Whitehorse Comes Full Circle with Strong Return to Premier Series in Salt Lake City

By: Darci Miller

SALT LAKE CITY – When Keyshawn Whitehorse arrived for the Pendleton Whisky Velocity Tour event in Bakersfield, California, last week, he told himself one thing.

“I told myself to fucking mean it,” Whitehorse said. “With any move I make. I told myself it doesn’t matter how I get the job done as long as it gets done.”

Whitehorse had just been cut from the Unleash The Beast, and it was a wake-up call for the struggling rider.

The 2018 Rookie of the Year was just 2-for-9 on the premier series after a torn bicep suffered in St. Louis in December, followed by a slap call in Albany that he says took the wind out of his sails.

Whitehorse was in New York City and Chicago, but then his luck ran out.

“It’s the first time I felt like I really got cut,” Whitehorse said. “I did get cut once in 2019, but I feel like the situation was different. Not necessarily that it lit a fire under me, but it makes me own up to my decision-making and understanding myself more, along with being direct with each decision I make throughout the day.”

Leading up to his first Velocity event in Bakersfield, Whitehorse got on practice bulls and Dalton Kasel’s house. He stayed on, but something was still missing. He wasn’t sure what it was until Kasel made an astute observation.

Whitehorse was just going through the motions.

And being cut allowed him to slow down and take the time to figure that out.

“I was doing my best to try to understand the scenario at hand before getting cut, but it wasn’t really clicking,” he said. “So with the cut, it allowed me to slow down and take the time to be home. There was a lot of time where I was just by myself. I’m the type of guy that can put in the work. I can go all day long, working out, training, getting on the barrels. I’m not scared of it. It doesn’t bother me. And I’m not opposed to it. With that being said, I got to the point where I was like, ‘Okay, if I do that, will anything change?’ So I started digging deeper within myself and understanding more of my mind, and looking more into that rather than just busting my ass day in and day out and not getting anywhere.”

He is, of course, still putting in the work in the gym. Whitehorse is known for his fitness regimen and is now doing the things he doesn’t like to do, like running and other cardio, while also wearing himself out on the barrel.

So far, it’s paid off handsomely. Whitehorse won in Bakersfield to immediately earn himself a spot back on the Unleash The Beast, just in time for the premier series to return to his home state of Utah for the first time since 2020.

At the PBR Salt Lake City – five and a half hours away from Whitehorse’s hometown of McCracken Spring – Whitehorse tied for the Round 1 win thanks to his 88.25-point ride on Lapua.

 
“He’s got big shoulders, and I don’t really feel like he wanted to pull me down, but I think just how big his shoulders were kind of had me pulled down a tad,” Whitehorse said. “And I was just trying not to get too much ahead of him—a lot of waiting. Shot forward, and he kind of hop-skipped after that. It kind of kept me moving, kept me loose, instead of keeping me tied down, which I really needed. I tend to get locked down sometimes, so it’s kind of good that he did that.”

Thanks to the round win, Whitehorse earned 21 points towards the Unleash The Beast World Championship standings, where he’s now ranked No. 40 – inching back towards a regular spot.

Whitehorse is competing this weekend in front of a cadre of loved ones in the crowd, including his dad, brother, sisters, cousins, and aunt. They weren’t the only ones in the Delta Center cheering him on, as he got a full hometown hero’s welcome.

It made his return to the premier series even better, and it bodes well for his performance on Championship Saturday, when he’ll take on Big Twist. Fans can catch all the action on Feb. 11 at 4 p.m. ET on CBS Sports Network.

Whitehorse was born in Salt Lake City during the Days of ’47 Rodeo, earned the first Velocity Tour win of his career in Salt Lake City in 2016, and notched his first 90-point ride as a professional in Salt Lake City.

“I think it’s a lot more special to me (to do it here), and I want to really capitalize on it and finish the job strong,” Whitehorse said. “I feel like it’s full circle. I think that’s what it is to me. It’s full circle ever since I was a kid.”

Photo courtesy of Andy Watson/Bull Stock Media

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