Tag Archives: cowboy

Leaps and Bounds – Bull Riding at Crow Fair 2018

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Bull riding is the crown jewel of rodeo. There are other more cultivated, genteel rodeo events where skill and practice determine the outcome, but for sure-fire knock your jeans in the dirt excitement it is bull riding. What you have is a 1800 to 2000 lb. animal with skin two sizes to big for the body it covers. If you were brave you could grab the skin on the back of the bulls hide and shove it 6-8″ in either direction, and a cowboy who is determined to ride him holding on to a single rope tied around the bulls body and hang on for eight seconds. He has to stay on while the bull uses every trick it knows to unseat him while not touching the animal with his free hand and not speaking harshly or using rodeo slurs of any kind to the bull during the ride.

It all starts behind this innocent looking chute. Behind the soothing lavender colored gate is a bull. It is not happy. On his back is a cowboy tying himself to that bull by wrapping a single rope that encircles the bulls body around his hand and willing his butt to stick to the bulls back like superglue. He has to stay on this whirling dervish for eight seconds to get paid. This seldom happens as the bull has other plans.

The chute is slammed open and the enraged bull emerges with the hopeful rider on its back.

In seconds, in this case maybe 2 to 3 of them, the rider is flung from its back.

The bull not content with unseating the rider wants his pound of flesh and attempts  to do great bodily harm to the rider. He prefers to pin the rider to the ground with his horns or perhaps jump all over him with his hooves neither of which is good news for the rider. Not only does the rider go home broke but maybe to the emergency room for a cast and some traction.

That’s where the angels of the arena, the rodeo clown, earns his money. His job is to distract the bull from its murderous intentions and save the cowboy from any more distress. Here he is giving the bull the well-known rodeo command to sit. This gives the cowboy time to scramble out-of-the-way and climb the fence to safety.

Another cowboy tries his luck. The bull tries his. This is known as air time where the bull levitates before returning to earth. The longer his air time the harder he lands. Almost always this results in the cowboy not finishing his eight seconds.

As you can see due to the abnormal amount of air time this bull managed to hold it resulted in the immediate dislodging of his rider. No pay for him today either.

If the ride was a very short one it will occasionally cause the bull to feel unsatisfied, as if it didn’t get its money’s worth. He will then not return to the holding pen until he runs around the arena for a while. That’s where the mounted cowboys working the arena come into play. Their job is to make sure the bulls return to the holding pen in a timely manner usually by roping it and encouraging it with gentle phrases of admiration to get out of the arena so the next bull and rider can have their eight seconds of glory.

This is called the “Shot from Guns” style of bucking. The bull run out for a few feet then points it horns at the sky and leaps, no, bounds into the sky.

While airborne it twists and turns its body in an amazing form of acrobatics while flinging its robust butt in the air.

This almost always results in the cowboy leaving the bulls back to keep his appointment with the ground. As this happens in less than eight seconds the cowboy does not get paid.

Knowing he’s going home broke causes the cowboy some unhappiness and he will often take a few moments to pray, sad at going home unpaid but thankful to be alive.

He only takes a very few moments though for his communing with his maker as he realizes the bull has not forgotten he is still in the arena and fair game.

The bull intent on retribution for any indignities it feels it has endured tries very hard to make some one pay.

Running around the arena after dislodging it rider the bull kicks up its heels in celebration. This triggers the arena men to go to work and roping soon ensues.

Many ropes in fact as it is not simple to rope a two thousand pound bull and just lead it off like a dog on a leash. More and more ropes are used until the sheer weight of them causes the bull to decide to return to the holding pen.

In some cases when the bull is particularly stubborn and unruly the cowboys will go into what is called the helicopter effect where they constantly whirl their ropes causing a helicopter sound which can freeze the bull into submission where it can be properly roped.

This whirling of ropes and unusual noises confuses the bull stunning it momentarily into immobility.

So it can be led away after being helicoptered. 

Having successfully removing the bull the arena man returns to his station for the next  event.

Sometimes the bull and rider will interact in unusual ways. Here having come to an understanding where neither of them was injured or humiliated they do a little disco dancing where each gets to show off their moves. The crowd of fence sitting observers likes this and gives both very high marks.

Look closely at this bulls eye. He knows that he has got this riders number.

Sure enough moments later the rider begins his short but soon to be painful departure from his back.

Unfortunately some bulls just get unruly and have to be manhandled. The rodeo clown is about to perform a dangerous but necessary maneuver where he will grab the bull by its horns and using a type of ancient bull jujitsu will flip this bull over on its back where the other cowboys will each grab a leg then push it out of the arena. This maneuver is not often seen but is known to be very effective if embarrassing for the bull.

These unsung heroes of the arena, the working cowboys, or peace keepers of the incredible spectacle known as bull riding, watch carefully for the next pair of competitors to enter the stage. This is bull riding in all its excitement, drama and adventure. See it when  you can.

Cowboy’s Monday Morning – Bull’s Saturday Night

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This post has been moved to OpenChutes.com. All future postings of Powwows, Indian Relay Races, Rodeos and Rendezvous will be posted there from now on exclusively. So if you’re looking for new images and posts for all those events attended this year, plus all the old posts posted on BigShotsNow.com check out OpenChutes.com. See you there!

Last year at The Blackfeet’s annual North American Indian Days or NAID we had a chance to observe this interesting phenomenon during their rodeo. It was a short little presentation of how the cowboy’s and the bulls get along. If you had any thoughts that bull riding was like professional wrestling you might think again as both the cowboy and the bull would try and convince you otherwise.

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The title of today’s post is Cowboy’s Monday Morning – Bull’s Saturday night. The cowboy is having a Monday morning due to the fact that for whatever reason he neglected to hold on very tightly to the Bull rope, his lifeline and anchor point to remain seated firmly on the bull’s back, and to maintain the proper posture required to look good to impress any ladies watching. This lack of attention on his part meant he would soon be leaving the safety and comfort of his seat on the bulls back.

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The bull being very, very sensitive to the rider on his back has been waiting impatiently for this slight error to occur. When it does that is the beginning of the Bull’s Saturday night as things begin to become very entertaining for the bull. There will dancing and singing and prancing in the street as the bull capitalizes on the cowboys lack of attention.

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As the bull causes the separation of the cowboy from his back he just glances back slightly to make any corrections in his form and to check that the cowboy will land in the spot where he can bring his hindquarters squarely down on the cowboys chest. This is called “stomping the cowboy silly” in rodeo parlance. The bull enjoys this part very much.

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As the cowboy lands perfectly and shows the proper amount of discomfort the bull raises his hindquarters for a perfect two point landing on the cowboys chest. This is called scoring and usually gets the bull big points. The cowboy not so much. His score is rapidly going down the tubes right now.

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Here we see the bull performing his trademark happy dance, similar to when a football player scores a touchdown. He is very pleased at this point. The cowboy isn’t as thrilled with how things turned out and is actively thinking that the job down at the Post Office doesn’t sound too bad at the moment.

This is just one little story of the constant battle between man and beast and rodeos and photographers and Blackfeet bull riders and rides to the ER and extra hay for the bull and all things rodeo. This time things went in favor of the beast. Next time Man might prevail. It’s up to you to decide who you want to vote for. In this particular battle the odds are slightly in favor of the bull. But every once in a while the cowboy wins. That’s nice too. How’s your Monday morning going. If it is better than the cowboys, well hell, go get yourself another cup of coffee. You deserve it.

Voodoo Power

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This is a professional rodeo bull that makes its living by bucking off cowboys whenever they have the temerity to climb upon his back. His name is Voodoo Power and he works primarily in rodeo settings but will cheerfully buck off any rider any where, any time. His job is allow a cowboy, who is optimistically called a bull rider, to climb on his back and try to stay there for 8 seconds. If he does the cowboy wins. If he doesn’t Voodoo Power does. There’s little gray area here. There’s a great big clock on the wall with bright red numbers that quickly as the bull sees it, and agonizing slowly, as the cowboy sees it, ticks off the seconds until it reads 8.0. If the rider is still there he wins, if a fraction of a second before 8:0 he falls off, he loses. No appeal, no do over, he just gets up and limps to the fence before Voodoo Power notices him again. The cowboy wants to be well up on that fence before he does.

This may seem like a simple task, to ride a bull for 8 seconds, look at your watch and count them off, it doesn’t take very long for those seconds to go by, but you should know that many of these bulls have not been ridden to a qualifying time more than once or twice in several years. That’s a lot of rodeos and a lot of chances for the cowboy to have a successful ride. It’s also a lot of times that Voodoo gets to teach them some humility. And he does, regularly.

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Here’s Voodoo Power at work. This cowboy was oh so close to the 8:0 second mark but Voodoo Power decided it just wasn’t this cowboy’s night to win. Moments later the cowboy was airborne and when he hit the ground Voodoo was there waiting for him to step on him a little and roll him around the arena floor with his head. This is just Voodoo’s way of saying “Good try” to the cowboy. Fortunately for the bull rider the rodeo clown, who puts himself in harm’s way every single night, was there to convince Voodoo not to mangle the cowboy any more than necessary. Voodoo relented, the cowboy lived, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

That’s how this bull riding thing works, you come down to the rodeo, and we encourage you to do so, find your seat, and hang on tight as the bull riding begins. That’s it. Simple. If you’re finding your life a little boring at the moment, you can get a Cowboy outfit, pay your entry fee and have a close encounter with Voodoo Power, the professional bucking bull. He’ll be glad to meet you. See you at the Greeley Stampede.

Note: The following is a press release from the Greeley Stampede provided for anyone interested in the Rodeo. If you’re in the area there are still a few days of rodeo left. Come on down and take one in.

NEWS RELEASE 

For Immediate Release

Andy Segal

Victoria’s Secret products, Billy Preston teaming up with the Zombies for Fidelity Investments, Led Zeppelin pitching Cadillacs, Aerosmith for Buick, the O’Jays for Coors Beer, Deep Purple promoting Dodge, the Who allowing their music to be used in Cisco commercials, the flower power group the Association pitching Allstate Insurance, why we even have Helen Reddy’s classic anthem hit song. Media and Communications Manager

Greeley Stampede

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DAY SEVEN OF THE GREELEY STAMPEDE AND ALL IS COOL 

July 1, 2015 (GREELEY, CO) The afternoon rain cooled off the evening making for an all-around great night at the Greeley Stampede.

On this beautiful evening, as part of Ag Day, members of both the 4-H and FFA had the opportunity to come out and enjoy the Stampede Rodeo for free if they wore their organizations apparel. Over 5,000 visitors were in attendance at the 4th performance of the Rodeo.

Earlier in the day, when the heat was just taking hold, the Miss Rodeo Colorado Pageant got underway with the Horsemanship event. On Thursday, July 2 the MRC Pageant Speech contest will begin at 10:30 am at the Island Grove 4-H Building. The final event is the Fashion Show and Coronation at Union Colony Civic Center on Friday, July 3 in Greeley. RSVP’s are required call 970-454-0191.

The 5th and last regular performance of the rodeo is July 2 at 7:00 pm.  For Military Appreciation Day our current and retired Military men and women will be honored. Just show a military ID, military dependent ID or come in uniform to receive FREE park admission and admission to north grandstands during the July 2 rodeo.  The US Army is the rodeo sponsor for the evening.

Looking ahead to Friday morning the Kids Rodeo, sponsored by John Elway Dodge Ram, kicks off at 9:00 am. Western Underground will headline the Free Stage and you can catch Joe Nichols and Sawyer Brown on the Stampede Arena stage. If you want to meet Joe Nichols up close you can find him signing autographs at 4:15 in the Island Grove Events Center.

Enjoy the weather whatever day you come out to the Stampede but be sure to take in the last regular rodeo performance on July 2 or the rodeo finals on July 4. You can also buy your concert or demo derby tickets or get your carnival passes by calling 970-356-7787, by visiting any Northern Colorado King Soopers location, going to Ticketswest.com, calling Ticketswest at 866-464-2626 or online at Greeleystampede.org.  The Stampede Ticket Office is open 9:00 am – 10:00 pm daily during the event.

The 2015 Greeley Stampede June 25th – July 5th!

Cowboys At Work Team Roping

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Team Roping, this is a rodeo event based on real life cowboy work, as are all the events in the rodeo except maybe bull riding. That event is just something cowboys thought up for fun, something to do on a Friday night instead of going to the Punch Up, a shot and a beer and a fist fight establishment out on the county line.

Team roping was particularly important as it was the way cowboys completed the arduous task of handling calves during spring round-up so they could be collected, branded and other necessary activities performed on them. Calves being calves they had some idea of what that all entailed so they would do their best to avoid participating and run away. Especially the little bull calves. Cowboys having to get all this work accomplished had to come up with a way to capture the calf so it could be processed. That’s where team roping came in.

Cowboys on their horses would be hanging around the outside of the herd as it milled around inside the corral and when they saw a calf making a break for it, ride after it to catch it. Two cowboys usually worked together to do this. One cowboy, called a header, would rope the runaway calf or young steer around his horns, and the other cowboy called a heeler, would rope the calves hind feet. The calf unable to run would be secured by the two horses carefully backing up, until the calf was in the position it needed to be for the branding team to run up and tip the calf on its side, so the branding could take place. This was also the time that other necessary things would happen, inoculations, horn trimming if necessary, a short brief instruction session on how to be a proper productive member of the herd, normally delivered by one of the older cowboys, and the calf would be released back to the care of its mother or other proper guardian.

Today things are stilled handled pretty much the way they were 100 years ago. The cows and calves are rounded up, herded into a corral where the cowboys have built a small fire to heat up the branding irons and they go to work. It worked good back then and it still works good today. But we’ve heard that changes may be on the way.

It’s the middle of the second decade of the twenty-first century and some things have changed from the 1800’s. We have iPads now, and cell phones, freeze-dried potatoes that you can just mix with hot water and have for lunch right there at the corral, and that and other digital stuff, changed everything. The word on the range is that soon drones will be flying in with their calf-seeking radar, picking up these calves, hauling them to an area where they are marked with organic recycled ink in place of the old style brand, be subcutaneously inoculated with growth hormones that will double the calves weight every 96 hours, make them mellow and not mean, and lastly, be injected with a personalized  “chip” that will give its location, weight gain over the past 96 hours, its current mood and disposition, whether it is currently being rustled, and provide it with all the necessary information it needs to be a calf in the 21st century.

Now we don’t know if any of that is true or not, it’s just some of the stuff cowboys talk about around the campfire at supper. It makes the time go by and the beans taste better. We do know that the Amalgamated Brotherhood of International Cowboys, (ABIC) the union most cowboys belong to, are definitely against it. We’ll just have to wait and see how all this plays out. For now though it’s business as usual out on the range and the team ropers have their work cut out for them and they’re hard at it.

If you want to see how real cowboys do their work then come down to the rodeo, and the Greeley Stampede is a good one to come to, and watch Team Roping. It’s very cool.

Back To The Classics

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Saddle bronc riding. This is the event that started rodeos.  Back in the old days which is anything before 1950, before Volkswagen Jetta’s and Prius’, the only way a cowboy could get to work was to either, A: Walk, or B: Ride a horse. ‘A’ was simply not an option as cowboys don’t walk. They can’t. They wear special footwear called Cowboy boots with a tall heel that make it almost physically impossible to walk more than 50′ before they fall down on the ground grabbing their legs yelling “OMG, I can’t walk! My legs! My legs!. Somebody help me, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” That’s where option ‘B’ comes in. Ride a horse.

Back then that was problematic because horses didn’t like to be ridden. They still don’t for the most part. Ask any horse that’s been out on grass for a month or two if it would really like to ridden and they will almost always answer “No, thanks, I’m good.” You can’t blame them really, it’s hot out usually, and where you got to go to work is way out there in the toolies where Haysoose lost his Ray-Bans, the saddle blanket is itchy, the saddle is heavy, not counting the cowboy that wants to sit on it, they stick a big old metal bit in your mouth so they can yank you all over the place, they want you to run around chasing after things, you got to work everyday, all day, with never a day off, so the horse usually just said “No” when asked to cooperate.

Cowboys hate to hear “No” so right away there was a problem. Faced with having to walk, and the resulting rolling around on the ground yelling and the embarrassment and all, they decided that they were going to convince the horse to help out, to do its part willingly. And there it was, the birth of the rodeo event, Saddle bronc riding.

You can see everything there is to know about Saddle bronc riding by looking at the image above. They put a saddle on the horse, no small feat in itself when the horse doesn’t want you to, they climb on and they ask the horse politely to cooperate. The horse usually declines and the resulting melee is what you see here. Sometimes the cowboy convinces the horse, other times the horse convinces the cowboy that he should ask another horse. Eventually though a compromise is reached.

This entire learning to cooperate with each other was so entertaining to bystanders, especially those who didn’t have to convince the horse it should be ridden, that soon cowboys and the spectators were getting together on a Sunday afternoon and doing this whole process for fun. The enjoyment spread and soon cowboy and horse were doing this all over the place. Out in the corrals, inside barns so they could get out of the sun, traveling around to different cities where some folks would pay money to see the process at work. They named these events rodeos and the rest is history. It became hugely successful and drew folks from every walk of life to watch Saddle bronc riding and other western activities, drink beer from paper cups, tell each other that they could do that if they had to, and watch cowgirls in tight jeans walk around the grandstands.

Now some of these cowboys and their horses don’t even do a job of work any more. They just drive from rodeo to rodeo in great big dually trucks pulling a 3 axle horse trailer behind them winning huge amounts of cash money for staying on their respective horses for 8 seconds. It ‘s become big business with all the resulting industries, like tight western jeans makers, silver belt buckle construction, cowboy boot makers, sno-cone machine builders, beer brewers, horse whisperers, cowboy whisperers, judges who never make mistakes like football referees do, great big humongous Jumbotron TV screen builders to see instant replays and scores, the list is endless.

Yeah the bull riding is exciting and all the other events show you the skills cowboys need to get their work done but at the heart of it all is the classic event, the one that made all this hoopla possible, Saddle Bronc riding. If you get a chance go see it at a rodeo near you. It’s worth the price of a ticket.

American Bullfighting

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I’m sure most of you, if not all of you, have been to Seville or Barcelona for the bullfights. Many of you have been to Pamplona to run with the bulls, at least that’s what you tell us when we do our annual poll on “What I Did With My Summer”. But very few of you tell us I was a contestant in American Bullfighting.

The cowboy in the shot above was a contestant and right about now he wishes he were sitting in the stands of La Maestranza in Seville watching some guy in fancy red pants swirl a cape around to confuse the bull. That cape and those short sticks with steel barbs to stick in the bull to make it madder are some of the main differences between Spanish bullfighting and American bullfighting.

The first difference is our bulls are mad enough already, you don’t want them any madder if you can help it. Remember this is their payback time and they remember that these same cowboys were the ones trying to ride them just a short while ago. If they get the chance to stick it to them they’re going to make the best of it.

Secondly, we don’t use capes or have some other guy on a horse stick big old gaffing hooks into the bull to make it mad and lower its blood count so it’s easier to manage. In  American bullfighting it is the cowboy against the bull with no capes, no sticky pointy things to irritate the bull, just the cowboy with his speed, dexterity and wits against the bull with its 900 lbs. of muscle and long curved horns and owl-ly attitude.

Thirdly, and this is the best part, there’s no dead bull at the end of the fight to drag out of the arena and usually no dead cowboy either. They both get to kiss and make up and do it again when the cowboy feels better. Also our cowboys are grateful that they don’t have to wear those really tight pants and short little jackets with spangles all over them and that hat with the bulbs over their ears that are supposed to look like horns. I mean they’re really glad.

So what’s the point then, some of the more blood-thirsty among you may ask. The point is, this is a cowboy going  into this contest to try and make as much contact with the bull as possible by getting close to it, grabbing its horns, sometimes leaping over the bull as it charges him, all the time trying very hard to avoid the horns of the bull. These horns, which have had the points filed down so there is less trauma to the cowboy and to prevent the bull from having nightmares and bad feelings from having perforated the cowboy, are still deadly appendages to deal with. If you think that this lessens the bulls ability to provide pain and suffering to the cowboy think again. Imagine getting stuck by something about an inch in diameter that is being pushed very forcefully into your nether regions by a 900 lb. animal that doesn’t like you and that wants to do that sticking and pushing as many times as it can, with the cowboy of course, trying to avoid this and you get a small idea of how dangerous this whole deal is.

That’s American bullfighting. A man with his wits and courage trying to outwit a huge angry animal with its muscle and horns. The match is much more good-natured than its Spanish counter part and both contestants leave the arena with the feeling they’ve done their best. The best cowboy goes home with a beautiful silver belt buckle and hopefully some money, and the best bull gets bragging rights back in the bullpen. That’s a lot better than getting dragged out of the arena behind a horse with your ear cut off. For either contestant.