February 2, 2007- Stop Number Six

This weekend will find our favorite cowboys battling the bulls in Tampa Florida on February 2, and then they will hop up to Atlanta Georgia for another single day event on February 3. Draws for round one, as well as the short go bulls have been posted for the Southern Ford Dealers Invitational. One of our newer additions, Ryan McConnel will take on one of the best veteran bulls still bucking, Gator out of the pens of Boyd/Floyd/ Paradise Farms. This big old bull has only been covered 10 times in his career. If Ryan can stay up and look good doing it he should have a score from the mid to high eighties. With the way the last two events have gone this could be a go round winner. Our winner from last weekend, Silvanei Dias, will take on another bull from the Boyd/ Floyd/ Paradise Farms pens, Vigilante. A younger bull, he has been coverd once in five trips, by 2005 World Champion Justin McBride. Dias is ridding well, so this could be a good match-up. However, McBride's score on this bull was in the low 80's, so it will probably only put Dias in the middle of the standings for the weekend, and with only one long go round of competition might not give him enough to make it back for a second bull. McBride has drawn Texas Two Step, another bull from this same contractor. This bull was ridden once last season, and has bucked off his last five riders. However, McBride is riding like the champion he is, so he should be able to get a score. Our current world number one, 2004 World Champion Mike Lee, has drawn Grim Reaper from Tony Sharp. He's a new bull so it will be hard to know what we will see from him, or if the change of setting will have any effect on his performance. Paulo Crimber has a second Sharp bull, Taz. Taz has been unridden in his three career trips, so it will be interesting to see if Crimber, who limped from the arena last weekend after landing badly, will have a shot on this animal. Diamond S Bucking Bulls has brought in several bucking veterans, including Stray Cat, Blizzard, Panama Red, and Black Willy, for long go round competition. While these bulls, as older, more seasoned individuals will have been seen by their riders, many of them have very low riding percentages. Panama Red, who will face Scott Schiffner, has one of the higher percentages, with seven rides in 15 outs. Blizzard, whose going to get taken on by my favorite, Cord McCoy, has never been ridden in 10 attempts, even bucking off two time World Champion Chris Shivers (still out on injury with that broken leg and ankle). Cord is going to have his hands full, but he did gain a little momentum when he covered Chain Reaction last weekend for a go round win. Maybe he can carry some of that over to this weekend and become the first man to ride this bull. Tater Porter will pull his rope on Stray Cat, who has been covered 20% of the time, with an average score of 85.0. Robson Palermo just covered this bull last weekend in NC, so maybe we will see a successful ride. Black Willy gets ridden about 45% of the time, with an average ride score just above 85. Leandro Mattos is going to try to get it done on him this weekend. We'll have to see how this turns out, I really don't have a strong feeling towards either individual in this match up. Leandro is incredibly talented, but so is Black Willy, so it could go either way. Robson Palermo is going to take a new bull from Rickey West, Mr Wiggles.

The short go round is going to be jam packed with stunning bulls for this event. Boyd/ Floyd and Paradise Farms are bringing us Big Show (formerly known as Fronteir Justice), Player, Paleface, and younger bulls Hondo, and Lost In Paradise. These bulls combine for easily over 100 total outs. And include buck-offs of such greats as Justin McBride, Mike Lee, Adriano Moraes, Guilherme Marchi, Ednei Caminhas, the iron man JW Hart, and the retired Michael Gaffney just to name a few. Big Show's career alone stretches from mid 2003 to now, with over 60 total outs and only eleven successful trips. Diamond S Bucking Bulls has brought us another five stellar individuals. They range from young Smash Hit to older bulls Okeechobee Spots and Cat Daddy, as well as Avalanche and Shanghai. These bulls bring together a similar level of power as the previous pen. They also add in buck offs of Chris Shivers, and Sean Willingham. Keep in mind that Cord McCoy covered Okeechobee Spots for 93.0 back at the challenger tour in Denver, so we know this bull can provide an opportunity for massive scores. The final five short go bulls come from various contractors. One bull who I am interested to see how he got into the short go draw is Slim Slam from Robinson and Tedesco. He is new, never bucked on the Built Ford Tough Series. It will be interesting to see what it was the officials saw in this young bull to include him in this weekend's first championship round.

You can catch the Southern Ford Dealers Invitational Saturday, February 3 at 8:00pm EST on Versus.