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From PBRNow.com

Fan favorite returns to BFTS as an alternate  
 
PUEBLO, Colo. - He’s back.

Of course Justin McBride is back to his old tricks – winning events – but if you take a closer look at the results from this past weekend you’ll notice another familiar name: Matt Bohon.

After missing the last two events, the 24-year-old was in Tulsa as an alternate.

“Of course this year hasn’t gone as planned,” Bohon said. “After finishing seventh in the world last year I had planned on making a strong run for a world title this year, but I guess everything happens for a reason.

“Going from planning on being a world title (holder) to getting cut off the tour is a very, very humbling experience.”

So what exactly happened to promising young star?

Bohon went through one of the worst stretches of being bucked off.

At the time he was cut, he had only ridden one of his last 10 and two of 25, with a streak of 10 buckoffs in a row. On the season – he’s competed in 21 of 23 events – he’s only covered 14 of 50 outs and had only one Top 10 finish.

In spite of the rough time, Bohon has remained positive – “it’s been a definite learning experience” – which may well have been made easier with the fact that by the time he was cut, he had already felt like things were beginning to turn around.

In fact, even expert observers like J.W. Hart, Michael Gaffney and Justin McKee were hard-pressed to find anything wrong with his riding style. Fundamentally speaking, there was nothing wrong with how Bohon was riding. He was simply getting bucked off.

“I can’t even understand it because, to me, I was going about everything the exact same way I have for the past, well, shoot, from the time I got on my first bull,” Bohon said. “I hadn’t mentally or physically changed anything. It just wasn’t going my way.

“When you’re winning, the PBR and the Built Ford Tough tour is the only place for a bull rider to be, but when things start going bad there’s no way of getting around a rank bull.”

As if the slump wasn’t bad enough, the BFTS only made it seem worse.

There were times Bohon just wanted to draw a bull he knew he could stay on, but the more he got bucked off the more it seemed he drew the rankest bulls in the pen – “it was kind of strange how that worked out” – and with each subsequent buckoff he began to lose confidence.

“By the time San Antonio came around, things were slowly starting to happen for me,” Bohon said, “with making a ride in Des Moines and having some signs of daylight. It was just too little too late.

“I was to the point where it was either going to work out or not, and I’m not going to let that affect the way I ride. If I had done good and made the cut, great, and if not, you know what, I’m ready for it so let’s move on.”

Once he got the call notifying him that he had indeed been cut, the Missouri native was able to take a deep breath at the relief of all the stress and, more importantly, he already had a plan in place.

“I lot of guys I talked to, when they get cut off the tour, they take it pretty hard and it took them a little bit longer to where they could make it back on tour.”

For Bohon, his tough luck didn’t have anything to do with lack of ability, and it certainly wasn’t because of any lack of effort.

“At the time I would have fallen out of a chair had it moved wrong,” joked Bohon. “I was ready for a break. I was ready to get on some bulls that weren’t near as rank and build up some confidence.”

He was prepared to drive up and down the road from one Challenger event to another in an effort to win as much money as he could in order to find his way back onto the BFTS.

This time of year, however, it’s more difficult to get back on tour, because there are so many Challenger events and a lot of riders are able to win a great deal of money, which gives them the advantage to fill in the alternate spots.

Because of that, Bohon went to as many events as he could, and rarely took a day off.

In fact, he went from Calgary, Alberta, to Woodward, Okla., then down to Bastrop, Texas, flew to California for a photo shoot, and flew back to Texas for two more events – all in a week’s time.

Instead of having a chance to overthink the “unfortunate situation” of having to ride his way back onto the BFTS, he just got on bulls, and the approach quickly paid off.

He did quite well at a number of events, and just last week – prior to returning to the BFTS in Tulsa – he earned a solid Top 5 at the Calgary Stampede, an event that featured many of the Top 45 bull riders in the world.

“Right now I’m in a great place and things are going my way,” he said.

—by Keith Ryan Cartwright, PBRNow.com