The Morning Line: Velocity Tour Finals, Day 2

LAS VEGAS – Tonight’s Round 2 at the Real Time Pain Relief Velocity Tour Finals is a huge question mark.

The bull pen consists of 20 additional ABBI Derby bulls – all 3-year-olds – and the rest of the pen are ABBI Classic competitors. The Classic competition is the ABBI’s Wild Card event, which is a last-ditch effort for bulls that aren’t already qualified for the Classic World Finals.

These are bulls that weren’t quite ready to compete earlier in the year, so they haven’t been to many events or any. They are all 3- or 4 years old and are essentially the late bloomers of this season. Up to five of these bulls in this can win their way into the Classic Finals first round and appear in Round 1 of the PBR Built Ford Tough World Finals on Wednesday.

What this means in terms of the bull riding action Sunday night is that most of these bulls are complete unknowns. There are 41 bulls in the draw tonight, and only seven of them have five or more career outs. With so many young bulls in one round, there’s a real risk of having too many sub-par efforts from the bulls. But, over the past five to 10 years, the ABBI’s youngest and least experienced bulls have been solid for the most part.

The Derby bulls out last night delivered first- and second-place scores to Jess Lockwood and Derek Kolbaba.

Looking at individual matchups is less helpful in tonight’s round than in any other round this year. The best indicator we can look at tonight is what the riders did last night. Jess Lockwood won the round on a relatively unknown bull. Derek Kolbaba, Trey Holston, Sage Kimzey, Joao Ricardo Vieira, Taylor Toves, Claudio Montanha and Cody Jesus all turned in strong rides on bulls they couldn’t have known much about. They all face the same task tonight. Kimzey and Montanha are the only two of those guys who have a bull that someone has ridden before at a PBR event.

 
Lockwood, Kolbaba, and Kimzey have the most on the line here. Lockwood and Kolbaba are battling for position in the world title race, which Kolbaba is currently leading. Kimzey has to win big at this event to earn a spot in the PBR World Finals later this week. If he can do that, he has a shot at out earning every other bull rider on the planet this season regardless of the fact that the PBR title is out of his reach.

Not knowing very much about a bull or how he will buck isn’t much of a hindrance to riders at this level, but it is a test of nerve. It is nice to have some idea of what to expect, and riders like that, but almost none of them will have that luxury tonight. Round 2 of the Velocity Finals is sure to reveal which riders can improvise and overcome.