Rodeo Fame Winter 2016 WNFR Special Edition | Page 24

RFM

BRN • Born To Be Bad

Born To Be BAD!

BRONC
RIDING
NATION
Written by Lori O'Harver

The equine acrobats of the WNFR got here on purpose!
Check out some of the horses, their managers, agents
and the alchemy brilliance that brings the thrilling best
of the best to Las Vegas.

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Craig At Midnight, Powder River Rodeo's
PRCA Bareback Horse of the Year.
Photo by JackieJensenPhotography.com

said his owner, Lori Franzen. “We’re especially proud of
the bareback riders of the Class of 2016 for choosing a
genuine bucking horse, not opting for the easy to ride.”

CRAIG AT MIDNIGHT – He tips the scales at close
to 1,700 pounds and uses it all to his advantage when
he bucks. The Powder River Rodeo Company bred and
owned, Bucking Horse Breeder’s Association registered,
10-year-old PRCA Bareback Horse of the Year is the
reincarnation of ProRodeo Hall of Fame foundation sire,
Tooke’s Gray Wolf. A quick look at his papers will tell you
he came by it honestly.

VIRGIL – Dale Kling is a bucking horse man. The
first time he laid eyes on C5 Rodeo’s PRCA Reserve
Champion Bareback Horse, Virgil (the son of John
McNeely’s Big John out of Apple, a product of Canada's
world record holding Franklin program) he was still wet.
When the big colt was a yearling, Kling gave him to
McNeely as part of Big John’s lease agreement. A year
later, he’d be consigned back to Kling’s Breeder’s Classic
Bucking Horse Sale.

Craig At Midnight is by Cut The Cards, also the sire of
Miss Congeniality and thirty-something other WNFR
stars. KC Rocket is his dam; a daughter of Fettig Rodeo’s
Banker and out of a Gray Wolf mare who came directly
off of the Tooke Ranch in Ekalaka, Montana. He was
born on the Powder River Ranch in Riverton, Wyoming.

Mo Betta Rodeo Company bought the big gray 2-yearold and started him at the Cody Night Rodeo. Virgil
was spectacularly wild in those early days of his career,
but that all left as he settled in to being the great,
rank bucking horse that earned him the respect of the
bareback riding community.

“Our ranch foreman, Craig Roe, is 6’7” and when he’s
out on the town, he will cut loose on the dance floor.
Craig At Midnight was a big colt, a little clumsy as a 4
year-old. We turned him back out until he was 6 and
what a difference that maturity made! My husband,
Hank watched him buck and said, ‘He reminds me a
lot of Craig at midnight.’ That’s how he got his name,”

Virgil was 5 years old and bucking at Rodeo Houston
when Vern McDonald made him part of his C5 bucking
horse string. Since then, he’s been from Ponoka, Alberta,
to the West Coast and down to Texas for an appearance
at RFD-TV’s The American. Near his birthplace in Grassy
Butte, North Dakota, Virgil cracked into the 90 Point
Club at the Maah Daah Hey Stampede.

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