North Battleford bull rider eyes national final victory after ‘roller coaster’ season

A conversation a few weeks earlier helped him reconsider how he saw the year. He recalled complaining about his season when someone reminded him what he had already secured.

“Well, at least you’re in the finals for sure,” he recalled being told.

Other competitors were still trying to qualify.

“I’m in a position that a lot of guys would kill to be in right now,” Fennig said.

Wyatt Fennig of North Battleford competes in bull riding during the 54th annual North Battleford Kinsmen Indoor Rodeo at the Access Communications Centre on Friday, April 24, 2026.

He had started the year in shape, with winter practice behind him and the feeling that he was ready. Then he struggled to complete rides.

“When I was riding good, I was riding really good. When I was riding bad, I was riding really bad,” he said.

A win in Montana, where he was the only Canadian rider, helped change his season. He returned with renewed confidence and rode well through much of June and July.

“It wasn’t too often they bucked me off for there for a while, so that was probably the best stretch of the whole season,” he said.

At Grunthal, Man., and Trochu, Alta., he rode both his bulls and finished second. He felt some of his best riding came at Trochu, where he scored 167 points over two rounds, even though it did not produce the win he wanted.

“It makes me mad a little bit that I didn’t get an event win because I’m a guy that should have at least one, and it eluded me all season. So, what better way to cap off the year than by winning the finals to make up for all that,” he noted.

The busy stretch also brought travel, soreness, and minor injuries. His riding wrist bothered him for much of the year. He kept competing, then began struggling again.

North Battleford bull rider Wyatt Fennig rides Elk for 85 points in the short round at the Bull Riders Canada event in Grunthal, Man., on June 5, 2026.

North Battleford bull rider Wyatt Fennig scores 81.5 points at a Bull Riders Canada event in Edgerton, Alta., where he finished fourth overall. (Video Credit: Durk Films/Instagram)

Fennig believes he had worn himself down. Taking time off after returning from Ontario helped him ride well when he came back. He now thinks an earlier break might have helped him avoid some of that struggle.

“I think I just needed a little bit of time to be home and settle down and come back 100 per cent instead of 50 per cent,” he said. “I gotta learn to listen to my body.”

Next season, He is also trying to be less hard on himself.

“If it goes really good, I’ll remember that, and if it goes really bad, then I’m gonna try to forget that it even ever happened,” he said.

For now, he is preparing for the finals, where he hopes a victory can make up for the event wins he wanted elsewhere.

“I’m hoping God has a plan and lets me win the finals because that would trump all the event wins,” he said.

Beyond the finals, he is considering a new role: a rookie in Professional Bull Riders Canada, a decade after he first started riding bulls.

Still just 25, he already describes himself as an older rider among BRC competitors as young as 16 to 18.

“You’d think it’d be the other way around. The young guys looking up to the old guys, but I’m the old guy looking up to the young guys,” he said.

“They’re excited all the time, and they keep a guy feeling young in this sport for sure… I want to try to keep that youthful spirit in me.”

Wyatt Fennig, right, pictured with his brother Chance at the North Battleford PBR Classic in July 2019. (Image Credit: File photo/battlefordsNOW)

He began riding steers at 13 and bulls at 15. He still has footage of his first bull ride and has been looking through old videos as he reflects on the past decade.

“I really struggled to get good at this sport when I first started. It took years and years and years. I’m just getting to the point now where I dreamed of being when I first started,” he said.

He has entered PBR events as a local competitor but has never owned a PBR card. As he explained it, starting a season as a carded member would give him the year to pursue Rookie of the Year.

“I’ve been waiting till I feel like I want to take a run at it. That’s my strategy. So I think next year’s the year,” he said.

He plans to put in work over the winter and is considering buying his card at the Lloydminster PBR Winter Classic. He would keep riding in BRC events, too, with the aim of qualifying for both finals.

North Battleford bull rider Wyatt Fennig, left, poses for a photo with bull-riding legend Scott Breding during the Blue Creek Rodeo near Billings, Mont., on the weekend of May 30-31, 2026. (Image Credit: Wyatt Fennig)

The friendships he has made through rodeo remain part of why he loves it. So does the feeling after a successful ride: getting off the bull, landing on his feet and knowing a big score is coming.

He has tried skydiving. Even that, he said, does not match it.

“It’s an adrenaline rush that’s out of this world,” he said.

“There’s nothing that even comes close to how good that feels. And you know, if that feeling didn’t exist, I wouldn’t be riding bulls.”

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Kenneth.Cheung@pattisonmedia.com

by Kenneth Cheung

North Battleford bull rider eyes national final victory after ‘roller coaster’ season

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