If competing in three rodeos in three days isn’t enough for most cowboys, then they can start copying Airdrie’s Duane Gervais.
The calf roper and steer wrestler competed in both events at Williams Lake, B.C., Ponoka and during day four of the Airdrie Pro Rodeo on Canada Day. His time of 5.2 seconds in the steer wrestling and 11.4 in tie down roping weren’t good enough to get him in the money in Airdrie, which left Gervais less than thrilled with the outcome.
“I feel privileged to have rodeo of this magnitude right here in my hometown, but there is definitely some frustration,” he said. “I wanted to do good here – it’s a good rodeo, the hometown crowd, and there’s a lot of money up. When it doesn’t happen, certainly you’re frustrated, but you’ve just got to put it behind you and move on to the next one.”
During the tie down roping, his first of the two events, his horse missed the barrier slightly, causing a delayed reaction and a larger distance to cover.
“It throws the timing off and you just have to go farther than you want to run the calf down,” Gervais said. “It wasn’t quite what I was looking for.”
After a one-event break, he was back out for the steer wrestling.
“I was really happy with my run and I scored good, but I hung my foot in the stirrup, which has only ever happened to me twice in my career,” Gervais said.
“It was just one of those freak things and it probably cost me about a second. There was a point where I wasn’t sure if it was going to come out or my boot was going to come off.”
Gervais rode in Williams Lake on June 30, then he drove the majority of the 12-hour drive back, slept for a few hours and then was out at the Airdrie rodeo grounds.
He said the long days of travelling can take its toll, but that the quick turnaround can be advantageous, as it offers cowboys the opportunity to either get right back out there and make amends from a poor performance, or keep the momentum going from a strong one.
“You need a short-term memory when things don’t go good, but when they go well, you want to try and ride that high, obviously into the next event,” Gervais said. “It’s really nice to have another rodeo to go to right away, and in my case right now, I feel like I’m roping and steer wrestling really well, so absolutely you want to get back to another one right away. I’d like to have a rodeo everyday.”
He said his season has been pretty good already, having placed at a number of events, but that he really wants to step it up during this time of the year.
“There is so much money up and you need to cash in at least one of these big ones in order to make the Canadian Finals,” Gervais said. “That’s my goal.”
He has thought about focusing on just one event, especially if he’s doing consistently better in one or the other during a season, but said he enjoys both events so much that it would tough to remove one of them.
“And it gives you two chances of winning money – and I’m confident that I can make the Canadian Finals in both,” Gervais said.
