DAVIE, Fla. – The first time Trey Moore III tried bareback riding, he absolutely hated it. Actually, the first several times he hated it.

“My stepdad, James Bearden, and a friend, a guy I look up to in rodeo, Lance Ethridge, talked me into getting on a bareback horse,” said Moore, whose real name is Robert Glenn Moore III. “I hated it the first 10 or 12 I got on. I was just taking a beating.”

Moore was competing in high school rodeo in every event but tie-down roping and bareback riding. He gladly went back to riding bulls instead of bucking horses. But his mentors persisted.

“They talked me into trying it again and I just fell in love with it,” he said.

Beginning his bareback riding career during his senior year in high school rodeo turned out to be a wise decision. Moore won the RAM Southeastern Circuit Finals Rodeo in Davie, Fla., Nov. 7-9.

After a completely dominant performance, Moore won or tied for the win in all three go-rounds to win the average by 20 points and earn $10,662. The huge weekend also allowed the 26-year-old cowboy to jump from third to first in the year-end standings, earning his first career Southeastern Circuit championship.

“I wasn’t even thinking about the year end, everything had to come together and work out just right for that to happen,” he said. “The good Lord just blessed me.”

With his mother and 18-month-old daughter, Denver Grace, in the stands to root him on (wife, Chelsea, an entrepreneur with her own clothing boutique, was working), Moore began the weekend with an 86.5-point ride on Five Star Rodeo’s Spots and Dots to win the round outright.

“That’s the horse everyone wants to draw at a Five Star rodeo,” he said. “I had him drawn in Ocala, but he was injured, and I didn’t get on him. He is real showy.”

His second-round horse was 4L & Diamond S Rodeo’s Big Stick.

“That win was a cool deal for me,” he said of the tie with Tanner Phipps for the round win at 82 points. “I grew up just seven miles down the road from Mr. Charlie Lowry (owner of 4L & Diamond S) in Summerville, Ga. It was pretty special to win on his horse.”

Moore completed the sweep with a third-round victory thanks to an 85-point ride aboard Hi Lo Pro Rodeo’s Square Bale, who nearly made the cut for the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo in 2019.

“You couldn’t ask for a better one to draw in the pen of buckers,” said Moore, who lives in Anniston, Ala.

Moore, who traveled with Wrangler NFR-qualifier Jake Brown and Zach Hibler in 2019, now gets to compete at the RAM National Circuit Finals Rodeo in Kissimmee, Fla., next spring. He’ll have the whole family with him for that one.

“I’m stoked,” he said. “I’m just on cloud nine about all of it.”

Other winners at the $225,140 rodeo were steer wrestler Mose Fleming (12.3 seconds on three head); team ropers Kaston Peavy/Jason Hill (23.4 seconds on three head); saddle bronc rider Bradley Harter (247 points on three head); tie-down roper Andrew Burks (27.2 seconds on three head); barrel racer Julie Thomas (45.06 seconds on three runs); and bull rider Gray Essary III (83.5 points on one head). Tim Pharr was the all-around cowboy ($4,722 in tie-down roping and team roping).