Huckleberry Thorn doesn’t roll over or sit up and beg for treats. He doesn’t fetch tennis balls from the pool. He’s not all that big on rubber toys. He doesn’t stand around for 15 minutes waiting for the lighting to be just right while posing for photos.
Guilherme Marchi of Brazil came within four seconds of making “perfeito” — that’s “perfect” in Portuguese — on the final day of the Professional Bull Riders World Finals on Sunday.
Moments after Guilherme Marchi finished second in the Professional Bull Riders championship last year for the third straight time, winner Justin McBride told the disheartened Brazilian that 2008 would be his year.
Guilherme Marchi could have been polishing his world championship belt buckle by now.
North Carolina is a hotbed for stock-car racing, and it’s not the first locale that comes to mind as a breeding ground for bull riders.
At 29, Chris Shivers is the same age as Justin McBride, his fellow two-time Professional Bull Riders world champion.
Getting injured turned out to be one of the best things to happen to bull rider J.B. Mauney, who suffered broken ribs, a lacerated liver and a bruised kidney and spleen in June 2005.
Any bull ride can leave a rider bruised, battered and bloodied. Even if he makes the eight-second buzzer, he still has to dismount safely, and bulls seem to get angrier when they unload their passenger.
Since joining the Professional Bull Riders in its first season in 1994, Adriano Moraes has won three world championships, 29 event titles and $3.5 million. He will hang on for his final PBR World Finals beginning tonight at the Thomas & Mack Center.
Justin McBride’s major bull riding career began in Las Vegas, and it’s only fitting it ends here.
