COWBOY CENTRAL
Cowboys, cowgirls to converge on Mandan for rodeo
Mandan, N.D. (June, 2021) – When the gates swing open on the Mandan Rodeo over the Fourth of July holiday, three North Dakota cowboys will be there to vie for their piece of the rodeo prize money.
Ty Breuer, Bridger Anderson, and Cameron Morman will be in Mandan to compete for the nearly $200,000 that will be up for grabs.
Breuer, 31 and a bareback rider, is the veteran of the trio.
He’s qualified for the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo six times, and last year, would have made it seventh if a torn right biceps suffered in August hadn’t happened.
After surgery twelve hours after the injury, he sat out till January before riding again. The biceps injury, on his riding arm, is back to normal, Breuer said.
Mandan is a hometown rodeo for him; his dad, Ed, and uncle Dean Breuer rode bareback horses there. His wife Kelli, daughter Kayd (3 and a half), son Treyt (two) and their newborn son will be in the stands, cheering on their husband and daddy.
Bridger Anderson is the 2020 Mandan Rodeo steer wrestling champion and competed at his first Wrangler NFR last year, finishing ninth in the world standings.
A 2021 graduate of Northwestern Oklahoma State University in Alva, he’s traveling with his former college rodeo coach, Stockton Graves, along with Riley Westhaver and Jacob Edler.
Anderson will be riding Whiskers, the horse he bought from Tyler and Jackie Schau. The horse’s personality isn’t always pleasant, but he gets the job done.
“He’s got a calm, cool, collected attitude,” Anderson said. “He’s a little bit of a jock and a jerk sometimes but he knows his job, and his favorite thing to do is steer wrestle.”
Cameron Morman, Glen Ullin, N.D. went to his first Wrangler NFR in 2019, but Covid threw a wrench in his 2020 plans. Because of fewer rodeos and the long distances between rodeos that weren’t canceled, he went to very few.
This year, he’ll hit the rodeo trail hard.
The Fourth of July holiday, and the days preceding and following, are called “Cowboy Christmas” because of the numerous lucrative rodeos, and cowboys push hard to get to as many rodeos as possible.
Morman and his traveling partners will compete in St. Paul, Ore. in slack on June 30, then drive twelve hours to Livingston, Mont., to run their steers on July 1. Then they’ll compete in Red Lodge, Mont., Cody, Wyo., and Belle Fourche, S.D. on July 2, then head to Mobridge, S.D. on July 3 and Killdeer and Mandan on the Fourth.
He’ll ride his good steer wrestling horse Rio, a four-time Badlands Circuit Steer Wrestling Horse of the Year.
The sixteen-year-old buckskin “is just a really consistent horse,” Morman said. “He can make you win on average steers, because he makes up so much ground for you. He just doesn’t make any mistakes.”
More than 600 contestants are entered for the Mandan Rodeo, which will be held at Dakotah Centennial Park July 2-4. Performances begin nightly at 7:30 pm.
Tickets can be purchased online at MandanRodeo.com and at the gate. They range in price from $10 to $25.
For more information, visit the website or call 701.751.2983.
