“I want to be a world champion.” Pokey Houghton's journey to the top of junior bull riding
Landon “Pokey” Houghton’s journey to the top of the junior bull riding circuit has been rapid and unexpected.
Growing up playing travel baseball since the age of seven, Houghton had a change of heart when he was 12.
His heart called for bull riding, even though he had never ridden a bull before.
“It’s just kind of something I saw,” said Houghton, now 16 and close to earning his driver’s license. “I just went to a rodeo and it just kicked off from there.”
Houghton’s first time in a competition was four years ago in the eighth grade in Tremonton while riding a junior bull.
Calves tend to range from 600 to 700 pounds. From there, junior bulls are about a ton.
Fully grown bulls can reach up to 1,200 pounds.
A year into his riding career, Houghton qualified for nationals on the junior bulls.
Due to COVID-19, however, the event was canceled.
Upon entering high school, riders move up to full-sized bulls.
Expecting a learning curve, Pokey shocked everyone, including his family, qualifying for nationals at that level.
“That felt really good, but I wasn’t satisfied,” Houghton said. “And I’m still not satisfied, but it felt good to know I could compete with the big boys.
Last year, the high school national finals were in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Pokey’s rise continued to the Utah High School Rodeo Association state meet, finishing fourth in the state of Utah in 2021.
Houghton placed behind Bill Henry (Manila), Trace Redd (Uintah), and Kade Madsen (Honeyville).
Even with the immediate success, Houghton felt a definitive change.
“The power is stronger. They’re faster, they’re stronger. They know what they’re doing. When you’re on them, you can feel everything," he said.
To get ready for his first time on a bull, Houghton met up with close friend Garrison Cannon.
Cannon, a St. George native, participated in two Professional Bull Riders events.
Houghton practiced on a drop barrel, which is essentially a barrel with a long pipe coming out of the end of it.
The barrel simulates the motion of riding a bull.
Mechanical bulls, on the other hand, “that will teach you bad habits.”
After the first rodeo, Houghton was hooked.
“The bulls were just so big to me,” recalled Houghton. “They all had horns and everything. It was nerve-wracking but also really fun.”
For his father, Brad, a former college baseball player at Utah Valley University, the decision to support their son was an easy one.
“One day he just came home and said ‘I don’t want to play baseball, I want to ride bulls’,” said Brad, a Spanish Fork native, where baseball and rodeo reign supreme. “Whatever he wants to do, we’re going to support. Whatever it is. We didn’t honestly realize the danger until we had gotten into it a little bit.”
Landon realized the danger of the sport while watching the sport on tv or on YouTube.
His eyes really opened to what might happen in the ring when he got stepped on by a bull and broke his pelvis.
The broken pelvis is just one of the numerous injuries Pokey has sustained over four years.
Landon has broken his arms, legs, and even broke his back four months ago while competing, but the love of the sport keeps bringing him back.
“Just the adrenaline. I don’t know, honestly. I just love it. I just want to keep riding. Nothing is going to stop me.”
When Houghton gets onto a bull, he’s locked in.
While in the chute, he checks his hand and leg grips and makes sure his spurs are dug in.
“I don’t really think about anything. It’s like a completely different person takes over. When I’m on that bull, I can’t even tell you what I did. There’s sometimes where I’ll get off that bull and I’ll ask my buddies, ‘did he go right or left?’”
For those brief moments, Houghton and the bull are one.
“You’re so focused. I can’t hear anything. I can’t hear the music, the crowd, nothing. It’s just me and that bull.”
Recently, Houghton traveled to Nebraska to compete in a bull team event, held by Jess Lockwood.
Lockwood was the Professional Bull Riders rookie of the year in 2016 at the age of 18. A year later, he became the youngest PBR World Champion. Lockwood won the award again in 2019.
“In the bull riding world, Jess Lockwood is like Elvis,” Brad said.
Pokey added his own comparison to the bull riding superstar.
“He’s like Tom Brady.”
Bull team events feature pairs of teammates, each of whom gets to ride two bulls.
Houghton was personally invited to participate after one of the original invitees dropped out and was able to take a shot at riding Lockwood’s personal bulls, who have been featured at PBR Finals.
“They’re the bulls that, if you turn on the tv on Sunday afternoon, that’s what you see,” Brad said.
At that event, and like most others, Pokey was the youngest rider there.
“Every big event that I go to, I’m always the youngest one there. That doesn’t phase me at all,” said Pokey, saying his age doesn’t put a chip on his shoulder. “I just have to go out there and ride. I just have to do my job I just have to ride my bull.”
Houghton’s first go-round on Lockwood’s bulls went just three or four seconds. Pokey found himself out of position early and was bucked off quickly.
In his second run, Pokey managed six or seven seconds before getting bucked off.
His partner was bucked off in about seven seconds on both of his runs.
Pokey and his riding partner finished 10th out of 30-40 teams, according to Houghton.
Regardless of the results, being around a two-time world bull riding champion was quite the experience for the Dixie high schooler, especially after being personally invited to the event.
“Just being by Jess Lockwood and being around him the whole weekend, it teaches you something,” Pokey said.
While Houghton certainly admires and looks up to the 24-year-old Lockwood, the title of PBR World Champion is something he wants for himself one day.
The invite to Lockwood’s event in Nebraska isn’t the only invite he’s gotten from a professional bull rider.
Beaver native Stetson Wright invited Pokey to the Stetson Wright Invitational, an invite strictly event.
Wright was the 2020 World Champion Bull Rider in the Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association. Eight of the top bull riders in the PRCA were at the event.
The drive to become a state or world champion doesn’t just happen overnight or strictly in the pen.
Houghton’s workout regimen is intense, being in the gym five days a week in two-hour sessions and getting on the barrel as often as he can.
Brad describes his son as a gym rat.
The natural talent from the baseball field and the gridiron, where Pokey was a two-way starter growing up, has carried over.
That, coupled with his propensity to get in the gym, has led Houghton to become one of the best young bull riders in the country.
“I think just winning and excelling is just a credit to him and his hard work and his desire to not be mediocre,” the older Houghton said.
Houghton then turned to his son and asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, to which his son responded with a smile, “A world champion.”
“That’s the answer that you get at whatever is with him.”
This weekend, Houghton competed at Bryce Canyon, as the 2022 UHSRA bull riding state championship draws near.
Houghton is moving up to Ogden this summer to train with Madsen and compete in the Challenge of Champions Tour and the Rocky Mountain Professional Rodeo Association.
Those two event tours are the next steps for Houghton as he continues to pursue his dream of being a state champion.
Both the Professional Bull Riders Tour and the Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association require participants to be 18 years or older.
Houghton says he doesn’t have a strong preference as to which organization to join but is hopeful to land with the PBR.
Wherever he winds up, the mentality of becoming a world champion will carry him.
Sean Ellertson is a sports reporter for the St. George Spectrum & Daily News. To continue to support his work, please subscribe to The Spectrum. Follow Sean on Twitter @SeanEllertson.
This article originally appeared on St. George Spectrum & Daily News: Dixie High's Landon "Pokey" Houghton has high hopes in bull riding
