Friends honour legacy of rodeo star with launch of new foundation

One year after bull riding star Ty Pozzobon took his own life, his best friend wants the the lessons learned in the tragedy shared throughout the rodeo world.

Tanner Byrne is spearheading the newly formed Ty Pozzobon Foundation, which aims "to protect and support the health and well-being of rodeo competitors inside and outside the arena."

"Really, our goal is to not let what happened to Ty and Ty's family happen to any more of our friends," said Byrne, a professional bull rider from Prince Albert, Saskatchewan.

The death of the popular 25-year-old from Merritt, B.C., rocked the rodeo world last January.

It also exposed, in the saddest way possible, the link between repeated concussions suffered by cowboys, brain injury and depression.

A post mortem examination of Pozzobon's brain revealed he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE, a disease linked to repetitive brain injury which has also been found in football and hockey players. 

Byrne says the first goal of the foundation is to provide better on-site competition medical care for rodeo athletes. They're also designing concussion awareness tools aimed especially at young riders.  

"You know, you're not going to teach an old dog new tricks, he said. "But if you can start with the youth and get their mindset on proper care and well-being, I think we will make the sport better in the future."

Byrne admits he went through a long period of soul searching after Pozzobon's death, contemplating the long term risks of his own career.

"All last year I asked myself why am I doing this? It's crazy, I just buried my best friend."

But, ultimately, the group behind the foundation, including the Pozzobon family, decided the best path forward was promoting Ty's legacy as a force for good.

​"Ty loved the sport. He loved the people in it and instead of stepping away and being mad at it, we decided let's do something to make it better," said Byrne.

To that end, the foundation has come up with the slogan "Live Like Ty."

"Ty was very kind, very humble and he was always picking people up with his positive energy," said Byrne. "He made bad times better and the world a better place just by being in it." 

"That's what "Live Like Ty" means to me."