Kyle Bowers says he ran out of rodeos to enter, and that's from a man who competed in almost 100 of them this year.

The 28-year-old from Brooks goes into the Canadian Finals Rodeo starting tomorrow with a lot of kilometres under his belt and a fair bit of money in his pockets.

Bowers, the 2003 Canadian bareback champion, went hard on both sides of the border and qualified for both the CFR, with a total prize purse of $1 million Cdn, and the National Finals Rodeo, with prize money of over $5 million US, next month in Las Vegas.

SECOND IN THE WORLD

Bowers entered the maximum 100 rodeos and says he made it to 95. His season earnings of $106,670 puts him second in the world behind Will Lowe of Canyon, Texas.

But any money he wins at the CFR won't count towards his world ranking. Bowers thinks he'll have a hard time hanging on to second as Andy Martinez of Pavilion, Wyoming, is hot on his heels and will likely pass him by the time the NFR starts on Dec. 2.

Still, he says heading into the NFR in third spot isn't a bad position to be in. Unlike the CFR, where all contestants start from zero, competitors take their season earnings with them into Las Vegas.

There aren't many on the pro circuit who attempt to compete in 100 rodeos.

"Lots of people make comments on it," Bowers said. "But I'd rather be out there than at home watching television.

"Your body actually gets used to it. If you haven't been on in two or three weeks, when you get on, you feel sore."

Bowers finished second in the Canadian standings this year to Davey Shields Jr., who spiked his season earnings with the $50,000 winner's cheque at the Calgary Stampede.

But Shields, a three-time Canadian champ, won't be competing in Edmonton as he underwent surgery to repair torn biceps in his right arm.

The face of Canadian rodeo is expected to change dramatically in 2006.

The Canadian Professional Rodeo Association and the U.S.-based Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association recently parted company over sanctioning issues.

The upshot of that is that money won at any Canadian rodeos will no longer count in the world standings.

That will force Bowers into more rodeos in the U.S.

"It's going to be a change. There's been a lot of conversation about it behind the chutes," he said. "But nothing is final yet."

A NEW FORMAT

A more welcome change is that the Calgary Stampede is overhauling its format by cutting the number of entries, but upping prize money by half a million dollars to $1.6 million Cdn.

Each event winner will get $100,000.