be the very best every time and if you can’t do your job you take a chance of getting hurt, it’s a dangerous sport and important to stay focused,” says Joe Frost, the most recent rodeo athlete in a long line of pro rodeo athletes named Frost.
Joe Ferdinand Frost enters the CBR World Finals competition in the number 11 position, three slots higher than his fourteenth ranked younger brother, Josh Frost who is making his rookie appearance in Frontier Park. The Frost’s will make take to the dirt together for the first time on Monday and Tuesday night as part of the night show in the rodeo summer spectacular event known as Cheyenne Frontier Days where their second cousin, World Champion bull rider Lane Frost, lost his life twenty-eight years ago on July 30.
For some families simply “making it” isn’t enough. They not only have to make it to the show but they also have to set all kinds of records once they do. Enter the Frost name.
Joe and Josh are third generation PRCA competitors, their grandfather Joe Frost and his Dad Shane Frost were PRCA members. Josh’s great uncle Clyde Frost competed at the first NFR in 1959 in bareback riding returned multiple times in both bareback and saddle bronc riding. Josh’s second cousin is the late Lane Frost, a five time NFR qualifier and world Champion bull rider featured with Tuff Hedeman in the movie 8 Seconds.
It is clearly not enough for the elder Frost brother of Randlett, Utah to just “make it”. He is a three time NFR qualifier, a CBR two-time event champion, and competes this year in Cheyenne at his second CBR World Finals.
Joe rode seven of the eleven bulls (63.5%) he attempted in the five CBR events on the 2017 CBR Road to Cheyenne. He was not often on the roster, but when he was he always made it count, racking up seven scores and one event championship to put him just outside the top ten of the CBR World Standings.
Frost’s highest marked ride of the season came from a rematch on Lyndal Hurst’s Yellowhair in Enid, Oklahoma in January. The two posted a 92.5 score to win the semifinal round. On tour, Joe would go on to ride one of two bulls in three events advanced four times to the Semifinal second round.
He advanced to the final four man Shoot Out just once, but that one time he put on a show in the Fort Worth Cowtown Coliseum riding three of three to win the legendary Fort Worth Tuff Hedeman Championship Challenge event which was created produced by his second cousin’s Lane best friend and traveling partner, Tuff Hedeman. The Fort Worth event held a great deal of meaning for Frost with close family friend Tuff handing him the check and the buckle, and the winning of an event that is thought of as the historical birthplace of stand-alone bull riding event.
“It has not really sunk in yet, I was just busy trying to do my job, stay on bulls and be the very best bull rider every jump, but it is exciting to have my name up there in history on such a prestigious event,” said Frost.
Frost is a second cousin to Lane Frost who won the PRCA world bull riding title in 1987 and was killed at the Cheyenne Frontier Days in Wyoming in 1989 by a bull he had ridden in the finals for prize money. Joe Frost said he’s watched many Lane Frost rides.
“I do things a little bit different,” Joe Frost said. “But I do watch a lot of videos of him. He had a really good riding style and rode a lot of bulls, and that’s why I’ve wanted to emulate a lot of stuff that he did.”
Throughout sports history, there have been many sets of brothers and cousins who have proven to come from simply a better gene pool than most of us mortals. It can be in any sport, in any era; some families are just built to create dynasties and arguably the Frost Family is on that list.
Frost grew up in Uintah County in a family that also included two brothers and a sister. He graduated from Union High School in Roosevelt, where he won two state bull riding championships and a state all-around title. He would go on to win the 2014 intercollegiate bull riding championship as a member of the Panhandle (Okla.) State rodeo team. Balancing school and rodeo in 2014 he won over $96,000 in Vegas at his debut NFR – riding half his bulls. In 2015, he rode six bulls at the NFR, and finished as the reserve world champion and is on pace to make the million dollar earnings club in the near future. As a former winner of national titles in high school and college, Joe knows how to win and knows what it takes to win.
One of Joe’s mentors and heroes is Denny Flynn, a 10-time NFR qualifier and 3-time average winner. Joe has been following Denny’s advice of getting on practice bulls consistently during his career, the gym does not provide the same workout as getting on bulls, and it seems to be paying off, year after year.
#11 CBR Bull Team Challenge – Jerilyn Harmon’s Elite #3
Jerilyn Harmon’s Elite team #3 qualifies for the CBR World Finals Bull Team Competition in the #11 slot with $45,000 earned and 27points. The team labeled Elite 3 team competed in Mercedes, Texas in the fall, Rio Rancho in January and the finale event in Del Rio winning that all important “double the money” Bull Team Challenge event.
Managed and hauled by Mike White, Elite used seven different bulls with Boomer and Karaoke bucking twice (Rio Rancho, Del Rio). They placed first in Del Rio, fourth in Rio Rancho and seventh place in Mercedes.
“There is no other opportunity in the bucking bull industry to compete for this kind of money weekend, and week out” said Mike White who won the CBR Bull Team Challenge World Finals competition in 2011.
The team began their season with a 7th place in Mercedes with 275.67 points and zero qualified rides from 412T Chutes Boss, W604 Big Show, and 3463 Cornstar when matched against Cody Rostockyj, James Casey Kirwan, and Corey Bailey.
Next out was Rio Rancho, New Mexico where 2017 Bull of the Year nominee 626 Karaoke was awarded the Champion Bull buckle for the team with a 92 point ride from Cody Jesus in the semifinal round. The team was fourth with 277.06 points.
Boomer would clock in as the second most valuable player on their team with two 90.5 qualified rides in Rio Rancho and Del Rio respectively. White rotated 166 Big Tex onto the team in Rio Rancho and N1 Bet’n Black in Del Rio.
Elite’s big break for this #3 team was in what was called the “super pot for the super bulls” created to celebrate the 40th George Paul Memorial Bull Riding in Del Rio, Texas, the final contest for Elite #3.
On the other side of the chutes the competition was fierce with $90,000 payout, a new Ram Truck, and a custom Juan Munoz Andrade saddle on the line. With a narrow margin of .21 points, Jerilyn Harmon triumphed with one ride score and two rank bull scores totally 281.62.
“Boomer really anchored our team tonight with the 90.5 score with Braiden in round one, but as usual Karaoke provided the assist with a rank bull score from the semifinal round,” said White who knew how tight the competition was all night and gave all the credit to Harmon’s four legged athletes.
“You know Karaoke has been a great bull from a two year old and always a winner, he proved that again tonight. I pulled him off breeding cows a few weeks ago and bucked him that night in Fort Worth and he was the high marked bull – happened the same this weekend. I pulled Boomer off cows yesterday to make the trip to Del Rio. They love their job and tonight just proves it.”
“Bet’n Black was my third bull and is a really good bull, he’s just a three year old, but he hit his hip tonight and it worried me he would not be as good as he drifted just a little before he turned back,” said Mike White who lines up the buckers with Jerilyn Harmon’s Elite Bull teams.
Jerilyn Harmon, one of CBR’s three female owned franchises, is from Denver, Colorado. The Elite franchise qualified three teams for the World Finals on this year’s Road to Cheyenne and an in depth profile on the team franchise and ownership will follow their highest placing team, Elite Team #1 in the #3 position.
Courtesy of CBR