IPRA rookie on verge of history
International Finals Rodeo

By Ed Godfrey

Published: January 19, 2007

Saddle bronc rider Tanner Daugherty is about to make International Professional Rodeo Association history. Barring something unforeseen, the 21-year-old Yukon cowboy will be the first to win a rookie title and a world title in the same year.

Daugherty, in his first year as a pro, leads the saddle bronc IPRA standings by almost $4,000 over his nearest competitor entering Thursday night's opening session of the International Finals Rodeo.

The IFR is the season-ending championship rodeo for the IPRA. To not win the 2006 world IPRA title, Daugherty likely would have to get bucked off all four of his rides.

That's highly unlikely considering he was only been bucked off four times in the entire season.

"As long as I place in the rounds and get in the average pretty good, I will have it wrapped up,” Daugherty said. "My goal was just trying to win rookie of the year, but it's worked out a little better for me.”

Daugherty has cashed in 65 of the 85 rodeos he entered in the 2006 season.

"I have just had a lot of good draws and a lot of good horses and I've drove my butt off going all over the place to rodeos. I have driven way over 100,000 miles. I got my last truck in August and it already has more than 40,000 miles.”

A 2003 graduate of Cheyenne High School. Daugherty was introducing to bucking horses on his grandparents' ranch near Cheyenne. He spent summers on the ranch as a kid and moved there as an eighth grader.

He started breaking horses on the ranch to earn some extra money and entered a rodeo with five other friends just for the fun of it.

"I am the only that stuck with it,” he said.

Daugherty's sister is Shannon Harrison, owner of Dynamo Gymnastics in Edmond, and the saddle bronc rider has even trained with her students at the gym.

"I couldn't hang with them,” he said of the young Dynamo pupils.

But Daugherty credits the gymnastic exercises with helping him stay in shape and free from injury.

However, he admits feeling a little out of place on the mat.

"She (Shannon) got me a pair of tennis shoes for Christmas because she was making fun of me in there in my boots,” he said.

"I didn't have any tennis shoes and I had my hat on, but she made me take it off. She said it was distracting her girls.”

Perhaps there will be a leotard under the tree next Christmas for this rodeo cowboy to wear.

"I told her that wasn't happening,” he said.