2002 World Champion Caminhas to Continue his Career Restart at Velocity Tour Event in Lexington
By: Justin Felisko
PUEBLO, Colo. – 2002 World Champion Ednei Caminhas was stunned last fall when he stepped into a room at his house and his wife, Gabriella, had a sneaky smile on her face.
Ednei had received a phone call from Bullfrog West Fest Rodeo organizers asking if he would like to compete at their 8th annual event in White Settlement, Texas, and Gabriela decided to enter her husband in the bull riding.
“I said to her, ‘Are you crazy!?” Caminhas recalled this week. “‘I haven’t rode a bull in almost three years. Only horses.’”
Gabriela then told Ednei that she had seen him continue to train horses, especially extremely difficult ones, and that she had watched him improve his physical conditioning since he last competed at a PRCA event in 2018.
“She tell me, ‘You ride the crazy horses that buck like crazy. You stay on. You can stay on the bulls.’”
Ednei was surprised because Gabriela was one of the people that convinced him to retire in 2018 following a series of injuries he sustained at the Hugo PRCA Rodeo in Oklahoma on the first weekend of June. He had broken his collarbone, his arm, and two ribs after Bet On Black had bucked him off. The nine-time PBR World Finals qualifier could not hold his son for almost three weeks, and he knew it was time to hang up his bull rope for good.
The now-45-year-old would keep up with the PBR on its social media channels, but he wouldn’t watch much bull riding at all. Caminhas, who admitted that he had started to consider retirement at the 2018 San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo, was content training horses and living his best life outside of the arena.
Yet, there he was in White Settlement, climbing into the bucking chute almost two-and-a-half years after being hurt in Hugo and almost 18 years since he won the PBR’s prestigious World Championship buckle inside the Thomas & Mack Center.
Caminhas’s love of the game quickly began to return when he climbed into the bucking chutes. His excitement peaked when he nodded for the gate, and joy overwhelmed him when he heard the 8-second buzzer go off.
“The rodeo was at 2 o’clock,” Caminhas said. “I rode my bull over there and finished in fourth place. I got excited and headed to Cowtown Stockyards and rode another bull for third place. Now at open rodeos and small rodeos, I have six wins, two second places, three fourth places. I am riding better than I was in 2018.”
Caminhas is set to compete at this weekend’s Pendleton Whisky Velocity Tour event in Lexington, Kentucky. Fans can watch the Lexington Invitational exclusively on RidePass. Round 1 begins Friday at 8 p.m. ET.
Caminhas has drawn Hey Handsome (2-0, all levels) for Round 1.
“I’m very excited,” Caminhas said. “I bought my PRCA card, and I want to try to make the PBR World Finals. I will go ride hard to try to make the PBR World Finals and then retire.”
Also tentatively expected to compete in the 45-rider field in Lexington is last weekend’s Round 1 winner on the Unleash The Beast, No. 25 Rafael Henrique dos Santos, as well as No. 22 Marcelo Procopio Pereira, No. 33 Cody Casper, No. 36 Chase Dougherty, 11-time World Finals qualifier Valdiron de Oliveira, 2009 Rookie of the Year Cody Nance and Wallace de Oliveira.
Pereira is the No. 2-ranked rider in the Velocity Tour, and he sits only 0.5 points behind PWVT leader J.T. Moore.
Caminhas is 1-for-2 at two Touring Pro Division events this season. He finished 16th at the Texarkana, Arkansas, TPD event last weekend following an 83.5-point effort on Whitetail.
Like many others in Texas and Oklahoma, Caminhas has been dealing with power outages and water issues at home in Anna, Texas. He said his family was without power from about 3 a.m. on Tuesday until 5 p.m.
“I put my family inside the truck, and we drove around for a couple of hours and stayed in the truck to stay warm,” Caminhas said. “We are doing OK now.”
Caminhas is not the same rider who won the world title in 2002. That is a given, but he says he cannot dwell on his age or how his body has changed since he was a consistent rider on the PBR’s premier series.
He believes you must focus on the present to have success.
“Age is just a number,” Caminhas said. “I know in 2002 I was a great rider, and I rode for many, many years with the superstars, but I do not look at the past. We must look toward the future. Right now, I am just very excited. I am hungry to go. I think I ride better than I was four years ago. You can feel like you either can stay on the bull or not. I feel like I can go because the past four months when I start riding again, I tried any kind of bull: rank bulls, piece of crap bulls. I feel like I am ready to go. If I look at the past and think, ‘Oh, I was a really good bull rider,’ my head would go backward, and I would not be settled in my mind. I need to put my mind up and in the front.”
Caminhas last competed on the premier series full-time in 2010, two years after he originally had announced his initial plans to retire. He then began to compete part-time in 2011 at various levels of competition.
If Caminhas can work his way back onto the PBR’s Unleash The Beast, he could try to regain his previous record of being the oldest rider to compete on the premier series. Venn Johns (45 years, 10 months) broke Caminhas’ previous record (42 years old) last season when he competed at the Lazy E Arena in April. Caminhas competed at the 2018 season-opener in New York City at Madison Square Garden.
Caminhas will turn 46 on Oct. 6, and he also has his eyes set on breaking Wallace de Oliveira’s record of being the oldest rider (41 years old) to compete at the PBR World Finals.
“That is my goal,” Caminhas said. “Make the World Finals this year. I think this will be my last year, for real, if I make it.”
Follow Justin Felisko on Twitter @jfelisko
Photo courtesy of Andy Watson/Bull Stock Media
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