HIGHLIGHTS: Aussie scores big at San Angelo

HIGHLIGHTS: Aussie scores big at San Angelo

SAN ANGELO, Texas – Australian Toby Deudney scored the biggest ride – and the biggest win – of his young career during Saturday’s San Angelo Cinch Chute-Out.

The driving force, of course, was his dance partner, Pickett Pro Rodeo’s Night Crawler, the 2023 and ’24 PRCA Bareback Horse of the Year. Deudney racked up 93 points in the chute-out round to win the title and $7,500.

“I had the best time ever in San Angelo,” Deudney, a 20-year-old bareback rider from Tumut, New South Wales, told The Cowboy Channel’s Hayley Novak. “I won’t forget it.”

It’s a relatively short drive back to Ector County, Texas, where Deudney is a student at Odessa College. In fact, he entered this weekend as the No. 2-ranked bareback rider in the Caprock Region, where he’s had some success. He has placed among the top five at four rodeos in the region’s season so far, so those are the building blocks he needs. If he closes out the intercollegiate campaign among the top three in the region, he will advance to the College National Finals Rodeo, set for mid-June in Casper, Wyoming.

He spent the 2025 season competing on his permit, then he acquired his PRCA card this year. Prior to Saturday night’s ride inside CRC Roofers Coliseum, he was seventh in the Resistol Rookie of the Year race. His earnings at San Angelo should move him to within the top five.

The big ride stood on its own through the final night of the 12-performance rodeo. There were 10 competitors in each event except for barrel racing, which had just seven ladies in the opening round. The top three scores then advanced to the clean-slate chute-out, where the top scores and fastest times took the titles.

Deudney was the first contestant out in the championship round, setting the tone early. Night Crawler is an electric bay that has been featured in the “TV pen” of bareback horses at the National Finals Rodeo. This past December, Cooper Cook scored 89.75 points on the mare in the 10th round. The year before, both Dean Thompson and Leighton Berry were 91 on Night Crawler. She’s had a dozen trips where cowboys have scored at least 90 points.

Saturday’s ride marked just the third time in Deudney’s young career that he’s won a rodeo. Earlier this year, he won the first round of the La Fiesta De Los Vaqueros in Tucson, Arizona.

Other winners were steer wrestler Tyler Waguespack (3.9 seconds); tie-down roper Tom Crouse, who won the tie-breaker with Kyle Lucas, (7.5 seconds); barrel racer Jana Bean (14.35 seconds); team ropers Nelson Wyatt/Jonathan Torres (16.1 seconds); saddle bronc rider Blake Steuck (88 points on J Bar J Rodeo’s Straight Moonshine); and bull rider Tristen Hutchings (86.5 points on Pete Carr Pro Rodeo’s Bone Tomahawk in the first round; none of the bull riders had qualified rides in the chute-out round).