And They Call The Thing A Rodeo

Rodeo is a sport that is unique. Several of the events - the bronc riding and roping events - come from skills needed by working cowboys.

Before the advent of natural horsemanship, saddle bronc riding was how cowboys broke wild horses. They'd get on a wild horse and ride it until it stopped bucking. In modern rodeo, the cowboy only needs to stay on the horse for eight seconds. Points are earned by "marking out" - touching both heels above the horse's shoulders. There are rules cowboys need to follow, in both bareback and saddle bronc riding: the horse needs to be held on to with only one hand. Illegal contact results in no score. Half the points come from the animal. It's not just a matter of staying for eight seconds; the style shown by both cowboy and horse is where the points come from. As the song Amarillo By Morning (recorded by both Chris LeDoux and George Strait) puts it, "I'll be lookin' for eight when they pull that gate, and I hope that judge ain't blind."

The roping events are the skills a working cowboy uses to round up cattle when they need to be vaccinated or when they're ill and need to be doctored or when a mama cow and her calf are lost and need to be brought back to the ranch. Those skills are also needed when calves need to be branded or need to be changed from bulls to steers. Team roping involves a header and a heeler taking off after a steer. The header ropes the horns (or the entire head), then turns it so the heeler can rope both hind legs. Mess up either catch and it's no score. Tie down roping involves roping a calf, tying any three legs together - and being sure it holds still for six seconds. If the calf breaks away before then, it's no score.

Barrel racing was originally used to give girls and women something to do at a rodeo besides cheer the cowboys on. It started with using either a figure-eight pattern or a cloverleaf pattern around the barrels. Eventually the figure-eight pattern was dropped in favor of the more difficult cloverleaf pattern. This event is a timed event, with the winner often determined by tenths of a second. Knocking down a barrel adds a five-second penalty to the time.

Steer wrestling (also known as bulldogging) wasn't part of a working cowboy's life. The first man to wrestle a steer was Bill Picket, a black cowboy from Texas. He was a Wild West Show performer who wrestled a runaway steer. In modern rodeo, the cowboy leaps from his horse and wrestles the steer to the ground. A dangerous event, but not as dangerous as bronc riding or bull riding.

Bull riding is one rodeo event that, like steer wrestling, wasn't part of a working cowboy's life. There are any number of theories as to how it started. Maybe one cowboy bet another cowboy that he couldn't ride a bull. Or maybe one cowboy dared a friend to try riding a bull. Or maybe some drunken cowboys decided to see what would happen if they tried riding bulls. Bullfighters are the men who distract the bull after a cowboy either makes his eight-second ride and gets off the bull on his own or is bucked off by the bull. They have been called angels for cowboys.

There are some things that set rodeo apart from other sports. One is the way competitors are willing to help each other. The airline lost your luggage with your gear in it? No problem, you can borrow mine. Your gear broke? No problem, you can borrow mine. They'll tell their competitors what to expect from a certain horse or bull. Rodeo often seems like a big extended family.

Another difference is that there are no million sports team owners. The rodeo committees are staffed either entirely or mostly by volunteers. Men and women who love the sport enough to put in time with no pay.

A third difference is that the cowboys and cowgirls pay to compete in rodeo. They only get paid if they finish high enough in the ranks. The money pro rodeo cowboys make can look impressive, but keep in mind that they have expensive horses to keep in top condition and they need to pay for travel expenses to go from rodeo to rodeo. Granted, the best will have sponsors, but that doesn't offset the cost they had to pay on the way to becoming top competitors.

I tip my cowgirl hat to all the men and women who compete in rodeo.