It was a rough night in Medicine Hat on Thursday for Eatonia's Dakota Buttar, who was bucked off his bull ride on the opening night of the Medicine Hat Exhibition & Stampede pro rodeo.
"It was a good bull, I've seen him lots," Buttar said after his ride. "Today's history, and I've got another one tomorrow, and I'll see if I can do better tomorrow."
Buttar is coming off sharing the Calgary Stampede bull riding championship with Shane Proctor, who both split the $50,000 grand prize after matching each other in a ride-off on the championship round.
"It's been a goal of mine for a long time," he said. "it's something I've been shooting for and working hard for it, and when it finally came, it was pretty special.
"This year's been a hard battle trying to come back from my injury last year and then have some more new ones come up," he added. "It's part of the game, everyone has them, and you just have to deal with them in your own way."
Maple Creek's Jared Parsonage, who competed with Buttar in the showdown Sunday round in Calgary, was also bucked off on his opening night ride on Thursday.
In other results from southwest competitors, Val Marie's Riley Hayes recorded no time in the steer wrestling slack performance on Thursday morning, Stewart Valley's Janet Moen turned in a time of 16.54 seconds in the barrel racing slack to finish sixth after day one, while Lily Wilson of Maple Creek did not record a time in breakaway roping. Braden Borst of Consul recorded a 6.8 with teammate Colt Cornet in the team roping and are in a tie for seventh. Waldeck's Tuftin McLeod and Consul's Rylan Borst did not record team roping times with their teams.
The pro rodeo continues until Saturday.