K’s Thomson won the bronc riding at Morris, Man., with an arena record-setting 85.5 score on the back of Wayne Vold Rodeo’s 17 Mystery to take home $2,502. For Thomson, the result was a welcome one as he acknowledged that “the season hasn’t gone quite the way I wanted it to.” Despite some struggles, the Lundbreck talent finds himself just outside the 12-man cutoff for Canadian Finals Rodeo berths with a third of the season to go.

Jayden Wilson also put together a profitable weekend, one of several this season for the Gleichen cowgirl and her eight-year-old gelding, Fame Is Dynamite (Whiskey), as CPRA athletes made the trek east to the SMS Equipment Tour stop in Morris and to the Maple Leaf Circuit rodeo in Kennedy, Sask.

For the 27-year-old who qualified for her first CFR in 2024, the Kennedy win was her second of the season as she posted a rapid 15.53-second run for $1,460. The 2024 success equalled back-to-back titles at the Moose Mountain Pro Rodeo (Kennedy) for the second-generation barrel racer who also added a ninth-place $465 payday at the Manitoba Stampede. The weekend’s placings moved Wilson to within $50 of season leader Taylor Manning and boosted her season earnings to $33,813, just $3,000 less than she earned all of last year.

“It felt really good,” Wilson, a financial analyst when she’s not on the rodeo trail, noted. “He ran in really hard and it just felt smooth and easy. Whiskey has always tried to be consistent but it just feels more like that this year. I’ve picked up cheques at places I’ve never placed at before. We’ve been picking away pretty much every weekend. It’s so tough up here. You go into every weekend as prepared as you can be and hope for the best.”

At their present clip, the duo could be busy come season’s end with trips to the CFR, SMS Pro Tour Finals in Armstrong, B.C., and the Maple Leaf Circuit Finals in Regina, Sask. “That’s the plan,” the 2024 MLC Finals runner-up acknowledged. “I’d love to make the CFR. I got to go in 2024, so now I’d really like to go back. I enjoyed the Circuit Finals, they’re fun, and Armstrong is always great so I’d really like to qualify there again as well.”

Fellow competitor Traci MacDonald of Erskine got the barrel racing win at Morris in dramatic fashion as the CFR/NFR cowgirl made the last run of the weekend the winning run, a sizzling 15.56 seconds to earn $2,660. She crossed the line to a giant roar of approval from the packed Morris grandstand, one of three huge crowds the Stampede enjoyed during a perfect weather weekend at Manitoba’s only professional rodeo.

Breakaway roper Bobbi Henderson was back on her favourite mount, Popcorn, and the two added a second arena record with a 2.0-second run for $1,432.31. Henderson, who hails from Alix, jumped up a couple of spots from the sixth place she occupied in the breakaway standings going into the weekend.

This weekend will see CPRA rodeo athletes gear up for an all-Alberta schedule: Medicine Hat Stampede July 24-26, Rockyford Pro Rodeo July 25-26, Hardgrass Bronc Match July 26 and Bruce Stampede July 27.