King Of The Cowboys – Ty Murray

In bareback riding, I only won $7,467, but that was $1,100 more than any other rookie bareback rider won all year. My combined earnings were $45,977; not bad for a college freshman who had just turned nineteen. At the National Finals Rodeo in 1988, I rode into the center of the arena at the Thomas and Mack Center in a Bin-ion’s stagecoach. With great fanfare, the MC presented me with a Rookie of the Year belt buckle, a hat, and an oversize cardboard check for $2,000.

I was thrilled, but I was also a little disappointed. Winning the Rookie of the Year title had been my goal and I couldn’t have been happier to win it, but I had also wanted to qualify for the NFR. The PRCA national championship (the National Finals Rodeo, or NFR) only accepts the top fifteen earners in each category. While I’d been close in all three roughstock events, I hadn’t quite made it into the top fifteen in any of them.

Having to watch my sport’s ultimate event as a spectator was disappointing. It was also motivating. As I looked around the arena and waved to the fans who were applauding my Rookie of the Year award, I knew I would be back. “Next time,” I said to myself, “I won’t be watching from the stands.” OceanofPDF.com First Buckle IN OUR SPORT , you go from being a kid to a man real quick. By the time my second year rolled around, I felt like a seasoned veteran, even though I was only nineteen and a sophomore in college.

I had missed the NFR my first year, but won the Rookie of the Year title in both the PRCA and in the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association.

KING of the COWBOYS 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 Copyright © 2003 by Ty Murray All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Atria Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 www.SimonandSchuster.com ISBN: 0-7434-6371-4 eISBN 978-1-451-60427-6 First Atria Books hardcover edition May 2003 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ATRIA BOOKS is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc. For information regarding special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-800-456-6798 or [email protected] Manufactured in the United States of America OceanofPDF.com In memory of Dean “Doc” Pavillard, who was like a second father to me, and to Tres Hazelton, who was like a brother to me.

I miss you both. OceanofPDF.com INTRODUCTION Eight Seconds IT COMES DOWN to this. All the work, all the dreams, all the sweat, tears, blood, mud, fear, doubt, sacrifices, and victories boil down to this one moment in this dirt-filled arena. Everything I’ve dreamed of, everything I’ve worked for my entire life, comes down to these final eight seconds, which is how long I hope to stay on the back of a 2,200-pound brindle called Hard Copy.

I don’t know much about him, but I’ve never known much about the bulls I ride until I’m sitting on their back. In my mind, too much information about roughstock is counterproductive. Over the years I’ve seen bull riders study the tendencies of the animals they draw, but it can backfire. The minute you think you can outsmart a bull and anticipate what he’s going to do is the minute you get driven into the ground like a dart.

The best bulls in rodeo are unpredictable. Trying to outsmart them can lead cowboys to outsmart themselves. The only things I know about Hard Copy are that he is owned by Harper and Morgan, that he isn’t successfully ridden very often, and that he is enormous. This bull is so big his hindquarters won’t fit in the seven- foot-long chute.

The gate men can’t close the slide gate behind him, so they tie a rope behind his haunches. He doesn’t put up too much of a fuss, but that’s because nobody’s sitting on his back yet. The fuss will come later. Hard Copy is a tough draw. I know one more thing: Hard Copy is the only thing standing between me and a record-breaking seventh all-around cowboy world championship, a goal I’ve been working toward my whole life.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: bdcd80cf91c1cf42
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 706,521 bytes (0.674 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9781451604276, 0743463714
• Pages: 194
• Language: English (en)

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• Estimated Reading Time: 346.23 minutes
• Total Words: 69,245
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