Some 50 days before its finals, the 2023 PBR tour comes to the Pit this weekend.
It’s a big field of athletes coming to town and looking to ride bulls for eight seconds. But PBR says its top-ranked rider, Jose Vitor Leme, is out for this weekend’s Ty Murray Invitational after getting “banged up” last weekend in New Orleans.
It presents an opportunity for No. 2 Dalton Kasel, who is 107.5 points out of first place. But he is having a standout season with two titles under his hat.
The PBR itself, on its website, says that Kasel “has to be the odds-on favorite to make some noise this weekend inside The Pit as the tour’s hottest rider will look to surpass Leme for the first time this season.” Kasel has a pair of the exclusive one-round wins alongside a close second-place effort in Indianapolis via an epic 92-point score atop Tulsa Time
Even with 15 cowboys listed as out due to injury or for other reasons, it nonetheless is a loaded field for competition beginning Friday,
Among those expected to compete: No. 3 Kaique Pacheco, who won the 2018 world title; No. 4 Andrew Alvidrez, who has cooled off a bit since his early-season run as the tour’s top contender, and No. 5 Cooper Davis, the 2015 World Finals event winner and 2016 World Champion; No. 7 Rafael Jose de Brito and No. 8 Daniel Keeping.
The Ty Murray Invtational is one of eight remaining regular season events leading up to Finals Week, May 12-21 in Fort Worth.
This weekend’s title sponsor for the Ty Murray Invitational is The Downs Racetrack & Casino.
