One-man team

Diné College freshmen leading all-around race

WINDOW ROCK

Tuba City rough stock cowboy Wyatt Betony couldn’t have asked for a better start in his first collegiate rodeo last September.

Betony made a huge splash by winning the bull riding aggregate while placing second in the average race in the bareback event.

That feat earned the all-around title and since then he has helped change the landscape in college rodeo.

Betony is currently leading the all-around race with 1,292 points and he is expected to make the 68th annual College National Finals Rodeo in both disciplines later this summer.

The significance of that is not lost on the Diné College freshman.

“I’m not real surprised but I think this is just a bonus,” Betony said. “I know that I can get a lot of points if I can stay on my draws but that is what I’ve been doing all year long.”

So far this season, Betony said he’s rode about more than half his bulls as he leads that race with 485 points, which is 255 points better than Navajo Technical College bull rider Archie Becenti Jr.

In the bareback event he has amassed 807 points and trails event leader Tristen Rio Lee by a large margin. Lee heads the group with 1,305.

“I’ve known Rio since our high school days and we’ve always battled,” Betony said, while adding that he has a good relationship with the Cochise College freshman.

Betony said he’s looking forward to nationals, but he’s more tickled that he’s qualified in the bareback event since it’s something that he just got started.

“I really don’t work at as much as I should but I just like to get on,” he said. “My dad rode bareback and it just runs in the family.”

Betony, who is the only member on the men’s rodeo team, is studying health and as of last semester he finished with a 3.2 GPA.

“There were challenges,” Betony said. “I kind of got off track with my studies because I had a lot of free time.”

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