On Sunday, July 10, Jake Vold had a spectacular ride on Whiskey Bent, earning himself 86.5 points but behind the scenes, the cowboy had a tough decision to make.

Earlier that week, at the Ponoka Stampede, Vold had injured himself on a ride and thought 4 days of rest would suffice.

"He's tore the cartilage off his ribs. He got through 3 horses and won the round on the last one. They think he may have started to do some damage to some abdomen muscles. He's just decided to take a little bit of a leave of absence," said Mike Labelle, professional rodeo announcer.

Although it was a hard decision for Vold to make, if any cowboy or cowgirl is going to take a break, now would be the time to do so.

"Jake's sitting pretty good in the Canadian standings and he's still in top 15 in the world standings. We just finished what we call the Cowboy Christmas, so the big runner rodeos - there's 30+ rodeos. They hand out more than 3 million dollars and that just finished up. Now, the rodeo's slowed down a bit so if you're going to take a break, now's the time to do it and get ready for the beginning of August."

Labelle has full confidence that, despite the leave of absence, Vold has the capabilities of making it to the Canadian and National finals.

"He's not overly happy. He's a guy that loves what he does and he does it well. Given the opportunity, he's going to get back on as fast as he can and he's going to make the best of anything," said Labelle.

Vold's leave of absence will not affect his current Canadian standings.