Medicine Hat, Alberta will be home to the country’s best bull riders tomorrow, with a list that includes Kindersley native and current PBR Canada number 1 Dakota Buttar taking centre stage

Buttar spoke with West Central Online before his time in Medicine Hat, sharing how his season has been so far.

“It was kind of a slow start to the year, but things have been picking up and been a little more consistent now,” he said, “Happy with it so far, but there is still quite a bit of points left. About a month and a half left in the year.”

Buttar has 22 events under his belt so far this year, with his showings leaving him in a good enough place to feel comfortable about his shot at defending the PBR Canada title. His ride percentage is at 65%, as Buttar has just over 210 points on the season, putting him just over 40 points ahead of second place Cody Coverchuk from Meadow Lake. Buttar’s lead when it comes to earnings is even larger, as he has about 13,000 more than Coverchuk sitting at $26,300.98 won on the year so far.

Still the money and points isn’t what is driving Buttar towards his current attempt at the title, as he is used to setting his goal at the start of the year and sticking to it.

“This year no one really knew what was going on for events, so when we found out stuff was going I just decided to stay in Canada again. I’d like to win another PBR Canada title. That’s where I’m shooting for this year, I’d like to try and achieve that goal.”

Buttar has had the choice to compete down south for some time, but has obviously committed to his Canadian chase for the second year in a row. After he let the opportunity slip one to many times he decided to commit to competing in Canada, but does have a good idea of what his next set of dreams in bull riding are.

“For myself I’d like to go to the NFR, the rodeos in the states. That’s kind of the other goal I set for myself to get to the NFR in Vegas. It’s a work in progress, it’s kind of a couple years where you have to qualify for big rodeos the following year. I’m hoping I qualify for some big rodeos this winter, so I can make an NFR run next summer.”

This weekends event will be the start of another decent stretch of rodeo for Buttar, as following the Thunderbuck in the Badlands he will be in Calgary, then Saskatoon, before competing once again at the PBR Canada Finals taking place in Edmonton on November 12-13.

The west central native is one of the biggest names in professional bull riding, and you can expect to hear about his performance in Medicine Hat next week.