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Scott Wells was a long way from his home of Queensland, Australia, when he climbed on a bull in the middle of a Sutter County windstorm.
Beyond the chute, sweeping gusts of air rustled dirt under the relentless sun, sending up fast copper clouds that went lashing off the arena floor. Little did Wells know it, but the flexing acre of bone, mass and muscle he was settling down on – a bull named Iron Banana – had even more of a Devil inside him than the sooty dust-devils being conjured by the wind.
Wells started making a name for himself about two years ago, not long after he’d come to the U.S. via Western Texas College to start riding bulls in the circuits. He’d already gone eight seconds to score in San Antonio, Texas, and Greeley, Colorado. The PRCA noted that he’d proven he had “dreamed big, spanning continents and large bodies of water.”
Now, the 23-year-old was going for the purse at the first-ever Sutter Buttes Showdown in Yuba City. Any money he could walk away with would help him qualify for the PRCA’s National Rodeo Finals in Las Vegas.
One can’t read the minds of bulls; but if they tried in the next few seconds, their guess might be that Iron Banana didn’t want Wells to walk away at all.
The chute released – and the beast made a hard, high bolt out of the gate.
Wells held down for this first thrust of explosiveness.
The Aussie braced himself against six more bucks before his nemesis threw him with a turning twist-kick. Iron Banana has a 75% buck-off ratio, so there was no surprise that he just out-trashed another cowboy. But what was unexpected was that, almost as soon as Wells met the dirt, Iron Banana turned to lock-in on him. The animal was just feet away as he leveled his eyes and head at Wells: Lowering a little, he was readying for something like a 12-gauge powertrain horn-punch.
“Get him out of there!” announcer Garrison Allen shouted.
Iron Banana’s hesitation for a mili-second was enough for three bullfighters to jump in from every direction. They managed to avert disaster right as the bull’s breath was on the back of Wells’ neck. Even when the rider was clear, the toro rode into a trotting prowl through the arena, looking for his next target.
“That could have gone a lot of different ways,” Allen said with some reflective relief. “I think that just ended about as good as it was going to end.”
Ten minutes later, Jesse Petri from Dublin, Texas, gave the Mid-Valley fans a show, battening down against every buck to stay put until the buzzer sounded. Petri’s flawless up-and-down ride gave him a late lead in the breeze-battered showdown.
The combination of unexpected thrills and excitement between Wells’ and Petri’s contests is what veteran rider Chad Denton intended when he brought the inaugural event to Yuba City on Sunday.
“I was pleasantly surprised with the turn-out,” said Denton, who for years was a professional in PBR and PRCA. “No one could have predicted the wind, but we did the best we could, and our production team did fantastic – and the riders did great on some very, very tough bulls.”
While it was his first-time throwing an event in Yuba-Sutter, Denton – who lives in Butte County – has hosted extreme bull-riding brawls in Nevada. He calibrates every aspect of a rodeo based on his own life experience as a competitor. That approach ended up drawing top riders from South Dakota, New Mexico, Colorado and Montana to Sutter County. However, hours before the action started, gale force winds knocked power out at the fairgrounds. Denton says that Yuba City’s Jas Thiara of MIS Inc. showed up with a massive generator and saved the day.
“We ran the whole event off that generator,” Denton stressed. “You know, it takes an army to put on this kind of event, but the whole community just rallied around us. To me, it showed that Yuba City wants something like this.”
Throughout the afternoon, nine of the 40 bull riders present got their “8-seconds-to-glory” with qualified rides. But the biggest winner of the showdown was 19-year-old Jeter Lawrence from Council Hill, Oklahoma. Four months ago, Lawrence came back from a serious 2024 head injury to win an extreme bull-riding event in San Antonio, Texas.
“Doctors said he would never ride again,” the announcer in San Antonio told the crowd after Lawrence went the distance. “Doctors said he would never walk again. Yet, here he stands with a qualified ride.”
Lawrence, who’d had his head collide with a bull’s skull in Oklahoma City, had previously finished 8th in the world for the 2024 season before getting hospitalized for weeks with a brain bleed. He arrived in Yuba City coming off the heels of his February 2026 victory in the Lone Star State. Once the struggle was over, Lawrence walked away with the Sutter Buttes Showdown’s top purse of $8,742 and a set of silver spurs.
“Man, that’s the life of a bull rider for ya,” Denton observed later. “You’re always on a come back.”
Continue reading...
Beyond the chute, sweeping gusts of air rustled dirt under the relentless sun, sending up fast copper clouds that went lashing off the arena floor. Little did Wells know it, but the flexing acre of bone, mass and muscle he was settling down on – a bull named Iron Banana – had even more of a Devil inside him than the sooty dust-devils being conjured by the wind.
Wells started making a name for himself about two years ago, not long after he’d come to the U.S. via Western Texas College to start riding bulls in the circuits. He’d already gone eight seconds to score in San Antonio, Texas, and Greeley, Colorado. The PRCA noted that he’d proven he had “dreamed big, spanning continents and large bodies of water.”
Now, the 23-year-old was going for the purse at the first-ever Sutter Buttes Showdown in Yuba City. Any money he could walk away with would help him qualify for the PRCA’s National Rodeo Finals in Las Vegas.
One can’t read the minds of bulls; but if they tried in the next few seconds, their guess might be that Iron Banana didn’t want Wells to walk away at all.
The chute released – and the beast made a hard, high bolt out of the gate.
Wells held down for this first thrust of explosiveness.
The Aussie braced himself against six more bucks before his nemesis threw him with a turning twist-kick. Iron Banana has a 75% buck-off ratio, so there was no surprise that he just out-trashed another cowboy. But what was unexpected was that, almost as soon as Wells met the dirt, Iron Banana turned to lock-in on him. The animal was just feet away as he leveled his eyes and head at Wells: Lowering a little, he was readying for something like a 12-gauge powertrain horn-punch.
“Get him out of there!” announcer Garrison Allen shouted.
Iron Banana’s hesitation for a mili-second was enough for three bullfighters to jump in from every direction. They managed to avert disaster right as the bull’s breath was on the back of Wells’ neck. Even when the rider was clear, the toro rode into a trotting prowl through the arena, looking for his next target.
“That could have gone a lot of different ways,” Allen said with some reflective relief. “I think that just ended about as good as it was going to end.”
Ten minutes later, Jesse Petri from Dublin, Texas, gave the Mid-Valley fans a show, battening down against every buck to stay put until the buzzer sounded. Petri’s flawless up-and-down ride gave him a late lead in the breeze-battered showdown.
The combination of unexpected thrills and excitement between Wells’ and Petri’s contests is what veteran rider Chad Denton intended when he brought the inaugural event to Yuba City on Sunday.
“I was pleasantly surprised with the turn-out,” said Denton, who for years was a professional in PBR and PRCA. “No one could have predicted the wind, but we did the best we could, and our production team did fantastic – and the riders did great on some very, very tough bulls.”
While it was his first-time throwing an event in Yuba-Sutter, Denton – who lives in Butte County – has hosted extreme bull-riding brawls in Nevada. He calibrates every aspect of a rodeo based on his own life experience as a competitor. That approach ended up drawing top riders from South Dakota, New Mexico, Colorado and Montana to Sutter County. However, hours before the action started, gale force winds knocked power out at the fairgrounds. Denton says that Yuba City’s Jas Thiara of MIS Inc. showed up with a massive generator and saved the day.
“We ran the whole event off that generator,” Denton stressed. “You know, it takes an army to put on this kind of event, but the whole community just rallied around us. To me, it showed that Yuba City wants something like this.”
Throughout the afternoon, nine of the 40 bull riders present got their “8-seconds-to-glory” with qualified rides. But the biggest winner of the showdown was 19-year-old Jeter Lawrence from Council Hill, Oklahoma. Four months ago, Lawrence came back from a serious 2024 head injury to win an extreme bull-riding event in San Antonio, Texas.
“Doctors said he would never ride again,” the announcer in San Antonio told the crowd after Lawrence went the distance. “Doctors said he would never walk again. Yet, here he stands with a qualified ride.”
Lawrence, who’d had his head collide with a bull’s skull in Oklahoma City, had previously finished 8th in the world for the 2024 season before getting hospitalized for weeks with a brain bleed. He arrived in Yuba City coming off the heels of his February 2026 victory in the Lone Star State. Once the struggle was over, Lawrence walked away with the Sutter Buttes Showdown’s top purse of $8,742 and a set of silver spurs.
“Man, that’s the life of a bull rider for ya,” Denton observed later. “You’re always on a come back.”
Continue reading...
