The 2026 Scone Invitational kicks off a new season of PBR Australia’s Monster Energy Tour this weekend, with the ‘Horse Capital of Australia’ set to host a thrilling night of action on Saturday, 7 February 2026, inside the arena at White Park.

Starting at 5:00 p.m. AEDT, the young guns of the Can-Am Junior Academy will set the stage for an exciting night of bull riding, showcasing the Pee Wee, Junior Mini Bull, Senior Mini Bull, and Rising Stars divisions.

Monster Energy Tour action will get underway at 7:00 p.m. AEDT, with the country's top bull riders and rankest bucking bulls set to go head-to-head with crucial early-season championship points and prize money on the line.

The main performance will also feature the inaugural round of an all-new Challenger Series. The series will provide riders with a crucial stepping stone between the Can-Am Junior Academy and the elite Monster Energy Tour Series.

Event information and tickets are available from the PBR Australia website.

Talking Points

The new season of PBR Australia competition kicked off with back-to-back Touring Pro Division events during December.

The first of those was the second iteration of the Tasman Cup, held in the town of Feilding on the North Island
of New Zealand.

Team Australia took the overall win, recording 15 rides to Team New Zealand’s 12 rides over five rounds of competition.

Team New Zealand was led by 2015 PBR Australia National Champion Fraser Babbington, who wound the clock back to win the individual aggregate title. The Gisborne cowboy went 3-for-5 across the two-night event, accruing 251 points.

Babbington held off a trio of Australian riders on the final night of competition, with Macaulie Leather, Zane Hall and Kurt Shephard all finishing the event with three scores on the board to finish a handful of points behind the Kiwi Captain.

The tour then made its way back to Australian soil for a New Year’s Eve event on the banks of the Pumicestone Passage, with Sandstone Point hosting a field of twenty-one riders and two rounds of competition.

Four riders finished the night a perfect 2-for-2, with Donnie Rutherfurd taking home the buckle and the bulk of the prize money. The Mount Isa bull rider narrowly defeated Kelsey Pavlou, Macaulie Leather and Rylee Ward to win his first event in Australia in over two years.

Heading into this weekend’s Scone Invitational, Fraser Babbington leads the National Standings with 292 championship points. Macaulie Leather is second on the leaderboard, trailing by just 25 points. Donnie Rutherfurd sits third, a further 6.5 points adrift, with Kelsey Pavlou, Zane Hall and Kurt Shephard rounding out the top six.

Check out the full Event Schedule for the 2026 PBR Australia season.

Recent Scone Invitational History

In 2023, Jake Curr kicked off his rookie campaign with the Scone Invitational win. The Mount Isa cowboy’s single long round score of 83.50 points proved to be enough after the bulls pitched a shutout in the final round.

On the second night of the 2023 competition, Lane Mellers achieved a remarkable comeback victory. After bucking off his Round 1 opponent, the Mundubbera bull rider won Round 2 and the Championship Round to secure the third event win of his career.

And last season, it was Calliope’s Ben Bode who emerged victorious with his 84.50-point ride in the long round, enough to claim the buckle on what was a tough night for the cowboys. Splitting second and third placings were Tyson Smith and Jack Brodrick on 83.00 points.

View the latest results from PBR Australia competition here.

Event Format, Prize Money and Championship Points

Thirty-eight cowboys will battle it out over two rounds of competition for $20,000 in prize money at the 2026 Monster Energy Scone Invitational. 

All riders will face a bull in Round 1, with the top 8 in the aggregate standings returning for the Championship Round draft, where the event winner will be crowned.

A maximum of 280 points will be available to any individual rider towards the 2026 PBR Australian National Standings. Each round winner will receive 40 points, and the event champion will receive 200 points.

Download the Watch PBR Australia LIVE app to watch the 2026 Monster Energy Tour from your VR headset, mobile, tablet device, or cast to your TV monitor. Visit watchvr.pbraustralia.com.au to secure your season pass.

Matchups to Watch

I found it extremely hard to find rider-friendly matchups to write about this week.

Scone hasn’t been a happy hunting ground for the riders since it became a regular tour stop in 2022. They have covered between 10.87% and 18.46% of their bulls in four visits at White Park, and I think we can expect the riding percentage to land in a similar range this weekend.

There are a lot of young cowboys with limited experience at this level of competition in the field, plenty of bulls named to make their PBR debut, plus a handful of familiar faces rejoining the Monster Energy Tour after a season or two away from the circuit.

For those reasons, I think we should leave the first lot of predictions until the Beaudesert Invitational later this month.

For the latest results, news and stats, stay tuned to PBRAustralia.com.au, follow the tour on Facebook (PBR Australia), Instagram (@PBRAustralia) and TikTok (@PBRAustralia), and subscribe to @ProBullRidersAust on YouTube for event replays and highlights.