NFR bareback rider Cole Franks out of action after hip surgery

Bareback rider Cole Franks, a four-time Wrangler National Finals Rodeo qualifier, will be out of competition for about four months after undergoing successful hip surgery Jan. 28.

“My labrum was pretty well torn off the socket, and the doctor said there’s some early arthritis forming,” said Franks, 24, of Clarendon, Texas. “He took a big chunk of bone spur off that joint.”

Dr. J.W. Thomas Byrd, a noted Nashville-based hip specialist who also operated on two-time world champion Shad Mayfield a month before, performed the surgery. Because Franks’ 2-cm bone spur had cut some blood flow to the socket joint, Byrd had to do a micro-fracture in order to get that reactivated.

“He did a lot of shaving and shaping,” Franks said. “He definitely had to do a lot more than was expected. This was a little more invasive, so that means getting back to riding is going to take a little longer than we were hoping for, but it’ll be worth it in the long run.”

The initial plan was to be sidelined for a couple months, but the procedure will extend that. Franks, who finished 2025 sixth in the PRCA | Bill Fick Ford World Standings, is hoping to return to action by the end of May.

“That would put me back in time for Nashville,” he said of the Music City Rodeo, set for May 28-30. “It would be ironic, since I just had surgery there. Nashville took me out of rodeo, in a way, and then I’ll just go back into it in Nashville.”

Franks, the 2021 Resistol Rookie of the Year, placed in five rounds and finished fourth in the average at the NFR a month and a half ago. He competed at the National Western Stock Show and Rodeo in Denver earlier this month and pocketed $3,039 for sharing the Semifinal Two win with Nebraskan Gauge McBride.

His hiatus will coincide with the birth of his first child, a boy due Feb. 28. While he will likely continue to list Clarendon as his home, he and his wife, Dustie, just moved into a home in Tremonton, Utah, about 75 miles north of Salt Lake City.

“Knowing the baby was going to come, that’s what ultimately led to deciding to have this surgery,” Franks said. “This will give me time at home with the baby, which is a lot better than rodeoing all over the place and not being at home with him.”

-PRCA