A winning repeat

Saratoga High School senior, Tuker Carricato took the World Champion National High School Finals Rodeo (NHSFR) in bareback for the second year in a row. Scoring 84.0 points to win the short go-round of bareback bronc riding on Saturday, July 22 at Gillette’s CamPlex Center. This is his second consecutive NHSFR title with a three-head score of 240 points. He was one of seven cowboys and three cowgirls from Wyoming to finish in the top 20 in the average.

Carricato has been riding bareback in rodeos for six years. He said to get to the National Finals is not easy. “Every state will take four kids in each event to go to the high school finals. You have to qualify to go to state and it’s not really easy.”

Carricato said he believed there at least 70 contestants.

He said it felt pretty good to win again because there’s a lot of competitors. “It takes a lot of hard work.”

Carricato said there have been a few that have won back-to-back, but not recently. When he did some research, he found four in the last 75 years that had won back to back.

Carricato said the support from everyone has helped a lot. “Just having someone behind you, saying you can do it. It makes you feel a lot better to just keep going on every day. It’s pretty hard to do everything alone.”

This next year will be Carricato’s last opportunity to ride in the National High School finals and says he is definitely trying for a three-peat.