PBR Australia News

Back to All News

HOMETOWN HERO WINS CHARTER TOWERS NEW YEARS EVE EVENT

01/04/2012

HOMETOWN HERO WINS CHARTER TOWERS
NEW YEARS EVE EVENT

(January 3rd, 2012) Professional Bull Riders and PBR fans from around the nation converged on the Gold City town of Charters Towers New Years Eve for the inaugural event to witness a night of extreme bull riding action that had a capacity crowd glued to their seats from start to finish.

40 bull riders representing QLD, NSW, NT, New Zealand and Ireland went head to head on some of the toughest bulls in the state, which seen Rockhampton’s, Jason Mara take an early lead on Darren Brandenburg’s “Kung Fu Juice” with an electrifying 89 point ride. New South Wales riders Lachlan Richardson and Dave Mason also posted first round scores placing them in strong positions for the Championship Round as did New Zealander, Fraser Babbington and hometown favourite Jock Connolly.

Exceptional weather and capacity crowd in the undercover Dalrymple Equestrian Centre provided an electrifying atmosphere as the bulls dominated the show, however each time local favourite Connolly rode the roof lifted with the roar of the crowd and Connolly did not disappoint delivering an 84.5 ride on Kleier’s, “Fun House” in Round 1 placing him in second place behind Marra going into the top 10 Championship Round.

Only 12 riders made a qualified ride in the first round; however there were many great attempts that just fell short of the 8 second whistle, which had the fans on the edges of their seats from the moment the gate cracked for the first bull of the night.

New South Wales rider, Dave Mason became the first rider to cover two bulls taking the competition lead, however this was short lived as rising PBR star Lachlan Richardson covered the notorious Brandenburg owned Evil Eyes for an 85 point score, even though new to the PBR competitions, Richardson has made an early mark in the sport with his consistency and is hot on the heels of David Kennedy for the 2012 Title and the Charters Towers event edged him that one step closer.

The final two rides of the night would see Connolly matched against Trigger and Mara against Ice Maker. In an earlier interview, Connolly made known that what-ever bull he got on in the night it would be doing battle against not only him but his late father who passed away weeks before the event. From the moment Connolly nodded his head, Brandenburg’s “Trigger” made every move in the book to dislodge Connolly and on several occasions nearly did, but Connolly riding with a black armband in respect for his father kept his hand shut to make the eight second whistle and score 85.5 points taking the lead from Richardson and giving him a 2 bull total of 170 points.

In the final match up Jason Mara who is renowned for his consistency and ability to produce high scoring rides faced off against the Kleier owned bull “Ice Maker”. At the start of the ride Mara looked like he had the bull beat but as the ride progress the bull became tougher and was able to wear Mara down and dislodge him before the 8 second whistle giving Connolly the win in front of his excited hometown and making it a dream finish to the inaugural event.

Charters Towers has been a sleeping giant for us, PBR General Manager, Glen Young went onto say. It was a last minute decision to put the event on with only a 7 week time frame to put it together but the whole community got behind it, the local businesses backed it, Council was extremely supportive, Community Groups helped out but most of all the PBR Fans & Toyota Ute Muster participants travelled from all over the country to fill the stadium and sell out the event in record time. 2012 is going to be bigger and better, we have a plan already in place to expand the capacity and we are going to be in talks with our Corporate Partners to increase the prize-money and make this the biggest Touring Pro Division New Year’s Event in the country in the coming years.

The other great aspect of the event was seeing a large contingent of past and present rodeo legends with the likes of Royce & Owen Dunn, Smokey Anderson, Blue Turner, Greg Cook, Max Radford, Mark Gibb, Dave Coleman, Rodney Veitch and local bullfighting sensation Maurice Quinn make appearances at the event, each and every-one of these guys have been a pioneer to our sport and inspired many young riders in the north over the years and still to this day.

On behalf of PBR Australia we would like to thank Charters Towers for being such an exceptional host for this event along with the hospitality they provided, our bullfighters Darryl Chong and Ryan Ibbotson for keeping the riders safe and congratulations to Jock Connolly on such a milestone win, which he dedicated to his late father.

Professional Bull Riders Touring Pro Division Charters Towers Results:
1. Jock Connolly        Charters Towers, Q            170   points
2. Lachlan Richardson    Gresford, NSW            162.5points
3. David Mason        Bulahdelah, NSW            161.5points
4. Jason Mara        Rockhampton, Q              89   points

2012 Professional Bull Riders Championship Standings:
1. David Kennedy        Kyogle, NSW                3038.5 points
2. Lachlan Richardson    Gresford, NSW            2542.5 points
3. Fraser Babbington    Gisborne, NZ                2061    points
4. Chris Lowe        Uralla, NSW                 1810.5 points
5. Sam Larsen        Katherine, NT            1462.5 points

Marrabel Bull Ride Sanctioned by PBR Australia, Marrabel SA
Marrabel Rodeo Grounds
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Bull Riding action from 7.30pm