Re-ride pays off for Watt

By Ryan McCracken on July 27, 2018.

rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com @MHNMcCracken

Lane Watt made the most of his second chance on Thursday night at the Medicine Hat Exhibition and Stampede rodeo.

The 24-year-old saddle bronc rider was granted a re-ride when his first horse fell down after a big leap out of the gate. Staring down Jim Berry’s score of 79.5, Watt climbed back into the chute and put on a show with a winning 82-point ride.

“When you get a re-ride you want to look at what you’ve got and everybody knew it was a nice older horse, so things just worked out at the end of the day and I did my part,” said Watt. “The last couple of weekends were a little slow but this is a big, busy weekend so it’s a good start.”

Watt added his first ride came on the much younger Rivers Edge. While it provided him with some significant air out of the gate, the horse lost its footing upon landing.

“He’s been bucked quite a bit this year but he’s still finding his footing and figuring out what he wants to do,” he said. “You’ve got to get on the young ones too sometimes.”

Among Watt’s competition Friday was his older brother, Coleman, who had a 71-point ride on Alley Lights. The two Hardisty products have been touring together this season and even have a third brother, 29-year-old Kiefer, who also rides saddle broncs.

“It’s always been awesome being able to go to rodeos with my brother and compete against him. It’s always adds a little fun to everything and it’s really cool seeing him do good as well,” said Coleman, 27. “Everywhere we go, we’re up the same days, it’s fun that way for sure.”

Lane added he watched his father and older brothers take up the sport before getting into the saddle at the age of 15. Now a touring professional rider, he says it’s great to always have family with him, no matter how far away from home.

“My older brothers, they all started a little bit before me and my dad rode before that. It’s kind of been in our family since the beginning,” said Lane. “We’ve rodeoed for years together. You’re not home much but you’re still a family everywhere.”

The team roping event featured two Medicine Hat products in Kevin Schreiner — who competed alongside Swift Current’s Tee McLeod — and Trent Tunke — who was partnered up with Sundre’s Trey Gallais — but neither managed to record a time. Logan Bird and Stacy Cornet won the team roping event with a time of 6.4 seconds, earned in Thursday morning’s slack performance, followed by Cody Atkinson and Sam McKennin at 6.7 seconds and Kale Peterson and Thomas Kaiser at 6.8 seconds.

Ty Taypotat took top spot in the bareback event with an 87.5-point ride, followed by Cole Goodine with 84.5 points and Ky Marshall with 82.5.

JB Moen won the bull riding event with an 84.5-point ride, narrowly beating out Cody Coverchuk’s 84 and Scott Schiffner’s 83.5.

Chance Butterfield’s 4.8 second time won the steer wresting event, while earlier in the slack performance Layne Delemont took second in 4.8 seconds and Blake Gagnon finished third in 4.9 seconds.

Blair Burk won the tie-down roping event with a time of 8.2 seconds in the slack performance, followed by Morgan Grant in 8.4 seconds. Kyle Lucas and Lee Rombough tied for third at 8.6 seconds.

Nikki Hansen finished first in ladies barrel racing with a 17.607-second run. Earlier in the slack performance, Jackie Ganter clocked in at 17.735 seconds for second place and Tillar Murray took third at 17.575 seconds.

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