PBR champ McBride to retire after World Finals
Justin McBride’s major bull riding career began in Las Vegas, and it’s only fitting it ends here.
The two-time and reigning world champion of the Professional Bull Riders series announced Tuesday he plans to make his final bull ride Nov. 9, the last day of the PBR World Finals at the Thomas & Mack Center.
“I’ve given everything I’ve got to this sport, and this sport has given me about everything I’ve got,” McBride said at the Silverton.
McBride competed for the UNLV rodeo club team for two years before joining the PBR in 1999.
The 29-year-old Elk City, Okla., native is the best bull rider of his generation and has the credentials to back it up. He is coming off a record-breaking season in which he won eight titles and recorded 14 rides scored at 90 points or better. His 32 career event victories also are a PBR best.
“I feel I could still win world championships, but I don’t really care about that anymore,” he said.
McBride said he plans to be an analyst for some PBR telecasts, devote more time to his country music singing career and, most importantly, spend more time with his wife, Jill, and 2-year-old daughter, Addisen, on their 3,200-acre ranch in western Oklahoma.
“I’ve led a pretty selfish life in my 29 years,” he said of his devotion to rodeo. “It’s time not to do that anymore.”
McBride said he has been thinking about quitting for a few years and came close after winning the 2007 championship. A few weeks after winning the $1 million championship bonus for the second time in three years, he had major surgery to repair extensive ligament damage and a rotator cuff tear in his left shoulder.
He missed the first seven months of this season, and that wasn’t how he wanted to leave bull riding.
In his second rodeo after recovering from his injuries, he won his 31st career title on the PBR Built Ford Tough tour July 20 in Tulsa, Okla. He won again six weeks later in Nashville, Tenn.
McBride has ridden in only seven events this year, but his two titles rank him 37th of the 45 riders who have qualified for the seven-day World Finals, which begin Oct. 31 at the Thomas & Mack.
On Sept. 19, McBride passed $5 million in career earnings to become the first rodeo athlete to reach that milestone.
“I’m not retiring from life, just a sport I’ve been involved with for most of my life,” he said. “I’m retiring but not until the Finals are over. And I plan on winning it.”
Contact reporter Jeff Wolf at jwolf@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0247.
