BY BRETT NIERENGARTEN
After never finishing better than No. 24 in the world, South Dakota cowboy Jace Melvin is headed to his first Wrangler NFR in 2020.
Melvin, who enters the National Finals No. 7 in the world, was in a pretty comfortable position for the most of the season. Still, he says it didn’t sink in until after his last run at the ProRodeo Tour Finale.
“I was in the short round at Rapid City.....When I got done that night was when I was like ‘okay, I’m going to the NFR. I got it,’” he said. “I just wanted to hold myself accountable for the whole season. People say ‘oh you’re good’ and ‘you got it made,’ I wanted to keep my foot on the throttle.”
JACE MELVIN - 3.9 SECONDS AT PRORODEO TOUR FINALE
Melvin collected $1,500 at the Tour Finale, but his biggest moneymakers came early in the season at the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo and the National Western Stock Show and Rodeo.
Before February rolled around, Melvin had already won more than $5,000 in Denver thanks to a third-place finish and three runs of 4.4 seconds or less.
In San Antonio, Melvin placed in two rounds, including the Championship Round, and won close to $10,000.
JACE MELVIN - 3.6 SECONDS TO WIN PERFORMANCE 7 IN SAN ANTONIO
Melvin had two outright rodeo wins in 2020.
He won the Barnes PRCA Rodeo in Peterson, Iowa and the Alamosa Round-Up in Colorado. He also notched Go-Round wins Mesquite, Texas and Crossett, Arkansas.
Overall, he shaved about half-a-second off his average time for the season and said fellow bulldogger Jule Hazen was a big help to him in doing that.
“There’s nothing in particular that he pointed out, just little things you can do speed one steer up this way or speed one steer up that way,” he said. “I think overall throughout the year just implementing little tweaks to your style in certain situations speeds up your run and allows you to place on a steer that maybe you shouldn’t.”
Melvin has earned $46,225 this season. His career-best is $55,405, which came in 2019.
He says this season was a unique experience because athletes had to get out of their comfort zone all of the time.
“This year, you had to try different things on steers to try to win something.”
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