FORT WORTH — As Cody Lambert assembled a pen of the world’s top bovines for the Feb. 20 Professional Bull Riders tour stop at Cowboys Stadium, it took lots of careful planning.

The PBR’s longtime livestock director used the world standings as a main guide. A field of 43 animals earned the right to buck at the major show on the merits of national rankings.

For example, the final round featured 2009 world champion Code Blue, whose home is in North Carolina.

At the Arlington-based tour stop, the champion was determined by a tournament bracket format for the first time in the PBR's 17-season history. It was a radical departure from the traditional method of determining the champion by an aggregate score from three or four rides.

The Dickies Iron Cowboy Invitational featured a field of 24 riders who competed before more than 46,000 spectators on Feb. 20. In the finals, two cowboys each faced Code Blue.

Brazilian Valdiron de Oliveira clinched the title and earned the coveted $260,000 prize, a record champion’s payoff at a PBR single day show. New Mexico cowboy Travis Briscoe pocketed $40,000 after finishing second.

In the first three rounds, riders were paired and faced a comparable bull. But in the semifinals and finals, each cowboy faced the same bull.  

Under that tournament format, Lambert worked diligently to recruit comparable bulls for each match between riders. In some cases, it meant looking over score sheets from previous events and pairing up elite bulls that historically had very similar scores from judges. In other cases, it simply meant looking at the top of the 2009 world standings.

“Some of bulls didn't have the same bucking style, but they were worth the same amount of points, meaning that I felt like they were equally hard to ride,” Lambert said. “If one of them was tricky, I tried to pair him up with another one that was tricky. If one of them was really strong, I tried to put one that was strong in the same match.”

Part of setting up the bracket was simple. Knowing that the same bull would be used during the semifinal and final rounds, Lambert used the top three bovines from the PBR 2009 World Champion Bull title race.

After Code Blue was slotted for the finals, the semifinals brackets were filled with Voodoo Child and Big Tex, which finished No. 2 and No. 3 in the 2009 world title race. From there, Lambert filled the rest of the bracket with other top-ranked bulls with names like Chicken on a Chain, Bones and Black Pearl.

“I tried to make the bulls as equal as possible where it's certainly a riding contest rather than what the cowboys drew,” he said.

Not slowing down      

Allen Bach is holding his own against world class competitors who are half his age.

The 52-year-old former world team roping heeling champion tied for third in the first round of the San Angelo Stock Show. He and his partner Derrick Begay each pocketed $1,506 catching their steer in 5.2 seconds.

“I’ve been blessed to stay healthy all of these years,” said Bach, who also is an ordained Christian minister and the founder of Forever Cowboys, a national organization that aids the Cowboy Church movement. “I do things to stay in shape such as playing basketball--I now play in a men’s basketball league with 20 year old kids.”

Bach, who made headlines in 2006 when he clinched his fourth Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association world team roping title at age 49, said he thrives on maintaining a wholesome mental outlook.

“I think guys (team ropers) who are our age have an edge mentally, but the physical aspect is what begins to challenge us,” Allen Bach said. “But, I’m blessed in both areas.”

In the money

Lindsay Sears, a former Texas Tech star who has homes in Nanton, Alberta, and the West Texas town of Ropesville won the barrel racing title on Feb. 20 at the San Antonio Stock Show Rodeo. The 2008 world champion earned $17,112.

In tie-down roping, Trevor Brazile of Decatur snared the tie-down roping title and pocketed $16,593. Brazile also pocketed another $1,556 in team roping, pushed his all-around total for the season to $47,017. Brazile is nearly $29,000 ahead of last year’s pace in his pursuit of a record-breaking eighth all-around gold buckle.

Brett Hoffman has written a rodeo column for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram over the past two decades and he’s a Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame member. Email him at brett@myrodeoinsider.com.