YORKTON - When the 2022 PBR Canada National Finals is held in Edmonton the next two days, it will be notable not just for who emerges as the champion, but because it would be the last rides of one of the best Canadian riders ever.
Months ago Zane Lambert announced he would retire at season’s end, and now on the eve of the finals the Ponoka, Alta. cowboy is experiencing a range of emotions.
“It’s a little bit emotional, a little of celebration, a little bit of excitement,” he said in an interview Thursday.
As for the decision to retire, Lambert said he still sees retirement as the right thing for him, although maybe a year later than it should have been.
Looking back at 2022, the results have not been what Lambert wished “with a couple of rough wrecks” putting him on the sidelines and cutting into his year end points headed to the finals.
“I wish it could have gone a little different,” he said. “. . . Would I have liked to be a little higher in the standings this year? For sure.
“But, the injuries kind of piled up here,” said Lambert, adding when you age a bit one injury can roll into another more easily. “They add up.”
The finals wouldn’t go quite the way Lambert would have wanted either. While he rode to a solid 85.5 score in the opening round Friday, he would buck off in round two opening night, and again in round three Saturday, just missing a spot in the championship round by half a point – the storied career had its unsatisfying final chapter.
With the results less than hoped for in 2022, Lambert said maybe he should have retired a year earlier, but he will be on his bulls in Edmonton trying to put a few great rides together to end his career.
Lambert will conclude his PBR career having climbed on more than 750 bulls, riding more than 375 or roughly 50 per cent, with 31 event wins (three in 2022), and more than $500,000 in career earnings. It is a notable career by every measure.
Lambert is also the lone rider in Canadian history to have qualified for and compete at every iteration of the PBR Canada National Finals. He is also the first rider to have won the year-end event multiple times, let alone in back-to-back years, when he dominated the finals in 2016 and 2017.
With the final rides now in the books, what is next for Lambert?
“I think bull riding for sure is my lifestyle,” he said, adding in the future you will see him around bull riding events it’s just unclear in what capacity that might be.
“I’m not dying. I’m just retiring, so you will see me on the sidelines here and there,” he offered.
But that will be down the road. For the first year or two “I just want to take it off and be with my boys raising them,” he said.
Lambert has a son four and one 10 months, and he already expects one day they will be involved in rodeo.
“My four-year-old has already worn out two cowboy hats,” he noted.
“I think it’s likely they will get on bulls. We’re in the heart of it in Canada. There will be ample opportunity for them. They’ll definitely grow up around the sport.”
And they can learn from one of the best in their father who is already taking on a teaching roll.
“I do a bull riding school every year. I want to help give the kids all the tools they need to go down the road,” said Lambert.
Interestingly, Lambert himself didn’t come to bull riding following his father’s footsteps.
“My dad wasn’t a bull rider. He was a farmhand,” he said,
So while they grew up around horses and cattle, bull riding was exactly part of the culture.
“There wasn’t a whole lot of rodeos around there,” said the 36-year-old, who was born and raised in Westbourne, Man., and would later attend school in Gladstone.
But four siblings would give rodeo a try.
“They all started rodeoing before I did,” he said, adding that by the age of seven “I wanted to be a bull rider.”
By 15, Lambert said he wanted to turn pro, but that had to wait until he was 18, and the rest of course is history.
So what is the highlight of a near 20-year career?
Lambert was quick to point to 2014 when he qualified for the World finals. He qualified 27th, which he said might not seem so impressive “but it was at the highest level, the best of the sport,” he said.
Along the road the other thing Lambert can be proud of is how others in the sport look to him with respect and admiration.
“You lead by example. You do that and you give kids a role model. That was all I was trying to do,” he said.
