I'm ready to win

It's been going good lately, but I want to win.

If you want to win bad enough you have to just go out there and do what it takes to win, and – honestly – fourth or fifth isn't winning first. Yeah, it's good, but at the end of the day the only guy you remember is the guy who won first and that happens to be Adriano and Dustin this weekend.

Don't get me wrong I really am happy to be doing well, however, both weekends a fourth and fifth place finish has come to me because I let one get out from under me. It's not like I did everything right and ended up finishing fourth and fifth--there's definitely room for improvement.

I have faith that I can win and that's just me. I do have confidence in myself and I think if I didn't have that confidence I wouldn't be where I'm at right now, but that goes for all the guys in the Top 45.

The Built Ford Tough Series is really hard to explain. It's so grueling and it takes a toll on your body. Like this weekend: nobody rode three bulls. There were guys in and out of the sports medicine room all night both nights we were up there in Chicago.

It also starts to take a toll on you mentally.

You get bucked off a few bulls in front of all your fans or your family and what not and you start to wonder. Say you're a young guy like me and Pistol or Jimmy Lathero; you want to step up there and you want to do good and you want to impress those guys who you've watched your whole life. You want them to think, "Hey, this kid has what it takes to be here."

There are all these pressures rolled into one association--the PBR and you have to deal with that every weekend. It's way more than bull riding.

I've heard many of the guys talk about how they're ready for a break – they're ready for some weekends off – but all the guys you hear saying that are the guys who are sore and kind of beat up and what not. You don't hear that from the guys who don't have those nagging injuries that have been tearing them down. Brendon Clark, Clayton Williams, Guilherme, he's sore, all these guys are hurting and they're ready for a break.

I don't have anything against them for wanting a break and I can see why, but, me, I probably won't take a break. Yeah, I have to go to Tandy and let him take a look at my finger – I'm sounding like a girl – but I do have to get it looked at. I don't think it's as bad as Tandy was saying it was, but whenever I find out how bad it is then I'll know if I'll be taking a break or if I'll be entering all the Challenger events and still going every weekend and still getting on practice bulls.

So I'm not ready for the break and I don't even like talking about my finger because nobody hurts as bad as Chris Shivers. That guy is amazing. That is one of the toughest son-of-a-guns I know.

He got slammed and most guys would have been knocked out before the gate even completely opened, but some how or another Chris managed to walk out under his power.

I know that guy has got to be hurting. I was walking down the hall and I passed them when they were taking him to the sports medicine room and there was blood everywhere. I was thinking, "Man..." and then I watched the replay and it was pretty vicious.

The good news about Chris is that he'll take a couple weeks off, then he'll come back and it'll be like it never happened. He's pretty intense and you have to be one tough son-of-a-gun to take a hit like that and walk out under your own power and know what's going on.

He's taken some big hits before, but he always comes back and that's why he's the two-time World Champion and most of us are struggling to win one.

I just want to keep on keeping on.

Obviously there are going to be times when I have to ride hurt and times when I'm hurt bad enough that I have to sit out, but the difference between somebody that is going to be a World Champion and somebody who's not is the World Champion knows when it's time to sit out and when it's time to ride.

I love being around those guys that are world class bull riders like Guilherme and Justin McBride, J.W. and Chris and all those guys because you can learn so much. You learn the mentality and what it takes to be a World Champion.

Basically what I've gathered from those guys is that it takes heart, try and determination and you have to be a cowboy. Sometimes you just have to suck it up and go on with it--whether that be riding at the PBR World Finals with a broken leg or being halfway through the year and you have a little broken finger.

If you want to win the world you have to keep going.

You just have to know how to handle it, how to stay poised and just go in there week in and week out and do your thing. You can't let everything get to you. You can't let bucking off a few bulls get to you. You can't worry about what the fans say or what the media says about you.

You just have to go take care of business. That's what bull riding is about.