King of the Hill… At home and in the Canadian standings: Homegrown, Darin and Lori Eno’s bull was named Canada’s Bull of the Year after one last performance in Saskatoon on Fri. Nov.
22 and Sat. Nov. 23. Here Homegrown, originally named Spudz for his love of potatoes, lingers in one of Eno’s bullpens at the ranch near Coronation on Fri. Nov. 23. ECA Review/T.Huxley
Eno Bucking Bulls has taken the top spot once again after Homegrown was named Bull of the Year at the Professional Bull Riders (PBR) Monster Energy Canadian Finals in Saskatoon this past weekend.
Darin Eno is proud of the bull’s results throughout the 2019 season.
“I mean a guy is proud of it and that’s what you raise bulls for is to have hopefully one of the best so when you can win Bull of the Year then it’s saying that he was the most consistent, best bull for the year so it’s pretty exciting I guess. And you just turn around and hope for next year,” said Eno.
Eno finds that animals, much like humans, have attitudes all their own.
With Homegrown, he was struck by his “heart and brains”.
“I just believe that the treatment of them and the handling and the care and everything is a real part in em’. It’s like anything; you take an athlete, a hockey player or football player or baseball player or curler. They got to eat right, treated right, be put in the right situations to reach their potential and really that’s all my job is.
“It isn’t because I train them. Lots of people think [and ask] ‘How do you train a bull to buck?’ Well you don’t. It’s in them.
“How do you train a kid to play hockey? I don’t. It’s in them and I just give them the opportunities and hope they perform,” Eno explained.
He continued, “I mean they all aren’t going to. Anyone can go out there and build a bull conformationally correct or close so the build of them looks athletic and everything else but it doesn’t mean he’s going to buck. It’s the heart, it’s the mind.
The Coronation local even had someone ask to clone another one of his most successful bucking bulls to replicate its genetics.
“I wouldn’t do it because you can’t clone the heart and you can’t clone the mind. I can clone them and make the DNA exact but I can’t do that. And that’s the difference, right?
“What makes anything great? Their mind. Their mind thinks differently than the rest. They handle the situations and put out the effort. There is a lot of other factors into it than just that,” said Eno.
Homegrown. ECA Review/T.Huxley
No. 1 Homegrown had a razor-thin, 0.4- point lead over both No. 2 Happy Camper, who entered the season-culminating event attempting to become the first-ever two-time PBR Canada Bull of the Year, and Uptown Funk.
To be eligible for the 2019 PBR Canada Bull of the Year honour, a bull must have logged a minimum five outs at PBR events on Canadian soil.
The 2019 PBR Canada Bull of the Year is the bovine athlete with the best average score of his top five regular season outs and high-marked trip at the 2019 PBR Canadian Finals.
In addition to receiving the coveted buckle, the Bull of the Year will also be presented with a $3,500 bonus.
The bovine athletes in Saskatoon will also be competing for the 2019 PBR Canada Bull of the Finals honour and accompanying $1,000 bonus.
Each of the 73 bulls set to buck inside the SaskTel Centre are eligible for the award to be presented to the highmarked bull of the event.
Concluding the season with a league-best 44.5-point average, Homegrown made his second consecutive PBR Canada Finals appearance on the heels of his PBR World Finals debut.
As one of the 10 Canadian bucking bulls selected to compete at the prestigious event in Las Vegas, Homegrown earned two trips, marked 43.75 points each time – for his 6.65-second buckoff of Ryan Dirteater (Hulbert, Oklahoma) in Round 3, and 7.58-second buckoff of Derek Kolbaba (Walla Walla, Washington) in Round 5.
Homegrown recorded 18 outs across all levels of competition in 2019, ridden just twice.
He was first covered by João Ricardo Vieira (Itatinga, Brazil) for 87 points at the Unleash The Beast stop in Billings, Montana in April.
PBR Canada title contender Dakota Buttar (Kindersley, Saskatchewan) then reached the 8-second whistle on Homegrown, marked 87.5 points on the Touring Pro Division in Coronation, Alberta in August.
Among his Top Five scores on Canadian soil this year, the Eno Bucking Bulls’ athlete was twice marked a career-high 45 points. Homegrown first recorded the marks in June in Falher, Alberta when he dispatched Logan Biever (Claresholm, Alberta) in 5.47 seconds.
He repeated the top score in August in Stavely, Alberta, for besting Nick Tetz (Calgary, Alberta) in a swifter 3.99 seconds.
Unabomber sets tone
This isn’t the first time the Eno’s have struck gold when it comes to genetics and heart.
Unabomber was a world-class bull, claiming multiple titles throughout his reign in the mid to late 2000s.
In 2008 and 2009, Unabomber was named the Canadian Bull of the Year by the PBR.
“He was dead for two years and was still in the top 15 bulls in the world,” said Eno. Close behind, within 0.4 points and tied for second in the bull standings alongside Uptown Funk, Happy Camper who was on the verge of making history as first-ever two-time PBR Canada Bull of the Year.
Terri Huxley
ECA Review
