Prince Albert product plans to pursue career as a bullfighter
Tanner Byrne will be changing career paths.
The 27-year-old from Prince Albert announced on Friday that he will be retiring from bull riding at the end of the 2019 season and will pursue a career a bullfighter.
“I just want to follow my dream,” Byrne said in a statement. “Life is too short not to go out after something full-heartedly. It is time for me to do what it takes, enjoy what I am doing and go after it. It was a lifelong goal and dream of mine that I am going to go at now and start this new chapter and see how we can get it done.
“It is kind of fun now to be an 18-year-old-kid again, just buying his PBR card, hitting the trail, trying to make it to the top. That is what I am doing as a bullfighter. It is fun to start over and see how far I can get on this side of it.”
Byrne has already gotten his feet wet in his next step in the world of rodeo as he was a bull fighter at an PBR Canada Touring Pro Division in Falher, Alta. earlier this month.
“The deal is since I was a little kid – since I can always remember – I always had a plan of riding bulls and at some point switching over and joining the family business of fighting bulls,” Byrne said to Justin Felsiko in an interview on the PBR’s website Friday. “I told a lot of guys that I used to rodeo with in Canada that I was going to ride bulls until I was 25, but I was still rolling and things had been going well.
“I had my 27th birthday the other day and it comes down to, really, it is now or never. If I wait any longer I am going to be in my later years and I won’t be able to go at this cowboy protection bullfighting career as hard as I want to, or as physically the best way I can go at it. It just came down to either do it now or I am not going to do it all.”
