Dustan McPhee stands behind and above the chute containing tonight’s ride.
Swinging his arms and shifting his weight from side to side, he studies the horse intently.
He seems unaware of the clamour happening around him – and there’s a lot of it going on at the Canadian Cowboys’ Association final rodeo. He concentrates on what he has to do.
He climbs on Air Miles, a bucking horse from Prime Time Rodeo, secures his rigging and gives the nod.
Even a rodeo novice can recognize the following eight seconds as an amazing ride.
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The crowd knows it, and the judges reward it.
McPhee scores 83.5, the highest score of the night in bareback riding.
“About halfway through it started feeling really good,” he says.
It’s night two and McPhee, the defending champion, is on his way.
The CCA finals came to Canadian Western Agribition this year for the first time, replacing a pro rodeo that was popular but drawing fewer attendees.
When the executive of the Regina show announced the change last April, some wondered how rodeo fans would receive the decision.
The five performances dispelled any concerns, with at least two sell-out crowds, fast-paced productions, and the appropriate thrills, chills and spills.
Dustan McPhee of Hanley, Sask., came to the rodeo scene in high school. Officially.
He was three when his dad, Gordon, won the CCA bareback title in 1980.
“Did he tell you he got his start in mutton-busting?” his dad asks. “I think he was four when won his first T-shirt at the Dundurn rodeo.”
Dustan was seven when Gordon hung up his spurs.
It’s not a coincidence that Dustan, now 28 years old, chose the same event.
“I guess we groomed him since he was a little guy,” says Gordon.
Bareback is said to be the most physically demanding of all the rodeo events.
A double-thick leather pad called a rigging is used in place of a saddle. The cowboy grips the handhold of the rigging with one hand. His free hand must never touch the horse or the equipment or else he will be disqualified.
There are no stirrups or reins.
That one arm absorbs all the stress of the ride as the cowboy spurs the horse on each jump, trying to get his feet as far forward as possible and then back toward the rigging.
Bareback, says Gordon, is proof of how much abuse a body can take. Dustan lifts weights and keeps himself in excellent shape.
“He rides better than I ever thought I did,” Gordon says.
Dustan’s parents, sister, and wife, Dawn, are all in Regina to watch him attempt to earn his third championship in a row, a feat not repeated since John Arnsten won it from 1971 through 1973.
McPhee says he doesn’t get nervous before his event, which is always the first of the rodeo.
“Well, maybe a little bit, a few jitters,” he adds.
It’s a good kind of nervous. The kind where you know if you’ve drawn a good horse you can really make it happen in the ring.
“The horse is 50 percent of the ride,” he explains.
Air Miles was the 2004 bucking horse of the year, but McPhee says all the stock at the finals rodeo is topnotch.
That’s because the cowboys choose the best from each of eight contractors to use in the last five performances. The top 10 cowboys and cowgirls in bareback, steer wrestling, saddle bronc, barrel racing, tie-down roping, team roping and bull riding qualify for the final.
McPhee is happy with all the horses he’s drawn, but says any one of his competitors can win the event with five performances in which to earn points.
He did finish the year as the top bareback finalist.
“It’s going to be a race to the end,” he predicts. “I just have to do my job, take care of my own business and let the points fall as it happens.”
The same riding jeans. High white socks. And Gatorade, a.k.a. spur juice.
That’s all McPhee needs before each event, except maybe a chocolate bar.
He’ll eat after the rodeo. Some of the participants party each night and even though their close friends are all here, Dustan and Dawn prefer to keep things low-key.
“We’ll have a few drinks and call it a night,” he says. “It’s no fun riding with a hangover.”
His sponsor is Willy’s Tavern of Foam Lake, Sask.
Dawn McPhee took two days off from her job as a secretary in a Saskatoon medical office to attend the Regina finals. She goes to as many of the 30 or so rodeos Dustan enters each year as she can.
She knew she was signing on for the lifestyle when she married him. They grew up together.
Still, she works in Saskatoon, where they have an apartment, and Dustan spends winters working on the pipelines in northern Alberta and summers as a rider in the PFRA pasture at Foam Lake.
They also have 45 cattle on the McPhee ranch at Hanley, Sask.
Dawn says something will soon have to change.
“There’s too much to do on the farm,” she says. “Work has to come closer.”
Dustan has thought about turning pro but many of the rodeos are in Alberta and British Columbia. The travelling might be the sticking point.
Coming backward out of a chute can be painful.
Dustan once broke his ankle that way.
He wears a custom-made brace to protect his right arm – the one that does all the work. That’s because he tore “something” near his elbow once and doesn’t want the arm to hyperextend.
His lower back gave him problems this year.
Dawn says she doesn’t worry when Dustan rides. In eight seconds, there isn’t much time for that.
“He’s pretty safe out there,” she says. “Bull riders’ wives get really excited.”
A few of the participants are hurt during finals week, including one of the bullfighters, whose leg snaps with an audible pop during a close encounter with a bull.
Dustan’s grandmother, and Gordon’s mother, Nellie McPhee died in Saskatoon Friday, Nov. 25, during the rodeo finals.
“I phoned him and I told him, ‘Don’t let this hamper what you’re doing’,” says Gordon. “We were expecting this.”
Dustan splits second place in the third performance aboard Battle River Rodeo’s Mr. Arthur.
“Tonight, we party.”
McPhee has just scored a final performance 79.5 on Prime Time’s Rhyme or Reason to win his third consecutive championship.
After the opening night 75.5, when he didn’t earn any championship points, he won performances two, four and five with scores of 83.5, 81 and 79.5.
He also won the high-point title with an aggregate score of 396.
Thanks to some steer wrestling in several rodeos during the season, he’s the all-around winner, too.
He’s picked up some cash, a couple of belt buckles and two more saddles.
“Before I won today I had 10 saddles,” he says. “I’m in the process of building a heated tack room.”
McPhee didn’t seem to be tense all week but it’s now apparent that he was.
It’s harder competing five nights in a row, he agrees. “But that’s what the finals is all about.
“All the excitement is still there,” the much more relaxed cowboy says of winning a third time. “I just want to win.”
Gordon McPhee is willing to put his money where his mouth is. Dustan says he’s “pretty sure” he’ll be riding again next year.
Could he win four in a row?
“If he keeps himself in shape, I’d bet money he can do it,” says Gordon.
