Local bullrider Brendon Clark will look to continue a strong
2010 this weekend at PBR Hollister
Brendon Clark didn’t have much of a window to succeed.
Arriving in the United States from Australia in 2003, Clark had
just enough money
— about $1,000, he said — to enter three Professional Bull
Riders events, food and fuel included. Had it not worked out, had
he been bucked off on each ride and finished out of the money each
time, the now 29-year-old bullrider said he doesn’t have any idea
what he would have done.
Local bullrider Brendon Clark will look to continue a strong 2010 this weekend at PBR Hollister
Brendon Clark didn’t have much of a window to succeed.
Arriving in the United States from Australia in 2003, Clark had just enough money — about $1,000, he said — to enter three Professional Bull Riders events, food and fuel included. Had it not worked out, had he been bucked off on each ride and finished out of the money each time, the now 29-year-old bullrider said he doesn’t have any idea what he would have done.
There was no backup plan.
“I had very little money and a couple of chances to win money. But at 23 years old, you don’t have too many worries,” said Clark, who now resides in Hollister and will compete this Saturday night when the PBR’s Touring Pro Division comes to Bolado Park.
“I didn’t think too much about if I was going to win or not. I knew I was going to win,” Clark added.
“When you do what we do, or are in any sport, you don’t think about losing.”
Consider it an updated version of the American Dream.
In just his second event on the PBR, while competing in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada, the cash-strapped Clark won the event and immediately added $7,000 to his bank account.
The early-season win was a significant steppingstone for Clark, who found his way into an elite Built Ford Tough Series (BFTS) event in Tacoma, Wash., in what was just the third PBR opportunity of his career.
Although he was considered an injury replacement in Tacoma, his inclusion in a BFTS event, as well as his first- and second-place finishes in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and Sas-katoon, Saskatchewan, Canada that followed, ensured Clark wouldn’t ever need to think about any Plan B.
He has since raked in nearly $800,000 in career winnings.
“I was lucky enough to win in Canada and that’s basically how I got my start,” said Clark, who goes by the “Australian Sensation” and still speaks with an Aussie accent after growing up in his native New South Wales.
“It was right-time-right-place kind of thing. I felt like I was good enough to win, but you have to have a lot go your way.”
Clark may have been lucky to find success so quickly on the PBR, but it was likely just a matter of time before the bullrider made a name for himself on the tour. While routinely placing near the top of the standings at each event he competes in, Clark has 22 90-plus point rides in his career, with an average ride score of 85.80, and he made more than $200,000 in 2007 alone.
He’s been on Team Australia for every World Cup since its inception in 2007 — Australia finished in third place, its best finish, at April’s World Cup in Las Vegas; he has his own PBR event in New South Wales — the Brendon Clark Invitational; and, earlier this year, he qualified to the PBR World Finals in Las Vegas from Oct. 20-24.
“I haven’t won a world title, but I feel like I’ve accomplished a lot and I feel like I have a lot left to accomplish,” Clark said. “But winning any event is a highlight. Anytime you can beat the best guys in the world, that’s a highlight.”
Currently ranked 39th on the BFTS standings, Clark will compete alongside some 30-plus other riders this weekend at Bolado Park, all of whom will be vying for $20,000 in total prize money. The local cowboy — Clark’s fiance is originally from Tres Pinos — is helping organize the junior bull riding event as well, which is slated to be held prior to the short go-round on Saturday night.
Back when Clark himself was a junior bullrider, the sport was still growing in Australia. He can remember the first time he ever saw someone ride a bull; his father was fixing a hay barn on a ranch one day when Clark came across some bucking bulls in action.
“I didn’t know what it was until then,” said Clark, who rode his first calf at the age of 6, and competed in his first rodeo at the age of 8.
He didn’t ride his first “big” bull until 14, but by then the attraction to the sport, and most notably its danger factor, had set in for Clark. Although he started off riding calves and steers at an early age, Clark felt bulls was the next transition.
Joining the PBR was inevitable at that point.
“The best bull riders were in the PBR. They still are and they always will be,” Clark said. “I wanted to see how good I was and if I could make it at that level.”
Coming to the United States was the next inevitability, a place where Clark has certainly shown he can compete with the best in the world.
Earlier this year, in fact, Clark became the first cowboy in PBR history to win four consecutive events — in Greeley, Colo., St. Paul, Ore., Lancaster, Calif., and in West Jordan, Utah. The four-win performance holds special significance for Clark, who considered this year a make-or-break season on the PBR tour after last year’s terrifying accident.
In April 2009, the bull “Black Smoke” slammed Clark to the ground at a tour event in Omaha. He was placed into the Intensive Care Unit with a lacerated liver, contusions of both lungs and broken ribs.
According to a statement released by the PBR last year, Clark was told he was “lucky to be alive.”
“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Clark, whose love for the sport didn’t keep him away from the arena too long, despite his injuries. Though the 29-year-old cowboy was forced to think about life without bullriding while injured, his four-win performance earlier this year, which he considers the highlight of his career, ensured the local bullrider to keep going, keep moving forward.
In a way, Clark didn’t have much of a window to succeed, just like how his PBR career started some seven years ago.
“I was going to make it this year or I was probably gonna have to find something else to do,” Clark said. “And I really wasn’t ready to walk away from it either.”
PBR Event Schedule
Friday, Sept. 3
Golf — The second annual Hollister PBR Shootout Golf Tournament will take place at Ridgemark. Check-in time will be at 8:30 a.m., with a shotgun start scheduled for 10 a.m.
Concert — Justin McBride, a two-time PBR World Champion in 2005 and 2007 and now a country music singer, will perform at the Guerra Peppertree Ranch Amphitheater at 5 p.m.
Saturday, Sept. 4
Mutton Busting — For children 7 and under. The event begins at 12 p.m., with the top 10 riders coming back to compete during the PBR event that night. Entries for the mutton busting are still open.
Concert — The Second Wind Band, with special guest Justin McBride, will perform at the San Benito County Fairgrounds at 1 p.m.
Barbecue — A barbecue will begin at 2 p.m., as will a wine and microbrew tasting.
Bullriding — The PBR event will begin at 6 p.m.
