Drake & Ross Strike in Round 1

Kavis Drake & Denim Ross went 4.2 at the opening night of CFR 50 for the Round Win

"We knew that steer, we actually run him in Lethbridge. I knew that he was a really good steer, I knew he was gonna break from the chute good and take it good so I just said to Denim, I'm gonna bring heat, it's the first round so we might as well try to win the round". And that's exactly what the young duo of Kavis Drake and Denim Ross did on Night #1 of the Canadian Finals Rodeo to pocket $11,100/man and inch them closer to their dreams of becoming Canadian champions.

"Kavis got a great start, we had that steer in Lethbridge earlier this year so we knew he was good. Kavis just got a great start and got it on him fast and my job was just to heel him as fast as possible", Ross reflected.

The pair of best buds took full advantage of their good draw, stopping the clock in 4.2 seconds to best the field by nearly 1 full second. When asked about the run, Ross described it as "A dream come true. I haven't had much luck in any of the rounds here and it felt good to get the first one caught fast. It was amazing."

On the other side, Drake struggled to find the words to describe his first ever run at the Canadian Finals, "It was rank man, I don't even know how to describe it. I can still remember the run really good but it was after the run when I was getting the steer out of the arena, that I totally blacked out. I don't even know how I got my rope off the steer man, I just blacked out."

*Video by Rein Equine Marketing*

With last night's win, the pair's earnings go up to $41,418 on the season, to jump Drake into the driver's seat on the head side and inch Ross closer to the #1 man, Jeremy Buhler, in the heeling. The gameplan from here on out is pretty straight forward says Drake, "You're probably going to see me take that throw for the rest of the week, whether we're winning the average or not, I'm going to take that same throw. Me and Denim, we practiced about 47 different CFR scenarios this week, we went fast every single day. There was one scenario where we had caught 4 clean and really fast and Denim told me, "Okay, this is Round 5, all we have to do is catch to win Canada" and I took an extra swing and hickied a horn. So now I know, no more extra swings, we just gotta keep going at em."

Drake wasn't the only first timer to find success in Round #1 last night at Rogers Place, fellow rookies Logan Cullen & Landen Glenn also got the job done with their respective partners to hit the pay window. Cullen and his partner Levi Simpson, cashed in $8,253.85 for their 2nd place run of 5.1 seconds while Glenn and Kolton Schmidt went 5.2 for $5,407.69 and a 3rd place finish.

Round 2 is less than 6 hours away, stay up to date on all of the team roping action right here.