Bareback Rider Leighton Berry Rebounding Big From Career Threatening Injury

By: Kendra Santos

Leighton Berry’s young bareback riding career was going gangbusters. He qualified for his first Wrangler National Finals Rodeo in 2020, won the first round and cashed checks in several others. Then it all came crashing down last January—literally—when a horse flipped on him in the chute at the Sandhills Stock Show & Rodeo in Odessa, Texas.

“I tore a ligament in my spine, and compressed the T12 and L1 vertebrae,” said Berry, 22, who lives an hour from Cowtown Coliseum in Weatherford, Texas. “I had spinal-fusion surgery, and had to sit out the first seven months of the 2021 rodeo season.”

He returned in August at the Dodge City Roundup Rodeo in Kansas, and has a whole new outlook on life after coming so close to missing out on the rodeo magic he started.

“I appreciate everything about life more now,” he said after an 88-point winner on the back of J-J Rodeo’s Bunny Hugger last night at the $360,000 Cowtown Christmas Championship Rodeo in the historic Fort Worth Stockyards. “When I got hurt, I had to give every ounce of my faith to the Lord above to see me through. I knew God had a plan—and He did. I know He’s not done with me.”

Clearly not, and Berry advanced alongside Triple Crown of Rodeo contender Clayton Biglow out of last night’s performance to tonight’s seven-man Showdown Round. The top three will move along one more time to the Triple Crown of Rodeo Round. Because Biglow won the Days of ’47 Cowboy Games & Rodeo in Salt Lake City last summer, he has a shot at a second-straight win tonight and taking another big step toward the $1 million Triple Crown of Rodeo bonus that will be awarded to any rodeo athlete who wins three consecutive WCRA majors.

This is Berry’s first World Champions Rodeo Alliance event, and he likes what he sees.

“(Four-time World Champion Bareback Rider and WCRA President) Bobby Mote likes to see change in rodeo,” Berry said. “He’s trying to make this sport better, and that’s a big part of why I look up to him as a world champion bareback rider and a human being in general.”