Born to ride

At the start of the second semester at Jay County High School in Portland, Indiana, senior Tyler Manor sat down with his high school principal to work out a new schedule.

Manor was getting started on his professional bull-riding career - his first pro ride was Oct. 29, 2022, one day after he turned 18 - and he needed to make sure he could still get his schoolwork done.

"We got all my classes arranged online so that I'm able to travel and do my school," Manor said. "I'm just trying to ride my bulls and keep on this tour."

After strong rides in Greenville, South Carolina and Rainsville, Alabama, Manor got invited to make his debut with one of the Professional Bull Riders' premier series, the Unleash the Beast Tour.

His debut came Feb. 3 in Sacramento, where he placed sixth and did well enough to earn invites to events in Tulsa and Oregon the next two weeks.

"The child has always been a gracious, loving, considerate kid, and he's got a lot of natural talent," said Amy McQuillan, his grandmother. "Just loves to ride bulls, has really worked hard at it, and is doing really well for his age."

Amy and her husband Joe opened Mack Arena on State Route 29 in Wabash in 1996, and Manor was around the rodeo from a very young age - so young, Amy McQuillan remembers him coming to his first bull ride right after he left the hospital.

When he was 6, the McQuillans started buying him miniature bulls to ride during the arena's Saturday night rodeos instead of sheep or calves like many young riders.

"Not only did Tyler have the talent, natural talent, he had the want," Amy McQuillan said. "He wanted to do it and he wanted to do it the correct way. He works out, he does everything he can to be in shape and do it the right way."

By 13, he had moved up to riding full-size bulls and he started competing at rodeos around Ohio and Indiana.

Unlike other sports, there's not a lot that can be done between rides to improve technique. Working out helps maintain necessary strength, but there's a limit to the benefits.

"There's not much you can do with strength as a rider," Manor said. "You're not going to outpower a 2,000-pound animal. It's a lot of technique - meet at the front and setting at the kick. Whenever the bull rears, you want to be driving over the front, and whenever he kicks, you want to be setting your hips down to where you're on your rope. "

As such, getting in as many rides as possible is key. Manor's best ride came last summer at a rodeo in Richwood, where he posted a score of 91.

But a move up to the PBR requires an invitation, plus being at least 18. When Manor's 18th birthday was coming up, he reached out to the PBR, which offered him a spot on the Challenger Series in Evansville, Indiana.

"I just knew that I had to keep it to the basics, and not let the big three letters (PBR) scare me," Manor said.

He hit eight seconds on his first bull, scoring an 82, and was bucked off his second to finish seventh. But it was two months before he got to make his second pro ride, this time on the Pendleton Whisky Velocity Tour.

After getting bucked in Denver and Charleston, West Virginia, Manor turned in a strong showing in Greenville on Jan. 20, recording two successful rides with scores of 84.50 and 81 to earn second place. A week later in Rainsville, he put up a score of 86 on his third ride and finished third.

Three days later, he got invited to move up to the Unleash the Beast tour at the PBS Wrangler Long Live Cowboys Classic in Sacramento. He lasted eight seconds on the first bull and scored an 89, but after he leapt off, the bull stepped on his chest and broke a couple ribs.

Looking back, Manor shrugged off the injury. To date, he's avoided anything more serious.

"I've been around the sport my whole life, and I know he's going to get hurt at some point, but no matter what they're in, there's that chance of injury," Amy McQuillan said. "So we've just done everything we could that he knew the proper way to compete in the sport. But as the saying goes, 'It's not if you get hurt, it's when and how bad.' We hope and pray it never happens, but that's part of the sport."

Broken ribs or no, he was coming back that Sunday for his last two rides, and his second scored 87.75 and moved him into first place. The third bull threw him in a little over four seconds, dropping him to sixth.

"My (second) bull was better, and it was the combination of the two scores from Friday night and Sunday," he said. "Then I had a good bull, but I bucked off."

The sixth-place finish earned Manor invites to Tulsa last weekend and then Oregon this weekend. In Tulsa, he was thrown twice, the second time after just 2 1/2 seconds when his hand came out of the rope.

Now sitting 44th on the tour, he has to pick up enough points in Oregon to move into the top 35 in order to continue qualifying. If not, he'll be back home waiting for another invite.

His grandmother said that before Manor got his pro shot, he was still riding at Mack Arena on the weekends, just like when he was a kid.

"That's pretty much how it's been since I was eight," Manor said. "That's what I told myself I was going to do and I wasn't going to stop.

"I always wanted to ride at that level, so the first chance I had to get into one of those, I took it."