Elliott earns opening-night victory

Friday, May 14, 2004 | 9:58 a.m.

One way or another, it has always been about the draw for Dustin Elliott.

In his spare time, Elliott, a 23-year-old bull rider who resides in Maxwell, Neb., likes to sketch, and is particularly fond of drawing the snorting, ornery beasts that he rides, or least attempts to ride. He's good enough as an artist that he has sold a couple of his favorite drawings.

But on opening night of the $500,000 Pace Picante ProRodeo Chute-out at the Orleans Arena Thursday, it was a drawing of another kind that helped Elliott produce a 92-point masterpiece.

He drew, as in out of a hat, a bull named Phantom, of the Beutler and Son rodeo company. After pocketing $3,916.67 for his first-round victory, Elliott said he might even draw him again.

With a pencil this time.

"I'll get some pictures of him, and with the photographer's permission, I might draw this one," Elliott said of his unusual -- for a rodeo cowboy, anyway -- hobby.

"My grandpa used to draw a little bit and I've been drawing stick figures ever since I can remember. I enjoy it. It passes the time and it's just fun. Besides, I know I can't ride bulls forever."

But if he can ride them for two more nights as he did Thursday, Elliott's first trip to Las Vegas -- and that's business or pleasure -- will be a memorable one.

"I'm already $27 ahead on the blackjack table," he grinned.

Elliott, in just his second year on the PRCA circuit, is something of an unknown quantity in the chute, and the same goes for the bull he rode.

"He was just a good bull, he just spun right there to the left -- I really can't tell you much about it," he said. "He was just f-a-a-st. I just kept trying and trying and trying, and all of a sudden the whistle blew.

"I only had seen him once before, and he comes from one of my circuit's contractors. That bull was hurt all year -- he almost cut his leg off, I guess, out in the pasture. It was a freak deal. That (the bull was able to recover) just shows the way we take care of our stock.

"He had a reason to live, and he showed it tonight."

During the first half of the round, it appeared Phantom and his pen pal's reason for living was evening the score against some of the world's best bull riders.

The first four riders were bucked off, and Freddie Mercury -- "Another One Bites the Dust" -- was getting a workout on the public address system before B.J. Schumacher of Wisconsin, the world championship leader, finally made it to the whistle with a 90 1/2-point ride. That held up for third place, just behind Jerry Shepherd's 91. Only six of the 12 finalists were able to stay on board.

Other winners Thursday were Jason Havens of Bend, Ore., in bareback riding (87 pts.); Luke Branquinho, Los Alamos, Calif., in steer wrestling (4.9 sec.); Tee Woolman, Llano, Texas, and Kirt Jones, Piedmont, Okla., in team roping (4.9 sec.); Glen O'Neill, Disbury, Alberta, Ryan Mapston, Geyser, Mont., and Rod Warren, Big Valley, Alberta, in saddle bronc riding (tie, 87 pts.); Blair Burk, Durant, Okla., in tie-down roping (7.5 sec.); and Jackie Dube, Giddings, Texas, in women's barrel racing (13.27 sec.).

Dube's time was an event record.

By virtue of their victories, which will be applied toward the "average" for the Chute-out's first two rounds, Thursday's winners are in the driver's seat. All qualifiers will compete again tonight, with the field being trimmed to the top eight in aggregate/average in each event for Saturday's semifinal round. The top four in the semis will compete in the final round, where scores and times will be erased.