From Saskatchewan Ranching to the Bright Lights of Edmonton, Braden Brost is CFR Bound

Brost doing what he does best... setting it down for 2 toes. Photo By Wildwood Imagery

Consul Saskatchewan's Braden Brost put together a Big-Time season heeling for Levi Schmidt this year, racking up $18,600+ in season earnings and a qualification to his first Canadian Finals Rodeo. The pair picked up a win early at the Medicine Hat spring rodeo, placed in the 4-Man Showdown Round at the Ponoka Stampede and made some other great runs throughout the summer to punch their tickets to Edmonton. From a fence line in Southern Saskatchewan, it was great to chat with Brost as he took a break from being a 'working cowboy' to answer some questions about his breakout season.

Question: What's it like? How does it feel to be going to your 1st CFR?

Answer: It's pretty cool. It's kind of a relief for sure, it was a little stressful there at the end, but we got the 1st CFR made and I'm pretty excited. We needed one more good run for like the last 3 weekends and it just didn't seem to happen. We just couldn't get anything going. We really left it down to the last weekend and I guess it worked out.

Question: What was it like roping with Levi? How'd you guys end up roping together?

Answer: It was really good. We didn't decide to rope together until last February or March. We were in Arizona and had kind of talked about it, then we did some winning at some jackpots and decided we were going to rope. We got along great all year. It was hard to travel with me being from Consul and him being from Barrhead but we always seemed to kind of meet in the middle and we travelled good together. We got along and had a really fun season. We had some ups and downs but when we were on a roll and winning lots it was really fun.

Question: What horse did you ride for most of the season?

Answer: I rode my roan horse for most of the year and then he actually came up sore with an abscess the week of Ponoka. We had roped in Ponoka and when I unloaded him in Raymond, he was three legged sore with an abscess so I couldn't ride him. I had to mount out and use Denim Ross's horse in Williams Lake and then he let me on his good roan in the Short round in Ponoka. Rocky brought him there for me and that made our year. Without them letting me on him in the Short Round, there's a good chance we wouldn't have made the Finals.

Question: What's your rope of choice?

Answer: Cactus's Thrilla Hard Medium, every time.

Question: What was your favorite rodeo of the year?

Answer: I'd say my favorite rodeo was Ponoka this year. It was my second year there and it's just so cool. Lyle Kurtz puts up so much money there and it's awesome. Running em down the alley, it's just so unique compared to every other rodeo. It's pretty hard to beat Ponoka for us this year, getting to rope in the 4-man round with those guys and stand shoulder to shoulder with them, that's pretty cool.

My favorite committee would be La Crete though, I got to go there for the first time this year. That was pretty cool, we hung out there for a few days and the hospitality there is crazy. It's pretty fun to be there.

Question: Who's been the biggest influence on your roping career?

Answer: Definitely my dad. He's helped me lots with roping calves and then with my heeling. He's definitely helped me the most with my roping. Still to this day if I'm struggling with something, I go back to the practice pen and he's there to help. He's always kept us mounted with good horses. He's always made good horses and let me and my brother ride them so he's definitely helped us out the most.

Question: What's your future goals/plans?

Answer: I'd like to make the CFR a handful more times. I'm still young yet so I'd like to keep rodeoing up here for quite a while. I got lots of young horses and when they get of age here, I'd like to start getting into the futurities and just keep training horses and selling horses and just ranching. It's pretty sweet up here, even driving from where we are in Saskatchewan, it's nice that most times we're home from Monday through Thursday.