IPRA member, Spur Lacasse
– Rodeo News
story by Lily Weinacht
Jeffrey Spur Lacasse – widely known as Spur in the rodeo world – qualified for the IFR for the first time in just two rodeos. The 22 year old from Mirabel, Quebec, placed second in his event of bareback riding at the IPRA Canadian finals and won first at St. Tite, earning him his inaugural ticket to IFR 45. Winning the first round with a 79.75 ride on Hampton Rodeo Company’s Black Water was a promising start for Spur, who plans to follow in his father’s bootprints and make an IFR qualification an annual affair.
Spur’s dad, Roger Lacasse, was inducted into the Canadian Professional Rodeo Hall of Fame in 2012, and holds two bareback championship titles with the Canadian Professional Rodeo Association (CPRA), as well as the IFR Average winner at IFR 34-35 and 38. “When I was just a baby born, my dad took me on the road and I followed him around to rodeos,” says Spur. Yet despite his vast exposure to rodeo, it took Spur some time to find his stride in the sport. “I was really built pretty small, and I rode sheep when I was five, but as a teenager, I got away from rodeo and played soccer and hockey,” he explains. At 17, his interest in competing was reawakened, and he got on his first bareback horse at his dad’s rodeo school at the St. Tite Rough Stock Rodeo School, held every third weekend of May. “I liked it!” says Spur. “I like the aggressiveness of the event, and the wildness of the animals.”
That summer of 2010, Spur and four of his friends, all of whom started riding bareback horses at Roger’s rodeo school, became travelling partners and were frequently referred to as The Young Guns. Though their group has since parted ways, their paths still cross, many of them pro rodeoing in Alberta, where Spur is spending part of his summer rodeoing, while also working in his dad’s roofing business in Quebec. Spur just recently returned to Alberta, having finished his sophomore year at Hill College in Hillsboro, Texas, where he is college rodeoing on a full-ride scholarship and earning a degree in welding. Spur and several of his teammates will reconvene at the CNFR in Casper, Wyo., marking Spur’s first qualification at the college finals.
Amid competing in nearly 60 rodeos a year between the IPRA, NIRA, CPRA, and ACEC (Cowboy Association of Eastern Canada), Spur enjoys boating and tubing with his family, or skiing in the winter. His parents, Roger and Maryse, continue to make their home in Mirabel with Spur’s two younger siblings, Vicky Cheyenne (16), born the day after Roger competed in Cheyenne Frontier Days, and Jimmy Cash (15), named for Roger spurring his horse for the cash. “Vicky is a horse lover – she’s barrel racing, and Jimmy rode steers a few years ago, but he’s more of a skateboarder,” Spur explains. His dad continues to be his rodeo idol, as well as professional bareback rider Kaycee Feild. “For everything my dad has done in his career, I sure look up to him. I got to meet Kaycee in Denver at the National Western Stock Show, and he’s a pretty cool dude. He’s so solid, and he sets his goals, stays focused, and reaches them.”
Setting goals of his own, Spur plans to qualify for IFR 46
