Wild Card gives Mortensen a winning hand

Thursday, Dec. 2, 1999 | 4:14 a.m.

PRCA

Dan Mortensen

World titles: 1993-95, '97-98 World Champion Saddle Bronc Rider; 1997 World Champion All-Around Cowboy

Hometown: Manhattan, Mont.

Date of birth: Dec. 16, 1968

Height/weight: 5-11, 150 pounds

1998 earnings: $227,378 (SB)

1998 NFR earnings: $96,550

Joined PRCA: 1990

NFR qualifications: 9 (1990, '92-99)

It was the perfect ending to an almost-perfect season: The already-crowned world champion saddle bronc rider drew the saddle bronc horse of the year in the 10th and final round of the 1998 National Finals Rodeo.

Both delivered.

Dan Mortensen rode Sankey Rodeo Company's Skoal's Wild Card for 88 points, tying an arena record and closing out a 1998 season that was one highlight piled on another for the Manhattan, Mont., cowboy.

Four nights earlier, Mortensen clinched his fifth world saddle bronc riding title in six years.

Mortensen, who also won the world all-around championship in 1997, became only the second cowboy in PRCA history to win five or more world saddle bronc riding titles in a career.

The legendary Casey Tibbs, immortalized by a larger-than-life bronze statue in front of the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs, Colo., won six. Brad Gjermundson and Clint Johnson have each won four. Tibbs, Gjermundson and Johnson are already members of the Hall of Fame.

"Brad, Clint, those guys were my heroes," said Mortensen, who will likely someday join them in the Hall of Fame. "They'll always be my heroes.

"I never had the opportunity to meet Casey Tibbs. He's one of the all-time greatest ever. And he always will be. I hate to put myself in that kind of company."

But, Mortenson already holds his own in the company of saddle bronc riding greats.

The 30-year-old champ overcame a slow '98 NFR start -- he was bucked off his second mount -- to win five of the final seven rounds. The Big Sky cowboy won the fourth, fifth, seventh, eighth and 10th rounds, and clinched the '98 world title after the NFR's seventh round.

Mortensen earned $96,549 at the NFR and finished 1998 with a PRCA single-event, regular-season record of $227,378.

He became the first single-event competitor to earn more than $200,000 in a year.

Mortenson was later joined in that elite circle by calf roper Cody Ohl and barrel racer Kristie Peterson as the Finals progressed.

"I had an awesome Finals," he said. "The last seven rounds were outstanding. I don't think I could have done any better if I did it over again.

"But you come down here with expectations of having a Finals like that because of the outstanding horses you're going to ride. You know it can be done. You get an opportunity to ride the best bucking horses in the world. That's all a guy can ask for.

"I still love riding broncs. I can't think of anything else I'd rather be doing."