2020 RFD-TV’s American runner-up Colby Lovell will head for 2018 World Champion Heeler Paul Eaves for the remainder of the rodeo season, kicking off their campaign by placing at the Coleman (Texas) PRCA Rodeo with a 4.8-second run this weekend.
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Lovell is currently seventh in the PRCA world standings with $28,143.21 in earnings, while Eaves is 12th with $18,793.61.
“We’ve been friends for a long time,” Eaves, who started the year with Cody Snow, said. “We’ve hung out a lot and roped as second partners for two or three years. I’ve roped a lot behind him, so I’d say we’ll get along and that doesn’t hurt. He heads outstanding. He has a lot of game. He’s a great quarterback. He can run in there and catch, and he can go fast.”
[Related: Snow and Nogueira Pair Up in ProRodeo’s Latest Partner Swap]
Snow, who won the average at the Finals in December heading for 2019 World Champion Wesley Thorp, swapped from Eaves to Junior Nogueira this spring after Nogueira’s partner Kaleb Driggers decided to head for Cory Petska. Lovell had been heading for young-gun Jared Fillmore, who will now heel for Clint Wallace.
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“Paul and I live about three hours apart, but we’ve roped a good bit so far,” Lovell said. “We’re entered at the BFI, then Prescott, Cody, Oakley, Vernal, Belle Fourche, Mobridge, and wherever it takes go from here.”
Eaves will campaign this year on his bay roan gelding Guapo, aboard whom he won his gold buckle, as well as a brown mare he bought from Nogueira.
[Listen: The Score with Colby Lovell]
“The best thing about Colby is that he understands the value of a good horse, and that he’s got to have one,” Eaves said. “He doesn’t want to just get by on an average horse. That wouldn’t be fun for him. So he does what it takes to have a good horse.”
Lovell will ride Bartender, the 12-year-old grade bay roan gelding that he calls the best he’s had this year. TRJ
