“Having that ride right out of the gate really boosted my confidence,” Weborg said. 

Weborg rolled out a 70.5 in the second-go and was sitting in first place heading into the short-go. After 19 other riders had gone, the youngster was sitting good but still needed a great ride. 

“The pressure gets on you pretty good,” Weborg said of the moment before the chute opened. “You just have to take it like any other round before that and trust in your preparation.” 

His father Tony was in the stands, “I was probably more nervous than him,” he said. 

Weborg laid down a good ride but father and son had to wait for a few moments before the scores came up. 

“When he nodded his head I knew he had done everything he could with the steer,” Tony Weborg said. 

When the final tally was announced Taos Weborg was crowned bareback riding world champion at the Junior High National Finals Rodeo. His score of 220 edged Bluffton, Alabama’s Quaide Skjonsberg (219). 

“When they announced my name I found my dad for a hug and then I had to go get ready for an interview on the Rodeo Channel,” Taos Weborg said. 

Burke eighth grader Taos Weborg is the World Champion bareback rider from the Junior High National Finals Rodeo in Georgia.

Entering the short-go of the bareback riding competition, Highmore’s Talon Ping needed a great ride to hold off a number of riders that were trying to nudge him from third place. Ping won that short-go with a score of 70.5 and finished as the third best junior high bareback rider in the world. 

“I had a pretty good steer in the short-go,” Ping said. “I spurred him and I knew I needed to score a lot of points.” 

Ping said he was pretty excited about the result and doing well at the Junior High National Finals Rodeo was something he wanted to do all year. For parents Travis and Katherine Ping, the third-in-the-world performance was the result of all the hard work they witnessed first hand.  

“It was really rewarding,” Katherine Ping said. “He puts lots of time into this. He’s really dedicated, focused and sets goals so it was nice to see all that hard work pay off.”

Weborg and Ping are good friends and have competed against each other since they were youngsters in 4-H Rodeo. 

Weborg said having Ping around, and in the hunt, helped his own riding. 

“I know him really well and we’ve been friends for a lot of years,” Weborg said. “It helped a lot and we were cheering each other on the whole time.” 

Ping, who will be a freshman in Highmore next year, finished 12th in the bull riding and Weborg finished 17th.