Professional bull rider Ty Elliott doesn’t own any livestock, but he sure finds himself working with them a lot these days. And not just in the rodeo ring.

Last week, he was helping his buddy and fellow bull rider Tyler Thomson rope a cow on his Black Diamond, Alta. ranch. The beast’s horn had curled down and started growing into the side of its head, and needed to be trimmed.

This week, he was out at Scott Schiffner’s ranch in Strathmore, applying his other trade as a welder to build steel fences for the legendary bull rider.

“I don’t have any cattle, but all my friends do so they keep me pretty busy,” laughed Elliott in a phone interview, the constant mooing of Schiffner’s recently weened calves sounding off in the background.

It has been the busiest year yet for Elliott. He and Thomson racked up 130,000 kilometres in Thomson’s Dodge pickup travelling to rodeos. He won a year’s lease for winning the CPRA (Canadian Professional Rodeo Association) championship last season. Elliott reckons he visited 100 events all over North America this year.

“We’ve had more travel this year than I ever have. We probably hit close to 40 rodeos in Canada alone. We drove the wheels off her (Thomson’s Dodge),” grinned Elliott.

In just one week, Elliott competed in three events – he placed sixth at the Saskatoon Pro Rodeo (Oct. 11), then got skunked at the NILE Pro Rodeo in Billings, Mont. (Oct. 14) and the Hamilton Invitational last Saturday.

“It’s very humbling,” said Elliott, who has earned more than $60,000 so far this season. “You’ll be on top for a while then all of a sudden you fall off a few bulls you shouldn’t have.”

Elliott has three CPRA tour wins this season – Grande Prairie, Airdrie, and the tour final in Calgary, which he won last year as well. It helped him secure the No. 3 ranking heading into the Canadian Finals Rodeo (CFR), Nov. 11-15 at Rexall Place in Edmonton.

The Calgary win also guarantees him a bye to next year’s Calgary Stampede. In his debut this year, Elliott made the final eight, which is pretty good considering he and girlfriend, Hailey Keenan, were busy moving into their new place in Turner Valley (a few kilometres up the road from Black Diamond) that week.

With more than $1 million in prize money, the CFR can change a cowboy’s fortunes in a hurry. Elliott, who was ranked No. 1 heading into last year’s event, only had two successful rides and still hauled in nearly $11,000.

“That’s when a guy can make or break his year. A guy can go from having a crappy year to having an outstanding year at the CFR,” said Elliott.

Another highlight for Elliott this year was competing with Team Canada at the PBR (Professional Bull Riders) World Cup in Sao Paulo, Brazil in August.

Canada finished third overall behind the U.S and host Brazil, and Elliott says it was such a different feeling to compete as part of a team. When he’s competing at regular rodeos, Elliott always wants his friends to do well, but he also admits deep down he always wants to beat them.

“It’s a completely different deal,” said Elliott, of the Team Canada experience. “It was a team concept this year. I was cheering as hard for everyone else as I was for myself.”

One cowboy that Elliott wants to see do well in particular is his little brother Clay, who went in for surgery last week to fix a torn ACL. He’ll spend the next six months recovering.

“He’s been training colts and started riding broncos a bit ago,” said Elliott. “He does pretty well at every event.

“His knee just kept falling out on him on a regular basis, so we finally got him t