For three-time National Finals bull rider Ky Hamilton, being a cowboy is something he came by naturally. He grew up in Queensland, Australia where his family rodeoed but it was watching the PBR at the age of 12-years-old that Hamilton got the itch to ride bulls.
“My grandfather, he was probably the big inspiration on the cowboy thing. He was, kind of, the first guy I remember growing up as being the real, standout cowboy in the family and I always wanted to go live with my grandfather and my grandmother on my dad’s side because they had a nice property and they had all the horses. But I was never allowed to unless it was on holidays but that’s where it all started,” Hamilton said.
His mom and dad were supporters of his bull riding career from the start, driving him all over Australia until he had a license. When Hamilton came to the US for two weeks for the National Junior High Finals Rodeo when he was 15, that’s when the thought of rodeoing full time in America came about.
“My family, they’ve always been behind me and always done whatever they could to help me out,” Hamilton said. “My mother’s parents, they’re great influences too. They’ve helped me out a bunch in getting set up over here and that kind of thing. I’m pretty lucky when it comes to family.”
When he came to the US for the second time in 2017 is when he met the man who would become his college rodeo coach, CJ Aragon, who was coaching for Odessa College. Hamilton said he never thought about college, he just wanted to ride bulls in America.
“The more I kind of found out about the college things, it made more sense to start off there because coming over here first thing at 18, I didn’t hardly know anyone except for my college coach and there was maybe one or two Australians that were over here at the time that I kind of knew,” Hamilton said.
College rodeo made Hamilton’s start easier but even then, he says it was about a year before things really clicked for him.
Hamilton bought his PRCA permit in 2019 with no goals other than win money. It was the last three months of the season that he realized he could try to make the Texas Circuit Finals. He went on to do just that before he would take on the Stockyards every Friday and Saturday night in the winter of 2019 to hone in on his skills even more.
“At the time I was staying at Cody Lambert’s house and he asked me, he said ‘have you been watching the NFR’ and I said ‘yeah, I’ve been watching it every night’ and he said called me down one day and he said ‘that’s where you should be going next year’ and it was funny at the time,” Hamilton said.
Hearing that from someone of Lambert’s caliber is what Hamilton said can lite a fire under someone and from there, he had a goal and knew where he wanted to go. The Aussie went on to qualify for his first NFR in 2020 and has made it every year since.