YORKTON - When it comes to professional bull riding Daylon Swearingen is among the elite as his World Finals event title and his career-first PBR World Championship in 2022 attest.
Swearingen was just the seventh rider to capture both honours in the same season, joining Jose Vitor Leme (2021), Jess Lockwood (2019), Silvano Alves (2014), J.B. Mauney (2013), Renato Nunes (2010) and Mike Lee (2004). Rafael Jose de Brito would become the eighth in 2023.
Throughout the 2022 individual campaign, Swearingen went an impressive 26-for-60, covering 43.33 per cent of his animal athlete opponents. He earned $1,697,481.63.
But success is not always followed by success as Swearingen has learned through an injury plagued 2023.
“It’s really humbling,” he told Yorkton This Week on the eve of riding at a PBR Canada event in Saskatoon.
Swearingen likened the climb to a championship to the effort of a mountain climber.
“I was right at the tippy top and the next day I was tumbling down,” he said.
The problem was an injury.
After a career year, Swearingen’s hopes of repeating as World Champion came to an abrupt end, sidelined following the early January Unleash The Beast event in New York City due to a groin injury that required surgery.
“I rode longer hurt than I should have because I wanted it so bad (a second championship), said Swearingen.
But, now in what Swearingen sees as the middle of his career he said he is finding the body hurts a bit more than when he was younger, and that he must listen to his body more, sitting on the sidelines at times he’d rather be riding.
As for the groin, well Swearingen said “injuries are always part of it,” with bull riding.
So you push pause for a time, let the body heal, and get back to work.
That work getting back into the rhythm of bull riding is why Swearingen is in Saskatoon on a snowy and cold October weekend.
“The best way to get back into bull riding shape is to ride bulls,” he said.
That is why he headed to Saskatoon, although Swearingen admittedly enjoys riding north of the border as one of his first big career wins came on Canadian soil.
In 2019, entering the PBR Canada National Finals fourth in the nation standings, 687.57 points removed from the title, Swearingen completed a captivating come-from-behind surge in an event that was decided by the final out. He went a perfect 4-for-4 to win the National Finals, and also the 2019 PBR Canada Championship.
“I love coming up here to Canada. The fans really get into bull riding up here,” Swearingen said. "I don’t know what it is, but I love coming up here.”
Swearingen said there is “a different vibe” in Canada and as a rider he “really feeds off that.”
Of course the trade off is facing a pen of largely unfamiliar bovine opponents.
“I’m not really familiar with the bulls up here,” said Swearingen, who added that isn’t maybe as big a disadvantage as it might seem.
“Bulls are going to do what he’s going to do anyways,” he explained, so even if you study film for tendencies they might well do something different.
“It really doesn’t matter what kind of plan you have for a bull.”
In the end though Swearingen is just happy to be back in the game.
“It’s just what I love to do,” he said, adding when ever he settles onto a bull in the chute for a ride “I do it with a full passion.”
