After growing up and finding huge success early on in his career, Trey Holston found himself with a rodeo scholarship to Fort Scott Community College in Kansas. It was 2020, and the first lull of his bull riding life hit.
“We got to see a side of me that we’d never seen before, gained some weight, less care, finances were down so we really started seeing a downward spiral that I hadn’t seen before. I didn’t handle very well,” Holston said.
Holston’s 2020 would end with an unexpected twist. After going to Arlington for the National Finals Rodeo, he wound up at Troy Flaharty’s place where he took a job on the whim. This job turned out to be just what he needed.
Holston says he really has a love of working with metal, welding and bit and spur making. He stayed for three days and it took off.
“[I] loved every minute of it. I learned that I had a lot to learn… We started a whole new leaf turn there leaning how to balance school back in Kansas, being at Troy’s shop in Hico on the weekends, and working a lot of hours while I was there and a lot of drive time in between. It kind of showed me where I wanted to go,” he said.
Holston worked for Flaharty for a couple years and one of the things he learned in that shop is that sometimes things are as simple as black and white.
Fast forward and Holston felt like something was missing. He watched the boys he grew up bull riding with takeoff at a professional level. It was one in particular at the 2021 NFR that brought Holston back to the arena and that is Josh Frost.
“I don’t know what it was about watching Josh but seeing that on The Cowboy Channel, all 10 rounds of that, and seeing how he carried himself and everything was like that’s where I’m supposed to be. I’m missing that, that’s what’s missing, the whole thing right there,” he said. “I can’t do this without bull riding, I’m meant to be a bull rider, that’s why God put me here.”