COLUMBIA FALLS, Mont. — Azreal “Azzy” Lara has two goals when he heads to Las Vegas this week to defend his title at the Junior World Finals Bareback Riding Championships: Have fun and return home as a two-time junior world champion.
No matter what happens, the 16-year-old has decided to retire the jeans he’s worn — without washing — on hundreds of successful rides over the past four years.
Whether those jeans deserve the credit or not, Lara has reason to believe they’re a lucky charm. Since he started riding bareback competitively around the age of 11, the young rodeo rider said he’s only been bucked off maybe four or five times.
As much as Lara loves the adrenaline rush of a successful 8-second ride atop a bucking bronc, he’d prefer a horse that offers a boring ride out of the chute to one that’s too wild.
“I don’t like getting bucked off,” Lara said.
His mom, Natasha Alejandre, can confirm that’s most dreaded part of the sport for him.
“He holds on real good, he really does not like to get bucked,” she said about his secret to piling up ride after successful ride.
Before The Bucking
As any bareback fan knows, both the horse and ride are integral to a high score.
In the days before he heads to Nevada, Lara has been logging time doing his normal workouts, which include practicing on a spur board to improve his technique.
Once in Las Vegas, he’ll learn which horse he’s drawn the night before each of three rounds of competition, which begins Thursday.
Lara will try to glean as much information as possible ahead of the ride.
“That tells me how the horse bucks and what I can do on it and what I should do on it,” he said.
That type of mental preparation is something Lara has been honing with the help of his trainer, Logan Corbett, a former pro bareback rider who retired in 2021.
Even though there will be plenty of opportunity for fun and meeting new people while in Las Vegas, Alejandre said she’s impressed by her son’s approach to the sport: He prioritizes getting a lot of sleep — he’ll be in bed by 9 p.m. most nights — and tries to relax a lot.
“As a mom, you always think your kid is the best, but he’s amazing,” Alejandre said. “He really knows what he’s doing.”
The Championship Ride
That scouting and training paid off when Lara won the short go to become the 2023 junior world champ.
He drew a paint bronc named Pirate, and had a huge ride right out of the chute.
Lara had great form, leaning way back in the saddle with spurs high as Pirate gave a great effort to throw his rider. But Lara was in control for all 8 seconds.
“That’s the kind of bucking horse cowboys dream about,” one announcer says in the livestream video of the ride.
“That young man right there must’ve had that bucking horse on his Christmas wish list, and Santa delivers early.
He put up a huge 85.5-point ride to secure the win, and knew it. Lara was clearly excited with the ride.
Building A Bad Azz
While Lara has to wait until he’s 18 to qualify for a pro rodeo card, he’s already getting a taste of what life might look like as a pro bareback rider. He’s securing sponsorships, making connections and sorting out financial aspects of the sport.
Thanks to the urging of one of his cousins, Lara reached out to Milen Krastev, the master tailor and leather craftsman of Whitefish-based Mad Leather, who offered to make him custom chaps and a vest, complete with his “Bad Azz” nickname.
He’s also secured sponsorships from a handful of local businesses and for the past two years, he’s been ponying up the entry fees for rodeos where he competes.
In Vegas, a group of nearly 20 family and friends will be there to cheer on Lara. And even if he can’t see them while being whipped around on a bronc, he can hear them.
“It’s a lot of adrenaline,” he said of those 8-second rides.
While he said it would be a “big deal” to return home as a two-time world champion, the teen is also focusing on ways to improve in the sport.
Some of the Vegas prize money, if it comes Lara’s way, will go toward buying new rigging —the main equipment used in bareback riding, sometimes referred to as a suitcase handle.
A custom-made rigging tailored for his hand could cost upward of $1,000, he said.
Regardless, 2024 already has been a successful year. Lara ranked sixth in his division in the Billings-based Northern Rodeo Association with total earnings of nearly $4,700, and was named rookie of the year at the finals in October.
He placed eighth in the National High School Finals Rodeo in Rock Springs, Wyoming, in July.
Lara’s favorite ride of his career so far also came this season at a rodeo in Darby, Montana, in August. That’s where he scored 81 points atop Backcountry Babe.
“It was fun,” he said. “It was a good ride and the horse bucked good.”
He has plenty more of that to look forward to this week in Las Vegas.